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Battlestations #Omnibus, 1-2
Battlestations
When the Fleet is challenged by an alien armada from the other side of the galaxy, the Fleet constructs the Stephen Hawking, an enormous mobile base for thousands of soldiers and warships... and the overstressed crew prepares for a direct assault by a deadly insectoid race. But the pressures of combat and close quarters have taken their toll, threatening to turn the crew to the enemy's prime advantage.
448 pages, Paperback
First published July 1, 1992
16 people are currently reading
205 people want to read
About the author
David Drake
306 books886 followersDavid Drake is an American author of science fiction and fantasy literature. A Vietnam War veteran who has worked as a lawyer, he is now one of the major authors of the military science fiction genre.
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
July 4, 2011
Decided I'm going to be abandoning this one...too many inconsistencies in the 'universe' from story to story - wish the editors had actually edited the stories in the book for consistency with the universe.
The stories were themselves ok, but the opening of each one, or in little asides here and there contradicted previous things stated as fact in the other stories, which just derailed me from enjoying the read. Most of it was actually just in the backstory for each story, there was no reason an actual editor couldn't have had the authors make them jibe with each other. It's too bad actually, because I really liked the premise of this one.
Gave up on it on June 20, 2011.
The stories were themselves ok, but the opening of each one, or in little asides here and there contradicted previous things stated as fact in the other stories, which just derailed me from enjoying the read. Most of it was actually just in the backstory for each story, there was no reason an actual editor couldn't have had the authors make them jibe with each other. It's too bad actually, because I really liked the premise of this one.
Gave up on it on June 20, 2011.
April 10, 2011
I really wanted to enjoy this book -- large fleet actions and hard science by some of the more impressive names in Sci-Fi today. Unfortunately, it just wasn't to be. I expect anthologies to be a collection of hit and miss works, and can accept a few bad eggs amongst the total, and this book definitely followed that tendency. Not having read he previous Fleet books, some of the history was difficult to follow early on, but not essential to the plot. What was was repeatedly hammered in to you, in several stories with a cluttered timeline. It was clear that the authors had a very short crib sheet describing the arcing plot they had to work off of. The stories themselves, while spanning a rather surprising gamut of genres and focusing on the civilian-military clash aboard the Hawking, are pretty consistent factually, though there are some unfortunate inconsistencies in the few recurring characters and the aliens themselves. Overall, the entire arc seems one story too short, and the tale in and of itself lacks any real satisfaction.
But by far the most unpleasant part of the book was how poorly edited it was -- each story was prefaced by a single page mini-essay that tried to set it in the timeline and technical or social frame it was to expound. Almost none of these seemed to do anything for the stories they bookended, and generally just distracted from the stories at best, and glaringly ripped you away from the story at worst. Further, the grammatical errors were appalling. It's as if the stories weren't read in their final form, and suffered from the new modern typographical errors. Words seemed to be autocorrected to words the author certainly didn't intend, as they made no sense. A good dozen errors seemed to be OCR recognition errors (having 'them' being inserted for 'their' and similar).
In the end, the stories just weren't worth the slogging through poor editing and framing to read.
But by far the most unpleasant part of the book was how poorly edited it was -- each story was prefaced by a single page mini-essay that tried to set it in the timeline and technical or social frame it was to expound. Almost none of these seemed to do anything for the stories they bookended, and generally just distracted from the stories at best, and glaringly ripped you away from the story at worst. Further, the grammatical errors were appalling. It's as if the stories weren't read in their final form, and suffered from the new modern typographical errors. Words seemed to be autocorrected to words the author certainly didn't intend, as they made no sense. A good dozen errors seemed to be OCR recognition errors (having 'them' being inserted for 'their' and similar).
In the end, the stories just weren't worth the slogging through poor editing and framing to read.
May 24, 2017
More shared universe fun in The Fleet series playground.
May 8, 2015
Bookworm Speaks!
Battlestations
Edited by David Drake and Bill Fawcett
****
The Story: The Fleet thought the wars were over…but as a deadly race of insectoid invaders, the Ichton, sweep through the galaxy, races new to the alliance are in dire need of aid. Star Central answers with the mammoth battle station Stephen Hawking. The Hawking takes the fight beyond the boundaries of human space where the Ichton prove to be a formidable foe. Meanwhile, within the pseudo-planet’s stratified decks, the pressures of constant combat and close quarters may become the enemy’s most dangerous advantage.
The Good: This book is different from a lot of military science fiction, in that soldiers are not the main focus, it is the people who have made their lives on board the battle station. There are plots and intrigue, fortunes made and lost, all the while a relentless enemy is bearing down above their heads. Epic scale conflicts can be great but getting into the nitty-gritty of life during wartime is compelling as well. Old conflicts still leave scars upon the people and all the talk of courage in the face of adversity does not pan out as well in real life. In the end…this book reminds of a painful lesson about humanity…the worst enemy of us is oftentimes ourselves.
The editors did a good job with providing some context to the story by dividing the various entries into various categories, branching into different aspects of the society that has formed on board the Stephen Hawking. Counter-Intelligence, diplomacy, acquisition of resources, all form the basis of what the stories are trying to tell.
The Flaws: Again, we run into the same problem faced by many readers of anthologies: The up and down quality of the stories. Some of the stories are interesting, some are boring, and some are just mediocre. This crops in many anthologies but it is a bit more pronounced in this volume than in some of the other anthologies that Bookworm has read.
First off…it describes itself as military science fiction, but the majority of stories seem to have very little to do with the military aspect of the Stephen Hawking. It largely concerns the civilians and refugees of station. In of itself, that is not a bad thing, but readers might have gone into this book expecting soldiers and battlefields and instead getting stories about con artists and tradesmen. Its not what was promised and to be completely honest, its pretty boring.
What this anthology lacks is consistency. Every story is going to be different, all of them being written by different authors, but it seemed like it was never coordinated as to what kinds of stories were going to be told. Aside from common terms used within the text, every story is pretty much stand alone, with no consideration to an overall story arc, like the summary says it will be.
The war they are supposed to be fighting is extremely dull. A race that consumes all in its path has been done before. So much so that it is almost cliche. War is about winning and losing on both sides of the conflict with the civilians thrown into the middle. The Hawking is fighting a tidal wave, which is impossible. A strong antagonist is important in writing but the conflict itself also has to be fruitful in order to keep the reader engaged. The “horde of locusts” race allegory works for a two-parter on a space opera television show but can wear out its welcome in a four hundred page book, if the writers are not careful. In this book, they were not.
Finally: Its not that big of a deal, but there is something disconcerting about naming a war machine after a scientist that has been labeled as a humanitarian.
Final Verdict: Battlestations is an intriguing look at what people can become during the outbreak of war but the ultimate execution was lacking and as a whole, the book suffered.
Three out of Five Stars
thecultureworm.blogspot.com
Battlestations
Edited by David Drake and Bill Fawcett
****
The Story: The Fleet thought the wars were over…but as a deadly race of insectoid invaders, the Ichton, sweep through the galaxy, races new to the alliance are in dire need of aid. Star Central answers with the mammoth battle station Stephen Hawking. The Hawking takes the fight beyond the boundaries of human space where the Ichton prove to be a formidable foe. Meanwhile, within the pseudo-planet’s stratified decks, the pressures of constant combat and close quarters may become the enemy’s most dangerous advantage.
The Good: This book is different from a lot of military science fiction, in that soldiers are not the main focus, it is the people who have made their lives on board the battle station. There are plots and intrigue, fortunes made and lost, all the while a relentless enemy is bearing down above their heads. Epic scale conflicts can be great but getting into the nitty-gritty of life during wartime is compelling as well. Old conflicts still leave scars upon the people and all the talk of courage in the face of adversity does not pan out as well in real life. In the end…this book reminds of a painful lesson about humanity…the worst enemy of us is oftentimes ourselves.
The editors did a good job with providing some context to the story by dividing the various entries into various categories, branching into different aspects of the society that has formed on board the Stephen Hawking. Counter-Intelligence, diplomacy, acquisition of resources, all form the basis of what the stories are trying to tell.
The Flaws: Again, we run into the same problem faced by many readers of anthologies: The up and down quality of the stories. Some of the stories are interesting, some are boring, and some are just mediocre. This crops in many anthologies but it is a bit more pronounced in this volume than in some of the other anthologies that Bookworm has read.
First off…it describes itself as military science fiction, but the majority of stories seem to have very little to do with the military aspect of the Stephen Hawking. It largely concerns the civilians and refugees of station. In of itself, that is not a bad thing, but readers might have gone into this book expecting soldiers and battlefields and instead getting stories about con artists and tradesmen. Its not what was promised and to be completely honest, its pretty boring.
What this anthology lacks is consistency. Every story is going to be different, all of them being written by different authors, but it seemed like it was never coordinated as to what kinds of stories were going to be told. Aside from common terms used within the text, every story is pretty much stand alone, with no consideration to an overall story arc, like the summary says it will be.
The war they are supposed to be fighting is extremely dull. A race that consumes all in its path has been done before. So much so that it is almost cliche. War is about winning and losing on both sides of the conflict with the civilians thrown into the middle. The Hawking is fighting a tidal wave, which is impossible. A strong antagonist is important in writing but the conflict itself also has to be fruitful in order to keep the reader engaged. The “horde of locusts” race allegory works for a two-parter on a space opera television show but can wear out its welcome in a four hundred page book, if the writers are not careful. In this book, they were not.
Finally: Its not that big of a deal, but there is something disconcerting about naming a war machine after a scientist that has been labeled as a humanitarian.
Final Verdict: Battlestations is an intriguing look at what people can become during the outbreak of war but the ultimate execution was lacking and as a whole, the book suffered.
Three out of Five Stars
thecultureworm.blogspot.com
October 15, 2012
"Battlestations" is a series of short stories based in and around the Battlestation 'Stephen Hawking'. The title of the book is a bit of a misnomer, since it's about one battlestation, not multiple.
In this universe, the Alliance (Earth-based government) Fleet learn that an advanced insectoid race is harvesting vast sections of the galaxy. A number of non-human races are in dire need of assistance, or had already been wiped out of existence by the Ichtons. The Fleet built a mammoth battlestation to travel to the non-human space and do battle with the Ichtons, drive them back from whence they came.
All sounds exciting and like this would be a great military SF series of stories. However...not so much.
While there were some military SF stories in the book, they were just a sprinkling to all the non-military sci-fi stories that focused on the civilian population of the station (of which there is considerable). All well and good, but the hype of the book summaries acattered about the web suggest this would be more of a military sci-fi book than not. The last couple of stories - as well as the editorial story intros - are closer to what I was expecting than what most of the book was.
The stories that are within are not bad. They are okay. Some are good. Some...not so much. But that is typical for anthologies: having a wide pool of authors submitting stories in a common universe will trip up on continuity issues, especially when all the stories focus on one particular point in a given universe, and writing styles will vary from story to story, which causes voice continuity between the authors.
If you're looking for good hardcore military sci-fi with sweeping space fleet battles and gritty ground combat, keep going. Look for something like John Hemry's "Lost Fleet" series. But if you're more interested in behind-the-scenes civilian stories in a war zone, this has some value.
In this universe, the Alliance (Earth-based government) Fleet learn that an advanced insectoid race is harvesting vast sections of the galaxy. A number of non-human races are in dire need of assistance, or had already been wiped out of existence by the Ichtons. The Fleet built a mammoth battlestation to travel to the non-human space and do battle with the Ichtons, drive them back from whence they came.
All sounds exciting and like this would be a great military SF series of stories. However...not so much.
While there were some military SF stories in the book, they were just a sprinkling to all the non-military sci-fi stories that focused on the civilian population of the station (of which there is considerable). All well and good, but the hype of the book summaries acattered about the web suggest this would be more of a military sci-fi book than not. The last couple of stories - as well as the editorial story intros - are closer to what I was expecting than what most of the book was.
The stories that are within are not bad. They are okay. Some are good. Some...not so much. But that is typical for anthologies: having a wide pool of authors submitting stories in a common universe will trip up on continuity issues, especially when all the stories focus on one particular point in a given universe, and writing styles will vary from story to story, which causes voice continuity between the authors.
If you're looking for good hardcore military sci-fi with sweeping space fleet battles and gritty ground combat, keep going. Look for something like John Hemry's "Lost Fleet" series. But if you're more interested in behind-the-scenes civilian stories in a war zone, this has some value.
June 17, 2012
This quite enjoyable collection of short stories was first published in the early '90s in two volumes as part of a larger shared universe project by Drake and Fawcett. These sorts of collections, where a number of authors all write stores in a specific universe, can work very well (as in this case) or not so well, depending on the original vision of the editors and the willingness of the authors to give up a bit of the world-building aspect of their creative process.
Here, all the stories fit together well and flow together to tell the story of the Battlestation Stephen Hawking, sent to the core of our galaxy to help fight an infestation of intelligent bug-like aliens who suck every world dry of resources in their path. The great thing about this set of stories is that we get so much more than military SF stories. We get a couple love stories and murder mysteries and the like mixed in as we learn the fates of the military personnel and the civilians aboard.
Perhaps my only complaint is that the end of the 'story' is a bit abrupt, although it is clever.
Short Answer: Nice reprint of a nice collection.
Here, all the stories fit together well and flow together to tell the story of the Battlestation Stephen Hawking, sent to the core of our galaxy to help fight an infestation of intelligent bug-like aliens who suck every world dry of resources in their path. The great thing about this set of stories is that we get so much more than military SF stories. We get a couple love stories and murder mysteries and the like mixed in as we learn the fates of the military personnel and the civilians aboard.
Perhaps my only complaint is that the end of the 'story' is a bit abrupt, although it is clever.
Short Answer: Nice reprint of a nice collection.
November 9, 2019
Une anthologie de nouvelles de space opera que j'ai appréciée. le thème commun est le suivant : pour pouvoir porter la guerre chez un ennemi implacable, la flotte construit un vaisseau porteur gigantesque, qui transporte des vaisseaux et leur infrastructure au coeur même du territoire de l'ennemi. Aucune discussion possible, l'ennemi n'a qu'un but, conquérir de nouveaux territoires et éliminer la concurrence. Après, on se laisse emporter par le souffle des histoires, et, comme il s'agit de space opera, de batailles épiques entre vaisseaux spatiaux, ainsi que de la stratégie pour permettre une victoire qui parait de plus en plus élusive. Un autre plaisir coupable.
July 25, 2011
Surprisingly good book. Series of short stories centered around a central storyline.
April 6, 2015
Wouldn't read it a second time.
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews