Mike McPhail

The title "No Man's Land" refers to both the military aspect of the book as well as the fact that the protagonists of all the stories are female. This is the fourth book in the Defending the Future series, but all the stories stand alone. It's not a single, shared universe. The stories take place in a near future with more realistic science.


There are a dozen stories in this anthology. Some of them take place on battlefields in the middle of war zones while others find danger in more show more unexpected places. There are ambushes, traitors, set-ups, double-crosses, and even training exercises that get real, with the stories turning faster than the military equipment they're piloting.


If I were to pick a couple of favorites, I'd start with "Godzilla Warfare" by Maria V. Snyder where Sgt. Val Harris's mission to defuse a bomb on a colony planet that Earth is at war with becomes more than it seems. And "Live Fire" by Deborah Teramis Christian, where Simikan Amisano has been cybernetically synched with her weapon and with the techs of her tactical weapons crew becomes the human interface of the ship's armament -- but danger can still come from within.

You don't need to have read the previous books to enjoy this one. However, after reading it, you might want to go back for the other volumes in the series. show less

Breath the Hull is a very 'swingey' military sci-fi short story collection. The best stories are "Cryptic" by Jack McDevitt, and "Peter Power Armor" and "Forgotten Causes" by John C. Wright, which lead off the collection with the best kind of sideways meditations on existence that SF is capable of. From there, the stories move through more or less forgettable exploits of space marines and space pirates, and doomed soldiers executing impossible orders. But for the price is a good read, and show more the stinkers are easily skipped. show less

Military sci-fi is not really my cuppa, and I guess I was hoping to read about slightly more different means as announced by the title. However, these were pretty straightforward stories, with some solid world-building but no great surprises.
Some copy-editing would not come amiss. Oh, and throw out the gratuitous French (or get someone in who actually speaks a bit of the language).

A couple of higher profile author names, but nothing really stood out. As the clever title suggests this is female led mil-sf. So active combatants, their gender is of little relevance and somehow didn't make the stories any stronger.

The Valkyries was a clever concept - misogynist aliens didn't attack female humans, so they could be sent into disputed territories to retrieve fallen/injured soldiers. Until an entitled corporate man nearly spoilt the picture. However in terms of gender show more politics this is the least balanced stories as none of the women were allowed to fight.

Meh. show less