The Best Military Science Fiction of the 20th Century

by Harry Turtledove (Editor), Martin H. Greenberg (Editor)

Explosive and provocative battles fought across the boundaries of time and space—and on the frontiers of the human mind.Science fiction’s finest have yielded this definitive collection featuring stories of warfare, victory, conquest, heroism, and overwhelming odds. These are scenarios few have ever dared to contemplate, and they “Superiority”: Arthur C. Clarke presents an intergalactic war in which one side’s own advanced weaponry may actually lead to its ultimate defeat. “Dragonrider”: A tale of Anne McCaffrey’s Dragonriders of Pern, in which magic tips the scales of survival. “Second Variety”: Philip K. Dick, author of the short story that became the movie Blade Runner, reaches new heights of terror with his post-apocalyptic vision of the future. “The Night of the Vampyres”: A chilling ultimatum of atomic proportions begins a countdown to disaster in George R. R. Martin’s gripping drama. “Hero”: Joe Haldeman’s short story that led to his classic of interstellar combat, The Forever War. “Ender’s Game”: The short story that gave birth to Orson Scott Card’s masterpiece of military science fiction.PLUS SEVEN MORE EPIC STORIES“Among Thieves” by Poul Anderson “Hangman” by David Drake “The Last Article” by Harry Turtledove “The Game of Rat and Dragon” by Cordwainer Smith “To the Storming Gulf” by Gregory Benford “Wolf Time” by Walter Jon Williams “The Scapegoat” by C. J. CherryhGuaranteed to spark the imagination and thrill the soul, these thirteen science fiction gems cast a stark light on our dreams and our darkest fears—truly among the finest tales of the twentieth century.

Genres: Science Fiction, Fiction, Short Stories, Anthologies, Ebooks, Military Fiction, Speculative Fiction

560 pages, Kindle Edition

First published May 1, 2001

About the author

Dr Harry Norman Turtledove is an American novelist, who has produced a sizeable number of works in several genres including alternate history, historical fiction, fantasy and science fiction.

Harry Turtledove attended UCLA, where he received a Ph.D. in Byzantine history in 1977.

Turtledove has been dubbed "The Master of Alternate History". Within this genre he is known both for creating original scenarios: such as survival of the Byzantine Empire; an alien invasion in the middle of the World War II; and for giving a fresh and original treatment to themes previously dealt with by other authors, such as the victory of the South in the American Civil War; and of Nazi Germany in the Second World War.

His novels have been credited with bringing alternate history into the mainstream. His style of alternate history has a strong military theme.

Reviews

[Desmond White · Rating 5 out of 5]

This guy Harry Turtledove is pretty sneaky. Edited the book and slipped one of his own stories in the middle.

[Mbgile · Rating 4 out of 5]

4+

[Fred Alexander · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed this anthology, recommended to me by Starman. This was a good variety of interesting and well written stories.

[Lizabeth Tucker · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a collection of short stories, edited by Harry Turtledove and Martin H. Greenberg. It contains the best of the best in military-centric hard science fiction short stories. I'm in the middle of reading this one, so this will be more than one posting. The listing of authors are a who's who in this SF sub-genre: Poul Anderson, Philip K. Dick, Joe W. Haldeman, Arthur C. Clarke, Orson Scott Card (his Ender's Game, the short story that started a book series), David Drake (a story from his Hammer's Slammers universe), Harry Turtledove, Cordwainer Smith, George R. R. Martin, Gregory Benford, Walter Jon Williams, C.J. Cherryh, and the wonderful Anne McCaffrey (a short story from her Pern series).

I'm about half-way through the collection and loving it. I was never a reader of hard science fiction, although I found myself watching that in my movies and television series. But when I did play with hard sci-fi, it was usually Space Opera, not military. Therefore it came as a shock when I first discovered David Weber's Honor Harrington series. It is pure military sci-fi and as engrossing as hell. Check it out, again, read it from the beginning. It works better that way.

One of my favorites in this collection was Ender's Game. It is a disturbing short story that later evolved into a book and from there a series of books. I haven't read anything other than this short story, but I think I will try the book. The basic premise, for those who haven't read it, is that a long war has decimated the young men who are usually fighting. Desperate, the Powers-That-Be take children with a potential for strategy and train them for war in space. One particular child, nicknamed Ender, seems to have that talent and is considered one of the best at the war games despite the fact that he is only 11 years old and has been doing it since he was 6. It has a twist ending that you have to read to believe, but believe you will.

It was also my first time reading in David Drake's Hammer's Slammers series, about mercenaries. It wasn't a pleasant story, but it was engrossing. I don't know whether I'll try for this series or not. I prefer my soldiers to be somewhat heroic, even if they are mercenaries. However, there was a reality to the actions taken. Perhaps I don't care for that much reality in my stories.

Well, I've finished this collection of short stories (some not so short) and would definitely say that it was a worthwhile purchase. My absolute favorite story would have to be The Scapegoat by C. J. Cherryh, but I wish published fiction did what fanfiction does, give a hankie warning at the beginning. I cried buckets at the end of this story. This one alone was worth the purchase, but there were some really fantastic stories here, many by writers that I've never tried before. Night of the Vampyres by George R. R. Martin had this child of the 1960s remembering another time and place with his fine mix of paranoia and reality.

Even if you've never considered reading military sci-fi, try this book out. It truly gives you a glimpse into the many ways that this sub-genre can be handled, from gung-ho to fascist to sad to heroic.

[StarMan · Rating 3 out of 5]

VERDICT: 3+ solar units, if you enjoy military SF.

Most of these were perfectly adequate 3-ish star tales. A couple were 4 stars or thereabouts, and a few were closer to 2. You get several big name authors here, and some decent variety within the sub-genre.

You may find a handful of tales that feel ever-so-slightly dusty, but overall it's a good collection, and would be a nice gift for SciFi fans.

I skipped the Ender's Game tale (having read the book years ago), and the final tale (dragons are just too silly to me, and maybe not appropriate in a "military science fiction" story?). I didn't mind re-reading the good tales by Haldeman, Cherryh (who is always awesome), and a couple others.

[Michael · Rating 4 out of 5]

Mostly mid-20th century stuff in here, but interesting non-the-less. Had to skip the last story, had all this stuff about talking dragons - couldn't handle that...

[Aditya Raman · Rating 2 out of 5]

First released in 2001, this book has clearly started showing its age. The book features a bunch of antiquated science fiction tales that employ a myriad of plot devices and tropes that the genre has long since moved past (for a good reason). It also features some of the least evocative stories from speculative fiction heavyweights Philip K. Dick, Arthur C. Clarke, and George R. R. Martin.

It isn't completely devoid of interesting tales though. "The Game of Rat and Dragon" by Cordwainer Smith, "To the Storming Gulf" by Gregory Benford, "Wolf Time" by Walter Jon Williams, "The Scapegoat" by C.J. Cherryh, and "The Last Article" by Harry Turtledove (the editor of this collection) are each compelling enough in their own ways while treading familiar ground (mind-melding, nuclear post-apocalypse, cyberpunk, first contact and alternative history with victorious Nazis respectively). While newer works arguably cover the same subject matter better, these stories still retain some charm.

These stories, however, make up less than fifty percent of the collection and can be easily accessed as part of the collected works of each author. Thus, if I were a reader on the hunt for a sci-fi collection, I'd probably steer clear of this one.

[John · Rating 3 out of 5]

Confined to 1951 to about 1987, with nothing from the golden age, nor from Starship Troopers, Frank Herbert, or Elizabeth Moon (for instance). Turtledove’s alternate history entry about the Nazis taking over India is depressing, and the McCaffrey at the end just reminded me how badly written much of her work was.

[robert · Rating 4 out of 5]

Some pretty good stories. Some solid military sci-fi with high tech weaponry. I enjoyed rereading the excerpt from Ender's Game. The story Dragonrider by McCaffrey was very inappropriate for this book. HUH? Nothing military about dragons. I am definitely not a fan of her fantasy books and it had no place in this book.

[Robert · Rating 5 out of 5]

What could be better?

How about a concentrated dose of George R.R. Martin, Arthur C. Clarke, Philip K. Dick, Card, McCaffrey, Turtledove... many of my favorite authors and even one of my favorite stories ("Second Variety, by Dick). If you don't have time to consume 20 novels at a sitting, this is a good distillation.

[Richard Domey · Rating 3 out of 5]

Diversity.

Some good some weak. I like a longer read rather than breaking up my train of thought so much. Excellent history lesson on sci-fi authors. Good to remember how good many of the lobsters were. And how diverse the genre was in the early days.

[Tim · Rating 2 out of 5]

Certainly these can’t be the best. A few were good; some were barely adequate.

[Peter Asper · Rating 4 out of 5]

I greatly enjoyed several of the stories in this book. It is hard to give it an in-depth rating since the stories were each quite different.

[Eric Johnson · Rating 5 out of 5]

I thought this book was a great collection of stories. I recommend this book a lot too as the varied stories showed the glimpse of authors minds of the genre.

[Jacob · Rating 3 out of 5]

half weren't military, some of the remaining half wore the genre tag as an aesthetic, the few that did standout were of interest but surely the 20th century had a better showing

[Robert · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting enough collection -- as always a mix of qualities. Nothing that was new, some good worth rereading older stories.

[Cynik · Rating 4 out of 5]

Between 3 and 4 stars. Some of the stories were OK and some were excellent. Ending it with a Pern story I'd never read was a high note.

[Sam · Rating 5 out of 5]

Harry Turtledove's military sf anthology spans the gamut from tales of interstellar war to post-apocalyptic visions, to glimpses of cover scanalternate histories and fantasies of flying dragons. The lead story, Poul Anderson's "Among Thieves", reads like a lost chapter of Asimov's Foundation series, a smartly conceived strategy piece with the same implied assumption that war is an intricate version of the boardgame Risk played by Machiavellian alpha males who possess ultimately good intentions but deploy seemingly callous methods beyond the powers of their inferiors to fathom.

Philip K. Dick's oft-reprinted "Second Variety" (poorly adapted in the 1995 film Screamers) is about war machines evolving out of control to turn on their creators, and is pretty much par for that author's delightfully paranoid course.

Turtledove's introduction is fascinating in its own right, perhaps one of the most enjoyable reads in the piece. Nor is it any surprise that "The Last Article", his alternative-history tale of Gandhi in a Nazi-occupied India, ranks among the best that the book has to offer.

C.J. Cherryh's "The Scapegoat", though it deals more with diplomacy than war, is one of the strongest stories in the book. It deals, as Cherryh does so well, with the near-impossibility of communicating meaningfully across cultural gulfs, and is masterfully crafted in such a way that the reader is forced to reevaluate earlier dialogue in the story in terms of its final revelation.

A further joy of this anthology is that it presents two engaging short fictions out of which later, greater books will emerge. It's fascinating to see the origins of Orson Scott Card's Ender's Game in the novella of the same name; likewise to read Joe W. Haldeman's "Hero", from which his The Forever War was born.

Weaker selections include George R.R. Martin's "Night of the Vampyres", a tale of a coup on the part of the Executive Branch that is a bit too simplistic and transparent to be taken seriously, and David Drake's "Hangman", the only tale in the volume too dry for this reviewer to suffer all the way through.

The closing piece, Anne McCaffrey's "Dragonrider", an early Pern tale, is one of the best narratives in the anthology. It is a thoroughly enjoyable fable of Dragonriders utilizing time travel to purge a scourge of nonsentient wormlike organisms that rain down upon their planet every few centuries. It's a wonderful piece of fantasy; however, while it's a joy to see an early Pern tale, there really isn't any justification to include this gallant-knights-and-dragons piece in a book of military science fiction. Oh well.

Overall, this is a fairly solid book, with three or four great stories, quite a few more that are enjoyable, and only one or two clunkers. The fault, if there is one, is that the work's title (and perhaps its cover design as well) leads the reader to think he is in for something he is not. The earliest story in the work hails from 1951 ("Superiority" by Arthur C. Clarke), the latest from 1987 (Walter Jon William's "Wolf Time"), meaning this is really just the Best Military Science Fiction of the Third Quarter and a Bit of the Fourth Quarter of the 20th Century. One wonders if anything of value was written in the subgenre between 1900 and 1950; and, if you suspect, as many do, that nothing of value really came out in the last decade of the 1900s -- well, this anthology offers nothing to allay your suspicions. More importantly, only about seven of the thirteen tales presented actually qualify as genuine military science fiction. The rest are war-related, but are not strictly stories of the military as the title suggests. So, if what you are in the mood for is a book called Harry Turtledove Picks Out a Handful of Vaguely War-Related Tales from the Third Quarter of the 20th Century, then, my friend, this is the book for you. But if you are jonesing for your fix of true military sf, just go read Starship Troopers again.

[Alice Adder · Rating 3 out of 5]

Why is Anne McCaffrey in this...
I read about half the stories.
My favourites were Joe Haldeman and Arthur C. Clarke.

Arthur C. Clarke's very short story is a pretty good allegory for how dysfunctional our own military is today. And Joe Haldeman is a master of military fiction (probably due to his own military service in Viet Nam.)

Of course, I've already read Ender's Game, but I think excerpting the last 1/3 of a classic novel was a weird move for a short story anthology.

[Ebenmaessiger · Rating 4 out of 5]

“Among Thieves,” by Poul Anderson (1957): 8.25
- Anderson might have a higher hit rate for sf authors of his time and ilk than anyone. If a valid measure of worth is “how well does X succeed at doing what it wants to do?”, then he’s consistently on target. Here, a smooth, little complex tale of political intrigue—the multiple, overlapping geo-political allegiances and twist ending more at home in the space provided by big sf epics. Effectively, then, it accomplishes well at a tenth of the length what others do at so much more. More so, seems to establish a template that shows like Star Trek would struggle to recreate for decades thereafter. STORY: two earth-colonized outer planets forge an alliance to attack earth, even though they are centuries-long enemies, but the lesser-evil of the two, from Earth’s perspective, double crosses the other at the last minute.

[Lewis · Rating 4 out of 5]

I had already read most of these stories but I was in hospital. So I read them again and I was amazed at how my tastes had changed. Ones I didn't like too much I now loved and vice versa.

[R. · Rating 4 out of 5]

I almost gave this three stars. But then I realized that there were three stories in here that I have read in the past and so I skipped them. Those were probably the best ones of the bunch and taking those into consideration makes it a four star book.

This had been in my Goodreads recommendations for over a year now so it was definitely time for me to get it read. It was pretty good, although the novellas that are sandwiched in here kind of killed it for me. Part of the fun of reading a collection of short stories in any genre is that if they suck, then you don't have to deal with it for very long but when they're 90 plus pages long . . . blah.

Worth the read for fans of military and science fiction alike. Some of these stories are sixty years old so what was science fiction then is more or less almost on par with reality today even if the technology is a little bit different.

[Laura · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm half-way through these stories. Not all stories are worth 5 stars, but the collection is a great survey of the century's best military sci-fi. Now, despite Starship Troopers being one of my all-time fav books (note: HATED the movie), I'm not a big military sci-fi girl - too much metal and self-aware robots for my taste (also, not enough humor). BUT, these stories are by-and-large well-told with interesting situations and well-drawn characters. After finishing the rest of the stories, I give it overall, 5 stars, with each individual story receiving 3-5 stars each.

[Bill Borre]

"Superiority" by Arthur C. Clarke - A military officer relates an account of circumstances leading to his defeat to a military tribunal and requests that scientist responsible for inventing the technology which lead to their defeat be removed from his cell.

"The Game of Rat and Dragon" by Cordwainer Smith - Underhill telepathically partners with a cat to battle aliens the cats sense as gigantic space rats.

[Patrick DiJusto · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an anthology of science fiction based in a military setting. It introduced me to Joe Haldeman, whom I am ashamed to say I had never even heard of before. (I know, I know!). As with any anthology, some of the stories are great, some are Eh, some are "Thank God that's over". On the whole, I enjoyed the book, and I'm now looking for more from Joe Haldeman.

[KT · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a fantastic collection. I enjoyed every story, even George R. R. Martin's somewhat lackluster story about fighter pilots. I would call the latter the weakest piece in the anthology. These stories are great, and I am so glad I bought this.

[Jason · Rating 2 out of 5]

Some pretty forgettable stories. Highpoints are "Second Variety" by Philip K. Dick, "Wolf Time" by Walter Jon Williams and "The scapegoat" by C.J. Cherryh. And the one that didn't belong in this volume was "Dragonrider" by Anne McCaffrey. Seriously, thats fantacy not Sci-fi.

[Falbs · Rating 4 out of 5]

I had read many of these stories before, but they are well worth revisiting. I had a great time going through each and every story. The books title might be a little grandiose, then again, it might not.

[Eddie · Rating 3 out of 5]

This Random House collections are a great way to find new sci-fi authors. The downside seems to be that during the editing they leave out some important aspects of the novels and stories.

[James · Rating 4 out of 5]

A collection of work from quite a variety of authors with a real range of visions and philosophies - for anyone interested in this sub-genre, a great book.