Religion and ideology have fuelled war since the beginning of humankind. Deeply-held beliefs can lead to factional wars, and it’s been said that more people have been killed in the name of some god than for any other reason. The Crusades, the Inquisition, Northern Ireland, the Middle East, and many more... SNAFU: Holy War offers high-action horror based around conflicts of religion, either overt or covert, featuring previous SNAFU favourites along with some of the best brand new writers working in the field today. Do you hear the call?
Geoff Brown aka G.N. Braun is an Australian writer and twice Australian Shadows Award finalist-editor raised in Melbourne’s gritty Western Suburbs. He is a trained nurse, and holds a Cert. IV in Professional Writing and Editing, as well as a Dip. Arts (Professional Writing and Editing). At graduation, Brown was awarded ‘Vocational Student of the Year’ and ‘2012 Student of the Year’ by his college. He writes fiction across various genres, and is the author of many published short stories. He has had numerous articles published in newspapers, both regional and metropolitan. He is the past president of the Australian Horror Writers Association (2011-2013), as well as the past director of the Australian Shadows Awards. He was an editor and columnist for UK site This is Horror, and the guest editor for Midnight Echo #9. His memoir, Hammered, was released in early 2012 by Legumeman Books and has been extensively reviewed. It has been expanded on for rerelease in 2019. He is the co-founder/director of Cohesion Press and Asylum Ghost Tours.
I'm a huge fan of short stories in general (horror, science fiction, supernatural, etc.) and the SNAFU series has always been a thrilling delight. This addition is no exception. Every story is fantastic and vivid. It's especially exciting to see Mr. Crowley appear again as I'm a huge fan of James Moore's stories and the shared literary universe his characters appear in.
Another fantastic collection of military-themed horror stories. I was a little cautious about this one, wasn't sure if the stories would all follow a similar pattern (when I hear the word "holy" all I can think of is "zealot") but again I was surprised at the array of stories.
This series has been a favorite of mine for a long time, I've been reading them in order (of printing) and I don't know what I will do once this series ends.
The anthology was comprised of quite a few well written stories but, though I read them all, many were not in genres I enjoy - hence the rating of only three stars. There were too many fantasy stories - not enough plain action/adventure or sci-fi.