Customer Reviews

Women of War

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I like strong female characters and often in science fiction and fantasy this means military women. So I picked up this book at a sci fi convention thinking there'd be a few stories in an anthology that would be worth the cost. Out of 15 stories, four of them grabbed me. I'd want to read these four, by Sharon Lee & Steve Miller, Rosemary Edghill, Kerrie Hughes, and Robin Wayne Bailey, over again. The others were ok stories but none of those characters really grabbed me the way those four did. If you like military matters more or questions about what is right and wrong in terms of military violence then I'm sure you'll like the book better than I did.

Meh. Had high hopes for this collection, since it explores a very specific sub-genre favorite of mine (fantasy/female warrior protagonists) and maybe the let-down of those hopes is skewing my review? There WERE some solid stories here, but too many were too dull to merit inclusion.

I'm a fan of Huff, and one of her pieces is found here, but some of the other authors featured are a little supect: more than one has only published a short story or two previously (if I recall correctly), not even novelists in their own right, yet. Including incredibly green novices alongside the more experienced writers here is irksome -- mostly because their work is usually not up to par, but also because many of us invest in collections like this specifically to use as "samplers" of novelists we haven't discovered yet... who have other published books for us to purchase.

The deciding factor for inclusion SHOULD be the quality of the short story, of course, not the resume of it's author-- but a collection featuring "New Writers of Sci Fi Fantasy' might be a more appropriate venue for some of the weaker stories in Women Of War, kinder to both the reader AND writers. It's like the editors/publishers were trying to fatten up the collection?? But all that fat just weighed it down. I'd rather a book half the size, and twice as good for the trimming.

Although some of the stories in this collection are good, for the most part, they seem to have an unfocused theme. True, many of them include warrior women, but some of them only seem to have a taste of it.

Overall, I thought this was an okay collection, although not spectacular.

One high point was Michelle West's contribution, which explains the establishment of the Black Ospreys. A beautiful addition to her primary universe.