Victory [Hardcover]

Barrett Tillman (Author), Stephen Coonts (Editor, Introduction, Contributor), Ralph Peters (Contributor), Harold Coyle (Contributor), R. J. Pineiro (Contributor), David Hagberg (Contributor), Jim DeDelice (Contributor), James H. Cobb (Contributor), Harold Robbins (Contributor), Dean Ing (Contributor)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 13, 2003

This exciting volume features new short novels by:
Stephen Coonts
Ralph Peters
Harold Coyle
Harold Robbins
R. J. Pineiro
David Hagberg
Jim DeDelice
James Cobb
Barrett Tillman
Dean Ing

A stirring tribute to the Greatest Generation of Americans, Victory brings together the finest military fiction writers in the world with short novels of courage, skill, daring, and sacrifice. Here you will meet the men and women who fought and won World War II and truly made the world safe for democracy, in thrilling stories of war as it was really fought.

An exciting sequel to Stephen Coonts’s bestselling Combat, Victory brings together today’s greatest military, espionage, and technothriller writers in all-original thrilling tales of World War II—great short novels that range from the home front to the battlefields of Europe to the depths of the Pacific Ocean. Join Stephen Coonts, Ralph Peters, Harold Coyle, Harold Robbins, R. J. Pineiro, David Hagberg, Jim DeFelice, James Cobb, Barrett Tillman, and Dean Ing in a book filled with nonstop action and adventure.

Stephen Coonts asks what happens when you load a Catalina flying boat with five tons of bombs, a half-dozen machine guns, and a crew that walks a fine line between valor and suicide. In the Pacific theater of war, the Japanese Navy is about to discover the answer to that question.

Ralph Peters follows a German officer in the starving days after World War II as he makes his way on foot back home, where a defeat more terrible than the Allied victory awaits him.

Harold Coyle takes us to the fierce fighting in the Pacific where the Japanese and the Americans clash over a strategic airfield on the island of Guadalcanal. Their battlefield will earn the nickname Bloody Ridge for both sides . . .

Harold Robbins goes back to a time before the war was fought—when a doctor is brought in to diagnose a very special patient, one whose survival could cost the lives of hundreds of thousands of others. Now caught between his ethics and his humanity, he must make a choice with the fate of the world at stake.

R. J. Pineiro brings the Eastern Front to light as a young American pilot is ordered to train Russian pilots in the new American made P-39D Aircobras during the final months of the brutal battle of in during the winter of 1942.

David Hagberg sends the OSS and MI6 behind enemy lines in Germany to stop the one weapon that can win the war for Hitler and Nazi Germany, an electromechanical guidance system that can launch missiles not only across countries, but across the ocean and hit the United States.

Jim DeFelice takes us to the height of the war when information was bought dearly on both sides. When an American pilot parachutes into Germany to gather information, he lands right in the middle of the viper’s nest—a place more deadly than anything he could have found in the skies above.

James Cobb sends a special detail of PBY Catalina flying boats hunting for a hidden enemy radar station that provides the Japanese Navy with an edge in the war for the Pacific.

Barrett Tillman brings us into a gruesome fight as a Marine Corps flamethrower unit fights Japanese defenders on Tarawa Atoll in November 1943.

Dean Ing takes into the world of espionage as the Army Air Force becomes convinced that a Nazi superweapon can reach New York and Washington. As an interceptor is rush developed, a plane-crazy young Texan begins to suspect that someone on the team has an agenda all his own. . . .

Here they are: ten bestselling military, espionage, and technothriller authors paying tribute to the Greatest Generation of Americans.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

This hefty, thoroughly absorbing anthology, a companion to Coonts's Combat, gathers novellas about WWII from 10 leading thriller and military fiction writers. Some are character driven, like "Blood Bond" by the late Harold Robbins, about an American Jew working undercover as an SS officer, and Ralph Peters's "Honor," about the reflections of a German officer after defeat, as he makes his way home on foot through American- and British-occupied territory. Other entries make technology the major player. Coonts's "The Sea Witch" and James Cobb's "Eyes of the Cat" romanticize the PBY Catalina, a lumbering, graceless plane that was not state of the art even back in 1942, but was versatile and rugged. An American pilot parachutes into Nazi-occupied France and makes off with a Messerschmitt jet fighter in Jim DeFelice's "Wolf Flight." David Hagberg's intricately plotted "V5" explores the German rocket program and anthrax research as it weaves together the stories of Brits and Americans working undercover in Berlin: Benjamin Steinberg, a German Jewish machinist who's spying for the allies; an American pilot working for MI6; a young woman spy who's seducing a German general; and her husband, who, unbeknownst to her, is also on a secret intelligence mission in Berlin. WWII buffs and military fiction fans will have a long and luxurious feast.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

Successful techno-thriller author Coonts recruited his brethren to write the original tales in this collection of World War II stories. The grouping relies on its authors' literary stock-in-trade, the hyperdetailing of technology, suitably reverse-engineered onto WWII equipment. Readers whose mouths water at the mention of the PBY Catalina, the P-39 fighter, the German FW-190 fighter, or a German missile will have all the nuts, bolts, and tracer fire they can chew on, courtesy of brand-name thrill-meisters Harold Robbins, Harold Coyle, Coonts himself, and a half-dozen others. In addition to weapons, spies are de rigueur in technodom, the more unlikely and bizarre the better, as one author fantasizes about an American Jew posing as an SS officer on a mission to assassinate you-know-who. Alas, only one or two stories, such as "Flame on Tarawa," by Barrett Tillman, stretch the genre's conventions by presenting a three-dimensional character. Nevertheless, because of the proven popularity of the authors, this collection might burn brightly, if briefly. Gilbert Taylor
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 768 pages
• Publisher: Forge Books; 1 edition (May 13, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0641976410
• ISBN-13: 978-0312874629
• ASIN: 0312874626
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 6.3 x 2.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,555,090 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Victory, June 15, 2003

By 

Tim (Cypress, TX United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Victory (Hardcover)

Do not waste your hard earned money on this book. I bought it thinking short stories about WWII would be a great easy read book with very exciting story lines. In no way was this book even close. The only thing that keeps you going to the next story is the hope that the next one will be a little better than the last, which never really happens. Out of all the writers there is one or two that keep your attention but for the most part the writers have done a very poor overall job. You buy this book thinking you will be reading about hero's of WWII and you get stories about a little boy who helps in an aircraft hanger building an experimental aircraft. Not to spoil the ending the little boy turns out to be an alien and goes back to his home planet via a bicycle space craft. "WOW GREAT STORY"

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Some great stories, some not so, January 30, 2004

By 

David - See all my reviews

This review is from: Victory (Hardcover)

Some of the stories in this books are excellent reads. Both the PBY stories are well constructed and written. My favourite, by Harold Coyle, was the story of the assault on Tarawa. I read the book two or three weeks ago and the metal images of the jungle fighting described still linger.

A couple of lightweight tales by Harold Robbins and David Hagberg detract, I believe, from the overall weight and authority of the book as a whole, but if you are an afficianado of WWII stories, then this book is well worth a read.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Good World War II Coverage., June 29, 2003

By 

Melvin Hunt (Cleveland,, Texas United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Victory (Hardcover)

This book is in the same classification as the Combat book.In
this book you have ten authors write stories about World War II.
Stephen Coonts writes about a Catalina flying boatwho are doing battle with the Japanese in the Pacific.Harold Coyle does a story about the battle on Guadalcanal with the Japanese that earned this area the name of Bloody Ridge.Jim Defelice tells about an American pilot who parachutes into Germany to gather
intelligence and gets decieved.Harold Robbins tells a story about someone whi is sent to kill Hitler.Dean Ing tells a story about an effort to build an interceptor to stop a Nazi super weapon.Barrett Tillman tells of the role of a flamethrower operator in a battle at Tawara against the Japanese.James Cobb
tells of a Catalina searching for Japanese radar in the Pacific.
David Hagberg tells of allied agents trying to stop a Nazi superweapon that can cause havoc in the United States.R.J. Pineiro tells of an American pilot who trains Russian pilots in new Aircobras.Ralph Peters tells of a German soldier going home on foot after the war has ended.All in all this was an interesting book.It ranked as an equal to Combat.