Product Description
Harold Coyle takes us to the fierce fighting in the Pacific, where the Japanese and the Americans clash over a strategic airfield on the island of Guadalcanal. Their battlefield will earn the nickname Bloody Ridge from both sides.

Harold Robbins takes us back to a time when victory could be had on the Normandy beaches if a relunctant hero managed to stop the Master of Europe---with his blood.

R. J. Piniero brings the Eastern Front to light as a young American pilot is ordered to train Russian pilots in the new American-made P-39D Aircobras during the final months of the brutal battle of Stalingrad in the winter of 1942.
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Customer Reviews (2)

It's an airplane read!
Okay, okay - it's has a number of glaring technical, weapons elated problems. I'm a pilot and a Vietnam era US Air Force officer. I also had my first flight in my grandfather's 1930's vintage Stearman by getting strapped standing up in the front cockpit. Open cockpit WWII era fighters flying more than 300 knots had worst than just visibility problems for the pilot. And, planes that are on fire and have a mid air collision with a German bomber usually do not allow the pilot to simply glide to an emergency landing. Next to that, confusing the aerocoupe side door to a canopy on the Bell Airocobra P-39 was a minor faux pas.

Well endowed German stewardresses on a German WWII military transport? Come on Mr. Robbins. And, Mr. Coyle, from every Marine I've ever spoken to - my uncle landed on all the WWII Pacific campaigns as a Marine Quartermaster - no one ever left a BAR in a dead Marine's position. The fire power was too necessary.

But, other than all that, this is a good read for a long airline trip. It will take you mind off of the terribvle service, cramped seats and make you with you were on that German WWII transport!

Don't Waste Your Money
Firstly, let me say that I admire Stephen Coonts as a man, a pilot and as an author. His novel "Flight of the Intruder" and his flight log "The Cannibal Queen" sit on my bookshelf beside master pilot-authors the likes of Richard Bach, Antoine de Saint-Exupery and Ernest K. Gann.

"Victory - Into the Fire" is a compilation of mediocre war novelettes "Edited and Introduced by Stephen Coonts".

Sadly, the book is a testimony to the growing trend of cross-marketing by excellent authors who lend their good names to lesser authors: all in the quest for increased profits and name exposure.

tsk... tsk... tsk...

Fiction requires the reader to suspend disbelief. Historical fiction is more difficult still, as inaccuracies shake the knowledgeable reader back to reality.

Want to write about specific aircraft? You had better do your homework.

Note to Editor Stephen Coonts and Author Rogelio J. Pineiro...

The Bell P-39 Airacobra was a SINGLE ENGINE aircraft. Thus, pilots cannot advance "the throttles" because there is ONLY ONE THROTTLE on the P-39.

Got that, Pineiro?One engine = One throttle.

Bailing out of the P-39 was a very big deal and well-feared by pilots. Instead of a jettisonable canopy like most contemporary WW-II aircraft, the P-39 had a door like that of an automobile. Even if the pilot was successful in dumping the door, many ended up being smashed by the horizontal tail that patiently waited for pilots exiting the cockpit at higher speeds.

Thus, when Pineiro's protagonist has the "canopy"..."blown off" (page 267) and "drops out" of the P-39, it shows that the author didn't even bother doing basic research.

Oh.... and another small point for Mr. Coonts and Pinerio.... No German Jets were in combat over Stalingrad in 1942 - or at any other time. AND...the Messerschmitt 109G was NOT a jet fighter.

I want my money back. ... Read more

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Customer Reviews (12)

Vanilla, with toppings
Fiction about World War II is practically redundant.How can you make up anything that is both plausible and that didn't actually happen?
May as well read non-fiction.
The writers in this anthology sometimes ape reality.Sometimes they write, as one reviewer implied, as if it were 1946 and the Saturday Evening Post were still publishing WW II pulp.Which, I guess they did for longer than that.
Two stories involve sneaking around behind German lines to steal aircraft.One has the protagonist beating more bad luck than could possibly be imagined and the other has a series of good luck and the requisite square-jawed (presumably) American hero.
One has a mixed team of heroes also beating odds to destroy a fictional German wonderweapon, a tale which would have been excusable in 1946. but not much later.
The PBY stories are interesting for different reasons. One has to do with fighting and killing for its own sake.The lead character is bounced from a dive bomber squadron because he is so intent on getting hits that he gets hit, gets his crew killed, and so forth.At the end, the killing is obviously without purpose but the characters go on as if it were the most important thing in the world to continue.One wonders if there are people like that, or if normal people become like that in war.
The other PBY story has a characteristic of war fiction when the war is a world war.To be important, instead of being one more unit expended amongst millions expended, the characters have to deal with a single, small, vulnerable but hugely important choke point or obstacle.The Guns of Navarone, for all its adventure, was all about a single battery of heavy artillery which could damage British naval operations in a narrow strait.But, for plotting purposes, the Brits really, really needed to operate unhindered in that narrow strait.
In this case, the naval battle of Guadalcanal, one of whose results is renaming a body of water "Iron Bottom Bay", or, later "Iron Bottom Sound", has a major operation depending on finding some mystery about Japanese reconnaisance and destroying it.Only the characters in the story can do it. If they fail....Wow.Nevertheless, given the formula is old, the story is extremely interesting.
Flame at Tarawa would be a run of the mill procedural about a flame thrower operator on one of the worst Marine assaults in the war except that it is recounted in the voice of a much older man looking back at himself and the circumstances.I found it moving and unconventional.
Hanger Rat has a skewed ending, but its depiction of what might be considered a precursor of the Skunk Works, manned by Texas barnstormer mechanics, is a great picture of the entire process and the Texas cultures surrounding pre-war private flight.That it turns out to be science fiction is not relevant.
"Honor" has nothing at all to do with combat, except as the protagonist remembers it, but instead gives us an insight into a foreign world view, logical as to its consequences but entirely strange as to its premises.
I hate to say this, but the book would be a reasonable one to get from a library, but not to buy.Get the non-fiction.
A non-fiction analog would be the ancient "Combat. Pacific Theater" and "Combat, Pacific Theater".The stories are short--short stories, get it?--and varied as to operation and character, but they're true.

Nice anthology of WWII novellas.
I picked this title up as as a means to pass the time during a stint on jury duty last week.Thumbing through the book in the bookstore I was immediately attracted to the title (mainly because of the subject) but also because Stephen Coonts edited the book (and his Flight of the Intruder is one of my favorite titles).

This collection of 3 novellas read quickly and held my attention.This paperback edition contains 3 of the 10 novellas contained in the original hardback edition of Victory (which ran about 700 pages).These stories aren't history lessons and anyone expecting that will be disappointed, but these three character driven stories are good examples of the kind of 'war fiction" of days gone by.

The first story by Coonts, "The Sea Witch" is an interesting tale of a PBY Catalina crew that becomes stranded on a island in the Pacific as it searched for another lost Catalina crew.The story is a straightforward tale with an interesting twist at the end.

Next up is David Hagberg's "V5".This story is deals with the interaction of allied intelligence officers and military planners trying to prevent the Nazi's newest vengeance weapon (the title's V5) from being deployed. Although not strictly a war story this is a good thriller with a nice WWII background.

The final story "Flame at Tarawa" was a pleasant surprise.Penned by another favorite of mine Barrett Tillman.Although I know Tillman for his non-fiction WWII histories, I really enjoyed this story of a Marine flame thrower operator surviving the bloody, hellish, landing at Betio in 1943.

In the end, I feel that the reader is rewarded by characters that are interesting and hold your attention as well as stories that put a little more of a personal spin on the war, without glorifying combat to the same level as the typical war movie.

Good Outweighs the Bad
More good than bad is this admittedly uneven anthology of World War Two tales. My favorite by far was the tale by Ralph Peters, which is sad and poignant and not by any stretch a "thriller."

Yet thrills abound in stories liie V5, an espionage yarn so exciting it reminded me of a level from a video game like CALL TO DUTY or MEDAL OF HONOR (who wouldn't want to heist a ME-262?).

Recommended.

Very uneven stories
I only picked up this book because Stephen Coonts name was on it."Eyes of the Cat" was the best story."Hangar Rat" was a total waste of time - the hanger rat turns out to be an alien.How does that fit into a WWII book?

Not worth the money--not even close
This book was a great disappointment.I have a habit of passing along books to friends when I am done with them.I'd be embarrassed to recommend this one to anybody, even if I'm giving it to them for free.Reading it was a waste of time.David Hagberg's "V5", the second story of the three in this book, was okay.Not great, but okay.

The first story, by Stephen Coonts, "The Sea Witch", was on the level of a junior high school writing project.Poorly written, with a weak plot, I felt robbed of my time when I finished reading it.It's a short story, so I finished it, but I felt foolish for continuing my reading after I realized how poor it was.

Barrett Tillman's "Flame at Tarawa" was marginally better, but really not by much.

Don't waste your money on this book.If you feel the need to connect with WWII heroics, take your $7 and give it to a veterans' charity!You'll feel much better afterwards than you would if you spent the money on this dreck and wasted your time reading it. ... Read more

Product Description
A historic landmark work, depicting war as it is and soon will be-the shape of war to come.

Featuring:

Harold Coyle, reporting from the front lines of the information war, where cyberpunks are recruited to combat the growing swarm of hackers who orchestrate online terrorism around the world.

Ralph Peters, who takes us to the war-torn Balkan states, where a U.S. Army observer sent to keep an eye on the civil war is taken on a guided tour of the country at gunpoint, captured by the very people he was sent to monitor.

James Cobb, pitting one U.S. Cavalry unit against an aggressive Algerian recon division in an attempt to protect a defenseless African nation.

R. J. Pineiro who goes into the far reaches of space where a terrorist holds the world captive from a nuclear equipped space platform.
Amazon.com Review
Will the next war be fought in cyberspace? Stephen Coonts, author of thewatershed military novel, Flight of the Intruder, offers thiscollection of 11 21st-century novellas for fans of contemporary andnear-future military fiction. Technology is the binding element ofCombat, and fans of Tom Clancy's high-tech military espionagethrillers will find much to love, from ultra-smart weapons to the technicalinfrastructure of the armed forces of the future. Don't expect hard corescience fiction; the villains are of the more realistic variety:terrorists, rogue governments, and outlaw technology. Some of these storiesare encumbered with a level of detail only the serious enthusiast willenjoy. (Dale Brown's "Leadership Material" has whole passages describingregs and paperwork that will bore all but the most ardent fans of thegenre.) Highlights include Harold W. Coyle's fast-paced "Cyberknights," themost likely candidate from this collection to become a big-budget featurefilm. --Brendan LaSalle ... Read more

Customer Reviews (15)

War: on earth, in outer space, and in cyberspace
"Combat, Volume 3" is edited with an introduction by Stephen Coonts.This book collects four short novels in the genre of military fiction.The first piece is "Cyberknights," by Harold Coyle.This tale looks into the work of a unit of U.S. Army computer specialists who wage war on the electronic frontier.Although the Internet is their vehicle, their warfare has real world consequences.Coyle creates an intriguing portrait of a unique military unit with its own jargon, protocols, and evolving culture; he raises potent issues of leadership and ethics in an Army facing profound technological and cultural change.

The second short novel is "There Is No War in Melnica," by Ralph Peters.This tale follows the mission of a two-person U.S. Army team investigating wartime atrocities in the Balkans.In straightforward but powerful prose, Peters creates a graphically violent and bloody tale.It is a devastating look at how war and ethnic hatred warp and degrade human beings.Through his characters Peters raises the incisive question: How should the Unted States respond to global acts of genocide?It's a gripping, suspenseful, and even heartbreaking story.

Third in the collection is "Cav," by James Cobb.This tale, set in the year 2021, follows the exploits of an Army unit in combat with hostile Algerian forces in Africa.The story goes into detail about the unit's high-tech weaponry and vehicles, and also explores the personalities of the team.The unit includes both men and women, and is diverse along both ethnic and religious lines.

The fourth and final short novel is "Flight of _Endeavor_," by R.J. Pineiro.When the International Space Station is seized by a mutinous crew member with a deadly agenda, the space shuttle _Endeavor_ is sent with an emergency response team that has orders to retake the station.The story's protagonist is a female former Marine aviator who now serves as an astronaut and shuttle commander.This is an action packed, high-tech thriller that offers an interesting look at a woman in command.Overall, "Combat 3" is a very entertaining and thought-provoking gathering of tales; it's an outstanding addition to the military fiction genre.

One lemon and three peaches
I picked this book up from an airport bookstall to while away a transatlantic flight, and came very close indeed to binning it after a dozen pages. What a shame that the editor should have put Harold Coyle's "Cyberknights" first of the four short stories in this collection. The other three are fine, but Coyle - although I hate to say it - has lost his bearings. "Cyberknights" has a promising theme: a special team of computer hackers is recruited by the US Army to defend against hostile hackers from other countries. Working closely with real soldiers and agencies like the NSA, these "Cyberknights" (yes, the pompous title is capitalised every time) also strike back against the countries they *think* are encouraging hostile activities. In the story, they respond to a hack that nearly splashes a flight of F16 fighter jets into the ocean by changing their flight orders "in the computer". (What computer this is, and why the USAF would be stupid enough to link it to the Internet, is not explained). The Cyberknights' response? They engineer the destruction of a chemical plant in the supposed aggressor country.

Apart from being ethically dubious to say the least, the Cyberknights are ludicrous to anyone who knows the first thing about computer security. When counterattacking a hacker's PC, they see fit to upload a huge coloured picture of a charging knight - just to give warning of their intentions. It is clear that Coyle knows little about computers and the Internet, and he has made the mistake of assuming his readers know even less.

"There is no war in Melnica" by Ralph Peters could not be more different. Instead of florid, pretentious fantasies supported by inadequate research, this is a simple, poignant vignette of the NATO intervention in the Balkans and its aftermath. Right from its opening words - "The workman tossed him a skull" - Peters grabs your attention and doesn't let go. With admirable economy of words, he shows you the senselessness of war, the impossibility of identifying the "good" (our allies) from the "bad" (our enemies), and the unbridgeable gulf between those who have been there and the distant politicians and brass who set events in motion without any idea of the consequences - even in retrospect.

James Cobb's "Cav" is a tightly-written, exciting example of a genre in which Coyle ("Team Yankee", "Bright Star") and Peters ("Red Army" and "The War in 2020") have excelled. In 2021 the Islamic Republic of Algeria launches a Blitzkrieg invasion of its southern neighbour Mali, one of the poorest nations on earth. While heavy US and French forces are on the way, a small US Army detachment is sent to head off the Algerian armoured column, if possible, at the only pass through the strategic El Khnachich range of hills. It is a perfect scenario: the superior American equipment (with the advantage of surprise) is pitted against overwhelming force.

R J Pineiro's "Flight of Endeavour" is the longest of the four stories, at 130 pages - but there is no danger of getting bored. What if the International Space Station housed, at the request of the UN, an array of 15 kiloton yield non-nuclear missiles for "anti-terrorist" purposes - and a terrorist happened to seize control of them? A female astronaut and a heavily armed team of Marines go up in a modified Space Shuttle to reclaim the weapons. Unfortunately, the space station is also equipped with a powerful chemical laser... It's a thrilling, thought-provoking situation, none the worse for having been anticipated by 50 years in Robert Heinlein's classic short story "The Long Watch" (1949).

Apart from "CyberKnights", this book is well written, exciting, and ideal for the purpose I had in mind - distraction during a long flight. It also gave me some great ideas, and Peters' story explained more about the Balkans to me than ten years of news reports. Recommended - if you don't like the Coyle story, just skip it and read the rest.

Good reading - a taste of 3 well-known authors
These are all good novellas, but I found that the Larry Bond story (Lash-up) dragged at times (and the giant 'rifle' should have been explained better for those unfamiliar with the concept) and the Dale Brown book was more than a bit preachy, but the combat sequences were top-notch. The third novella (Breaking Point) by David Hagberg was, in my opinion, the best of the three. I've never read Hagberg before but I will keep him on my list of authors to watch for.

2 Direct Hits and 1 Huge Miss...Groundbreaking? Hardly
Few books live up to the hyperbole of their backcovers.The first installment of the Combat series edited by Stephen Coontz is no exception, "Groundbreaking Landmark" sounded suspicious...and the first story in the first volume, by Larry Bond, confirmed my suspicions.A huge fan of Bond's first novel, Red Phoenix, I've never been very satisfied with his subsequent material.This is probably the worst I've seen from him.A plot that's hardly engaging, card-board characters (with cheesy dialogue) that aren't the least bit interesting, and some of the poorest editing I've ever seen combine to make his installment a chore.At one point he refers Vietnamese flashpoints between the U.S. and China (that have no bearing on the story's plot) but offers no set up for them.We're just supposed to assume that the U.S. and China had been at odds over Vietnam for a long time...it made no sense.Bond's contribution was just dull dull dull.

Then we get to Dale Brown's installment, "Leadership Material".This one succeeds in many places where Bond's installment failed.Its characters are instantly likable.And, while the combat passages are brief, they are harrowing.I found the shennanigans that surround Air Force promotions boards (the primary plot devise herein) to be extremely entertaining - I doubt many others will, though - I'm going up against a board soon myself, it was nice to have an inside scoop.

The back cover of the book suggests it portrays war the way it is or soon will be.Brown's novel takes place back in the early 1990's...another strike against the jacket hype.Great story, though.

The story that will have the broadest appeal (its an absorbing read!) is the entry from the always-reliable David Hagberg.Hagberg (who recently wrote the novelization of the Terminator 3 film) has made a name for himself over recent years penning submarine thrillers.The brief installment in this series is part submarine plot and part espionage thriller.It may not be the most accurate but it is by far the most entertaining of the lot.

Brown's and Hagberg's work here are worth 4 or 5 stars.Bond's installment and the ludicrous hyperbole on the cover knock it down to three.I'd recommend it.

Combat #3-Good War Stories!
Combat #3 offered up four good stories by four good authors.
The first story was written by Harold Coyle.He told of a special Army unit made up of cyber warriors. They are recruited to combat the growing attacks by hackers whocause online terrorism around the world. The next story is by Ralph Peters. His story takes place in the Balkan states. A U.S. Army observer is taken hostage by the people he is sent over to observe.James Cobb tells of a U.S. calvary unit that does combat with an Algerian recon division that is attempting to attack a helpless African country.R.J. Pineiro,one of the rising stars among today's authors tells of a Russian terrorist seizes a space station
equipped with nuclear warheads.It is up to Marine Diane Williams to stop him.Four good stories for the price of one. Read this. You will enjoy it. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Excellent story, makes you think
The story of the first female to be assigned as a Mechanized Infantry Platoon Leader. She is thrust into action in a war with Mexico and proves that women have what it takes to be in combat arms. ... Read more

Product Description
Word count: 1544. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Brother Against Brother
Harold Coyle, in this sprawling novel of the American Civil War, attempts to tell the fictional story of the Bannon brothers - Irish immigrants who, due to the machinations of their father, find themselves on opposite sides during the conflagration of 1861-1865.In this he is only partially successful, as the characters are not terribly well fleshed out, even though Coyle spends more than 600 pages writing about them.

There is a great deal of repetition - I lost count after seven instances of description of soldiers retreating by walking backwards in order to avoid being shot in the back, and this is only one of the areas of narrative that is repeated.Further, the editing/proofreading is abominable.A character's diary becomes her "dairy," for one example.This is not a novel published by a penny ante press - the errors that have been allowed to slip through are the result of sheer laziness.

Having said this, I confess that I have already started reading the sequel, Until the End, because I want to find out what happens with the other characters.While James and Kevin Bannon are not particularly compelling, the supporting cast - Harriet, Mary Beth, Edward, Marty and others, are extremely interesting, and so I continue in order to see their stories come to fruition.

Look Away is recommended for Civil War historical fiction completists only.It is slow going, and not particularly rewarding.For truly great historical fiction, albeit focusing only on the three days of Gettysburg, re-reading Killer Angels by Michael Shaara is a much better bet. ... Read more