Future War

Dating from 1953, "Second Variety" is not just the oldest tale here, by almost two decades, it is also the best and it highights Dick's favouite theme of questioning the reality of what we perceive. The only small problem with its inclusion is that it is so well known that it may not be new to most readers. It is not the only fine tale here. Ian McDonald's "Floating Dogs" is a fascinating tale of a proxy war fought between armies of automated weapons and augmented, computer directed animals who fight with no real concept of the purpose of the war and who thus make almost perfect soldiers.

If you want tales of war on earth, in space or even spread across the dimensions, you can get them all here and there are a lot good stories in this colection. As usual in this series, there are brief biographical and bibliographial notes for each author should the reader feel the need to explore further.


A decent collection   May 19, 2000
random guy (New Jersey, US)
2 out of 3 found this review helpful

This title contains 10 short stories, obviously all with the common theme of future war. I wouldn't normally read anything titled "Future War", but someone picked this up for me and I felt obligated to read it. I was surprised that some of the stories were actually quite good, such as "A Dry, Quiet War" by Tony Daniel. Overall, it might not make the most interesting read - I wouldn't make it a priority, anyway - its suitable when there is nothing else around.