So when faced with choosing books to be reviewed under the category of "Military SF" there are a multitude of choices from a slew of different authors. Considering my personal preference for short story collections, one obvious choice seemed to be the collection of The Best Military Science Fiction of the 20th Century. I mean, it's the best, right? It says so, right in the title! As it turns out, though, it might have been better named "Assorted Stories from Some of the Top Names in SF of the 20th Century".

This isn't a bad collection, by any means. It's just not what I would have expected. It has 13 stories, not many for a book that is ~550 pages long. Out of an entire century of potential choices, only 13? Odd. And of these 13, four are from the 1950's, one from the 1960's, four from the 1970's and four from the 1980's. Nothing from before the 50's, and nothing from the 90's. Also odd.

The choices are all from big names in Sci-Fi, though. The full list of included authors is:

♦ Poul Anderson, winner of 7 Hugo awards and 3 Nebula awards (among many, many others)

♦ Philip K. Dick, whose stories seem to make great starting points for Hollywood movies (Blade Runner, for instance)

♦ Joe W. Haldeman, winner of the Hugo and Nebula for both The Forever War and Forever Peace (among many other wins)

♦ Arthur C. Clarke, who doesn't need any sort of introduction

♦ Orson Scott Card, only the favorite author of one particular demented Geek Speak reviewer

♦ David A. Drake, possibly best known for his military S.F. series of Hammer's Slammers

♦ Harry Turtledove, who was the editor of this collection and thus could raise an eyebrow over his own inclusion in the collection, but is, in fact, quite the prolific and recognized writer

♦ Cordwainer Smith, the pseudonym of Paul M.A. Linebarger, known for the Instrumentality of Mankind series

♦ George R.R. Martin, known to most fans nowadays for his epic, amazing, and incredibly annoyingly delayed Song of Ice and Fire series.

♦ Gregory Benford, a professor at UC-Irvine and quite the accomplished author about whom I must admit an ignorance and unfamiliarity of his work.

♦ Walter Jon Williams, whom this reviewer knows from his Dread Empire's Fall series, but apparently played Role Playing Games with Melinda Snodgrass (with whom our own Rachel Hyland has taken issue) and the aforementioned George R.R. Martin

♦ C.J. Cherryh, Hugo award winner and author of the Morgaine series (and who added the "h" to her last name so that she didn't appear to be a Romance writer).

♦ Anne McCaffrey, one word: Pern

So that's the list. And quite the list it is. Many of these stories are some of the respective authors' better known works. For instance, Philip K. Dick's inclusion is the story "Second Variety", which was the basis for the movie Screamers. Also included is the original Ender's Game novella from Orson Scott Card. We have Hero, from Joe Haldeman, which lead directly to The Forever War, and the second-ever Pern Novella, Dragonrider, from Anne McCaffrey.

Some of these stories, though, are not quite what I would consider "Military Science Fiction". Perhaps that's just me, and the argument could be made that the category really is quite broad and thus encompasses all of the included stories. Some examples: Harry Turtledove's "The Last Article" would be more alternate history than Military SF, in my opinion, as it deals with a sort of battle of wills between a German WWII officer and Gandhi, after the Germans take over India after the ousting of the British (alternate history, remember). "To the Storming Gulf" by Gregory Benford is about the aftermath of a nuclear/biological attack from the viewpoint of several surviving civilians. Even "The Night of the Vampyres" from George R.R. Martin seems to be more about political unrest (severe political unrest) than military action, though it does have some futuristic dogfighting inherent within.

Overall, the stories are all pretty decent. As per usual with short story/novella collections, some are better than others, depending on personal preferences of the reader, but on a whole, they are all satisfying.

So is this collection worth reading? If you are expecting the "best military science fiction of the 20th century", I think you'll be disappointed. But as a good collection of top-name authors, perhaps to be used as an introduction to their respective works, this book is definitely worth checking out. So go read it, and then let the argument over what exactly entails "Military Science Fiction" commence.

  -- K. Burtt