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Firefight Y2K
A future military scenario introduces a host of fascinating weapons, including selfrepairing armor, killer hornets bred to kill only enemy soldiers, tunneling combat vehicles, and much more. Original.
- GenresScience FictionFiction
320 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published January 1, 1987
About the author
Dean Ing
79 books36 followersDean Charles Ing was an American author, who usually wrote in the science fiction and techno-thriller genres.
He earned a bachelor’s degree from Fresno State University (1956), a master’s degree from San Jose State University (1970), and a Ph.D. from the University of Oregon (1974). It was his work in communication theory at the University of Oregon that prompted him to turn to writing in the 1970s.
Dean Ing was a veteran of the United States Air Force, an aerospace engineer, and a university professor who holds a doctorate in communications theory. He became professional writer in 1977. Ing and his wife lived in Oregon.
Much of Ing's fiction includes detailed, practical descriptions of techniques and methods which would be useful in an individual or group survival situation, including instructions for the manufacture of tools and other implements, the recovery of stuck vehicles and avoidance of disease and injury.
In addition to his fiction writing, Ing wrote nonfiction articles for the survivalist newsletter P.S. Letter, edited by Mel Tappan. Following in the footsteps of sci-fi novelist Pat Frank, Ing included a lengthy nonfiction appendix to his nuclear war survival novel Pulling Through.
In Ing’s fiction, his characters are involved with scientific or engineering solutions and entrepreneurial innovation, elements drawn from his own experience. A lifelong tinkerer, designer, and builder, he was an Air Force crew chief and a senior engineer for United Technologies and Lockheed. His characters know how things work, and they use ingenuity and engineering to solve situational challenges. Ing's work reflects the Oregon traditions of self-reliant independence and suspicion of authority.
“Since I deplore the voracious appetite of the public for entertainment-for-entertainment’s sake,” he told an interviewer in 1982, “most of my work has a clear didactic element. . . . I believe that Jefferson’s ideal of the independent yeoman farmer should be familiar to every generation because I mistrust a technological society in which most members are thoroughly incompetent to maintain the hardware or the software.”
He earned a bachelor’s degree from Fresno State University (1956), a master’s degree from San Jose State University (1970), and a Ph.D. from the University of Oregon (1974). It was his work in communication theory at the University of Oregon that prompted him to turn to writing in the 1970s.
Dean Ing was a veteran of the United States Air Force, an aerospace engineer, and a university professor who holds a doctorate in communications theory. He became professional writer in 1977. Ing and his wife lived in Oregon.
Much of Ing's fiction includes detailed, practical descriptions of techniques and methods which would be useful in an individual or group survival situation, including instructions for the manufacture of tools and other implements, the recovery of stuck vehicles and avoidance of disease and injury.
In addition to his fiction writing, Ing wrote nonfiction articles for the survivalist newsletter P.S. Letter, edited by Mel Tappan. Following in the footsteps of sci-fi novelist Pat Frank, Ing included a lengthy nonfiction appendix to his nuclear war survival novel Pulling Through.
In Ing’s fiction, his characters are involved with scientific or engineering solutions and entrepreneurial innovation, elements drawn from his own experience. A lifelong tinkerer, designer, and builder, he was an Air Force crew chief and a senior engineer for United Technologies and Lockheed. His characters know how things work, and they use ingenuity and engineering to solve situational challenges. Ing's work reflects the Oregon traditions of self-reliant independence and suspicion of authority.
“Since I deplore the voracious appetite of the public for entertainment-for-entertainment’s sake,” he told an interviewer in 1982, “most of my work has a clear didactic element. . . . I believe that Jefferson’s ideal of the independent yeoman farmer should be familiar to every generation because I mistrust a technological society in which most members are thoroughly incompetent to maintain the hardware or the software.”
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
May 31, 2026
Firefight 2000 is a collection of Ing's short works. The book was published in 1987, and I'm not sure why they used a title with a built-in expiration date. Perhaps because people like Harry Harrison, Mack Reynolds, Isaac Asimov, and Joe Haldeman had released books with 2000 in the title and they were trying to capitalize. Anyway, it's only appropriate in a few of the selections. The contents include three lengthy essays on future warfare, and a piece excerpted from an earlier non-fiction book Ing wrote collaboratively with Leif Myrabo. There's also a novelette that Ing wrote in Larry Niven's Magic Goes Away universe, and my favorite story in the book was Malf, from one of Ben Bova's Analog anthologies. The other five stories are reprinted from issues of Baen's paperback magazines series Destinies and Far Frontiers, including one featuring super-survivalist Harve Rackham from the novel Pulling Through. It's a pretty solid collection, but a little dated. (Ahem...)
May 5, 2022
The book title, combined with the cover art (by Larry Elmore no less), is a tad misleading. It isn't a single future war story but instead is a collection of fictional stories with three non-fiction treatises. The stories span a gambit from fantasy, alternate history, crime thriller, and the like but no direct combat stories outside of the treatises that discuss what "could be" in future wars. At least for me, my two favorite short stories were "Malf", a crime thriller involving logging mecha, and "Vital Signs" about a human-alien encounter.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews