The Warmasters (U)

Before she saved the galaxy, she was "Ms. Midshipwoman Harrington" -- New York Times bestselling author David Weber reveals how Honor Harrington's long and brilliant career began with an encounter with "pirates" who turned out to be much more than they seemed... Another day, another planet at war. But in David Drake's "Choosing Sides," Lieutenant Huber stepped off the starship right into an ambush. The attackers didn't survive, but neither did far too many of Huber's troops -- and Slammers aren't supposed to get caught in ambushes. Now, to redeem himself, Huber is being sent on a special mission that may be his last. But even so, the enemy will learn the cost of killing even a single one of Colonel Hammer's Slammers... If the enemy thought General Belisarius was tough, wait until they meet the wife of one of his soldiers in Eric Flint's "Island." She was wed just before her husband left with Belisarius to fight an evil from beyond time. Now her husband is wounded, and she is going to travel a thousand miles to reach his side -- and few who get in her way will live to regret it...Publishers WeeklyThis anthology contains three novellas of future or alternate war by three of the acknowledged experts in the field, so the title satisfies any reasonable truth-in-packaging requirements. The book should also satisfy most fans of the authors. David Weber's "Ms. Midshipwoman Harrington" confronts his best-known creation with the perils and opportunities of her "middy" cruise, which she survives with ah, honor and even distinction, in spite of the best efforts of enemies both foreign and domestic. Eric Flint's "Islands" reintroduces Calopodius, a Byzantine soldier blinded at 18 while commanding a desperate holding action in the Drake/Flint Belisarius alternate-history series. It also introduces his aristocratic wife, Anna, and by the time the two meet again, she's not the woman he married but a much improved and strengthened version. Finally, David Drake offers another story of the mercenary tankers, Hammer's Slammers, "Choosing Sides." Lt. Arne Huber has to choose whether he will work with the Slammers' chief executioner, Maj. Joachim Steuben, to avenge treachery and murder against his men and friends. Except Flint on occasion, none of the writers is doing anything that's not by now standard for good military SF. Nor are any of them really going to surprise any readers who might, for example, want to see Hammer's Slammers not being stabbed in the back by their civilian employers. (May) Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.