Alternative Worlds
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The Best of the Bolos: Their Finest Hour
Hank Davis
Baen, Sep 27 2011, $7.99
ISBN: 9781451637526
All eleven entertaining entries are reprints of previously published tales. Three were written by the Bolo creator Keith Laumer in the 1960s (“Combat Unit”, “The Last Command” and “A Relic of War”); the remaining eight were authored by several famous writers in the 1990s. Regardless of whether Mr. Laumer, David Weber (“A Brief Technical History of the Bolos” written as Professor Hermes of the Laumer Chair of Military History, “A Time to Kill” and “The Traitor” ), S. M. Sterling (“Lost Legion”) or David Drake (“As Our Strength Lessens”), etc. writr the story each entry contains the basic BOLO makeup and theme of a nonhuman lone wolf willing to risk death to achieve the victory. In fact Bolos typically pay a hell of a price in these dark science fiction short stories. The fun in this collection is to compare the 1990s contributors like those named above and Mercedes Lackey & Larry Dixon, Linda Evans and William H. Keith, Jr. to those of Mr. Laumer. Mr. Weber’s introduction treatise rounds out a fine collection obviously for fans of the Bolo universe; as these readers will appreciate the lone wolf in space risking life and limb knowing what will happen to them but doing it anyway.
Hank Davis
Baen, Sep 27 2011, $7.99
ISBN: 9781451637526
All eleven entertaining entries are reprints of previously published tales. Three were written by the Bolo creator Keith Laumer in the 1960s (“Combat Unit”, “The Last Command” and “A Relic of War”); the remaining eight were authored by several famous writers in the 1990s. Regardless of whether Mr. Laumer, David Weber (“A Brief Technical History of the Bolos” written as Professor Hermes of the Laumer Chair of Military History, “A Time to Kill” and “The Traitor” ), S. M. Sterling (“Lost Legion”) or David Drake (“As Our Strength Lessens”), etc. writr the story each entry contains the basic BOLO makeup and theme of a nonhuman lone wolf willing to risk death to achieve the victory. In fact Bolos typically pay a hell of a price in these dark science fiction short stories. The fun in this collection is to compare the 1990s contributors like those named above and Mercedes Lackey & Larry Dixon, Linda Evans and William H. Keith, Jr. to those of Mr. Laumer. Mr. Weber’s introduction treatise rounds out a fine collection obviously for fans of the Bolo universe; as these readers will appreciate the lone wolf in space risking life and limb knowing what will happen to them but doing it anyway.
