War stories are about fighting, of course, but the more thoughtful ones – like David Drake’s tales of Hammer’s Slammers, an mercenary regiment that fights other people’s wars on distant planets, unspecified centuries in the future – aren’t just (or even primarily) about that. They’re about the people who do the fighting, and what the experience of being in combat does to them. So it is with the stories in Caught in the Crossfire, the second in a series of omnibus volumes collecting the stories of the Slammers in (according to the publisher’s blurb) the order that Drake prefers.

Containing two novels originally published separately (The Warrior and Counting the Cost), along with two previously published short stories (“Caught in the Crossfire” and “Interrogation Team,”) and a novella written specifically for the book (“The Immovable Object”), Caught in the Crossfire certainly delivers good value for the money. It also delivers considerable variety. “The Warrior” is a dual character study that uses combat as a backdrop, and “Counting the Cost” is a meditation on the use of violence as a tool in domestic politics. “The Immovable Object” and “Caught in the Crossfire” look at the Slammers through the eyes of the locals whose wars they fight, and “Interrogation Team” lets one of the Slammers see the war he’s fighting literally through the eyes of a local, with unexpected results.

Every story in the book shows off Drake’s smooth professionalism as a writer, and if none of them quite approaches the brilliance of “Rolling Hot” – the best story in the earlier Slammers omnibus, The Tank Lords -- the collection is, as a whole, perhaps even better. It is, certainly, darker and grittier, with most stories ending on a note of grim resignation: “I’m alive, and the ones who shot at me are dead, and that makes it a good day.” ( )

It's a great one: Caught int he crossfire is a great read for Drake newbies. He's a wonderful author, and this book is one of many of his great Sci-fi works.