Liked some of the concepts, Good writeing, Would have liked to see more, highly recomend this book.

One of David Drake's earliest stories (and one of his best known), is "Ranks of Bronze", which leads off this volume of tales. "Ranks" dealt with a short, ugly campaign by a group of bought-and-paid-for Roman Legionnaires, the survivors of Crassus' utterly disastrous Parthian campaign. To the aliens, the primitive humans are useful puppets who can be used to conquer other primitive worlds. But THESE puppets have swords, which can cut strings... and their masters' throats.

The stories in this volume range from non-stories like S. M. Stirling's "Three Walls", which is a fairly dull run-of-the-action description of a battle, turned into a story only by a throwaway moment at the end which warns of what is to come in the final story.

There's also "A Clear Signal", which doesn't really feel as if it fully belongs in this book, since the political circumstances described don't match anything else, nor do the Romans even get mention. It's not a bad story, but it really belongs elsewhere.

Drake himself contributes "Lambs to the Slaughter", which I'd call the sprightliest tale in the book, being how one underofficer, known to all and sundry as "Froggie", manages to outwit both his masters and his enemies. I laughed like hell at the ending of this one, and Drake doesn't usually do that for me.

David Weber contributes "Sir George and the Dragon," which serves both as solid entertainment and as a reminder that humans are dangerous, whether they be Romans or English, and a tribute to what has probably been the finest weapon of battle ever created, the English Longbow.

Finally, Eric Flint's "Carthago Delenda Est" is the treasure of this volume, and it was worth getting this volume for this story alone, even without Weber and Drake's work. I don't want to spoil it, but read the other stories first, then read "Carthago." The beauty of this one is that you have to read the story to understand both why and how it ends, and in my case, it took me a few seconds to puzzle it out, but the reward for doing so was to know true joy.

Well worth the time invested.

Pretty much the same as its predecessor, "Igniting the Reaches". Drake fans will like it, but probably not many others

This is the second of Drake's Piet Ricimer series based loosely on the history of Sir Frances Drake's struggle against the Spainish Navy [i.e. Ignite the Stars, Thru the Breach, and Fireships]! Placed in the future and based on Venus this is a real swashbuckling type adventure written in Drake's spare and 'less is more' style. Lot's of space travel in a sort of practical 17th century manner & eye to the realities of physics. POV is that of a down on his luck "gentleman" of the times going out to meet fate. Good young adult book. I truly enjoyed the series and have read them more than several times.

Wonderful retelling of the Norse/Tuetonic/Icelandic Myths. The entire series reads well, Drakes wording has interesting twists and clever phrases. Plenty of action and intrigue.

Drake has created and continues his Northworld universe. These are very interesting novels of action/combat and Sci-Fi chivalry.

Read Northworld first.

Thieves World was one of the most popular fantasy series in the 80's. I remember going to Boscone and Worldcon and seeing many of the characters, er, attendies, roll playing parts from the books. I also remember a couple of the girls getting arrested for indecent exposure for following the dress (un dress?) styles mentioned in the books a little too closely. Ah memories.

If you can find the series, you'll enjoy it. From the immortal who winds up as a live disection subject (hey, he keeps healing...) to the gods playing dice with the lives of the characters. Many of the best SF and fantasy authors bent their pens on this series. As for me, I'm going to find the photos from those con's....

I would usually read a book like this in one or two sittings, but had to break this one up in daily readings over a week due to the relentlessly "Grimmer Than Hell" tone of the stories. Not that I didn't enjoy the book but just found I enjoyed it better in smaller doses. I mainly know David Drake's work through "The General" series, so it was interesting to see the darker side of his writings. Be sure to read the author's introduction for background on why the stories are so much more cynical than his more recent work.

Although this is a collection of previously printed stories, the only one I had read previously was the Draka story. I especially enjoyed the first set of stories (The Fleet series) and the last set (Lacey series).

On the back cover:
"Eyes to the future, heads to the storm, the heirs of Rudyad Kipling have written some of the most profound and thrilling science fiction in the English language. Some of the very best are gathered here to pay tribute to the man who inspired them all."
It includes some very moving essays and short stories by such greats as; Gordon R. Dickson, Poul Anderson, C. J. Cherryh, David Drake, Jerry Pournelle, John Brunner, George R. R. Martin, Anne McCaffrey, Roger Zelazny, and Sandra Miesel.

reading this book is an enjoyable way to spend a couple of evenings. It is full of rugged characters and fops,which is the typical way David Drake writes his books.But it is fun watching the main characters get the best of the idiots.A good read but the Sharp End and the Northworld trilogy were better

Once again, Drake and Fawcett have compiled a masterful list of authors. As with the other titles in this series, this book's strength lies in the diversity of its authors. Each other writes a separate tale of futuristic military combat set in the main theme of human vs. khalian war. The list of names in this series is impressive, ranging for Larry Niven to Anne McCaffrey. All this makes for a truly interesting, and entertaining read. I would highly recommend any of The Fleet novels for any fan of science fiction. This book in particular maintains the style of the previous novels where Drake and Fawcett weave together the various stories (involving various levels of combat and violence) into a unified, directional plot. A great continuance of the series, with plenty of good surprises packed into the 10 or so short stories.

This is a pretty good book. It moves along like the best stuff David Drake has written, but also has a believable story line, an attempt at credible female characters and a serious attempt at alien Aliens.

It describes First Contact with first one Alien species and then another, and the war between these two. Assumes the human species has gotten to the moon but is still dominated by the face-off between US and USSR.

NB: 0-441-79817-9 is the Ace paperback

This was the best of the crisis of empire series, a standalone novel set in the same universe as the rest of the series. Although there are some tieins to the rest of the series this can be enjoyed on its own and conclusion does not affect the rest of the series. The main character, Al Spencer is a navel intellignce officer who has just had his life ruined by the whims of the empire. He is picked up out of the gutter by the Kona Tatsu (secret police), cleaned up, given a small task force and sent to a world where KT agents keep disappearing. The novel deals with the problems of understanding and dealing with an Artificial Life form (AI) while at the same time trying to deal with his own problems. One of the books stregenths is the personality built into the AI. Although enormously powerful it has its own weakness and gaps in understanding. The book takes a little while to develop its characters and situation but by a third of the way through it is hard to put down. Highly reccomended