There Will Be War Volume X Book Review
There Will Be War Volume X
Created by Jerry Pournelle, Edited by John F. Carr
ASIN: B019KYLOKQ
This is the last volume in the late Jerry Pournelle's long running series, There Will be War. Volume IX was published in 1990. Jerry said that the series had originally ended when the Cold War did, but the return of great power politics with Russia and China made it relevant again. It has sold well over the years, if Jerry had lived longer, I imagine more volumes would have been forthcoming.
This volume is just as good as any of the previous installments. One major change is that China is featured as the bête noire instead of Russia, but otherwise the basic structure remains the same: short science fiction with a military focus is interspersed with non-fiction essays on military topics, all of it woven together with short introductions by Jerry.
There were some great stories in this volume. Standouts for me were "Flashpoint: Titan" by Cheah Kai Wai, "The Fourth Fleet" by Russell Newquist, "Among Thieves" by Poul Anderson, and '"Fly-by-Night"' by Larry Niven. All the stories in this volume were good, which makes it hard to pick my favorites, so I go by the ones that stick in my memory the best.
In particular, Larry Niven's contribution astonished me with how dense it was. Larry managed to pack so much detail into every sentence that I had a little trouble keeping up. I found myself scanning back every so often to make sure I hadn't missed something interesting. I often had. I hadn't previously considered getting into Known Space or the Man-Kzin Wars, but now I want to.
I've found a number of great authors via their contributions to this series, for example Gordon Dickson. In this case, I was already familiar with Larry's books with Jerry Pournelle, but I only kind of liked The Magic Goes Away, the only solo Niven book I've read. Looking back at my review, I wrote it up better than I remember it. Thanks to this collection, I'm willing to give Niven's other books a chance. Which is after all the point of short stories; they give you a chance to try authors out rapidly, and see who you might like to read more.
I think this volume continues a great tradition, and it has some great stories in it. I'd recommend it to anyone who likes any of the authors who contributed, fans of military science fiction, and anyone who likes a cracking good yarn. You should be able to find something you like.
There Will Be War Volume X By Jerry Pournelle, Larry Niven, Ben Bova, Gregory Benford, David VanDyke, Martin van Creveld, Phillip E. Pournelle, Doug Beason
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