Combat

Combat is the 2001 military-thriller anthology edited by Stephen Coonts, with original novellas from Coonts, Dale Brown (whose name actually appears on the spine because of his series cachet), Larry Bond, James Cobb, Ralph Peters, David Hagberg, R. J. Pineiro, Harold Coyle, and Barrett Tillman. Each novella is a near-future conflict scenario from its author’s established universe, sized for a single sitting: a Russian special-forces deniable op, a Chinese carrier confrontation, a Balkan stay-behind problem, and so on.

Anthologies of this kind are uneven by design, and Combat is no exception. The Dale Brown novella (a Patrick McLanahan piece extending the Air Battle Force continuity) is competent series fan service. The Stephen Coonts novella is sharper, partly because the short length forces him to cut the cockpit fetish for actual plot. The Larry Bond Cauldron-adjacent piece is the strongest of the set, with the multinational-staff command-and-control texture his novels are known for. The weak entries are weak in the way the genre is weak: thin antagonists, telegraphed reveals, expository dialogue.

Recommended for readers who already follow these authors’ series and want short-form supplements, and for anyone looking for books like Combat as a sampler of late-1990s/early-2000s American military-thriller writing. Three stars, with the Larry Bond entry doing the heavy lifting.