I’ve reviewed over a dozen Hank Davis anthologies and collections. You know you’re in good hands with Hank Davis whose ability to choose excellent stories and to provide insight into the author and the story is stellar!
At 463 pages, Time Troopers is one of Hank Davis’s longer anthologies. This happens because Davis includes two novellas: A. E. Van Vogt’s “Recruiting Station” (aka, Master of Time and Earth’s Last Fortress) and H. Beam Piper’s “Time Crime.” Both are about 100 pages long.
In addition to the long Van Vogt and Piper stories, Davis brings some classics like Robert A. Heinlein’s classic “All You Zombies…” I should have known this before, but Davis tells the story about Playboy reaching out to Heinlein to write a story for that magazine. Heinlein submitted “All You Zombies…” but the folks at Playboy didn’t know how to deal with it. So they returned it to Heinlein who sent it to The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction. The rest is History!
Davis likes to surprise the readers with uncommon stories like Keith Laumer’s “The Long Remembered Thunder” and Paul Anderson’s “Delenda Est.” Edmond Hamilton wrote many time travel stories and novels, but “Comrades in Time” is one of his best. Fritz Leiber, like Leinster, wrote some excellent time travel stories. One of his best, “The Oldest Soldier,” shows how versatile a writer he was.
If you’re a fan of time travel stories, you need to check out Hank Davis’s Time Troopers. GRADE: A
TABLE OF CONTENTS:
Introduction: From Here to Eternity… and Back Again by Hank Davis — 3
“All You Zombies—” by Robert A. Heinlein (The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, March 1959) — 17
“The Archaenaut” by Christopher Ruocchio (original to this volume) — 31
“The Long Remembered Thunder” by Keith Laumer (Worlds of Tomorrow, April 1963) — 55
“Delenda Est” by Poul Anderson (The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, December 1955) — 91
“Evading History” by Hank Davis (original) — 133
“Recruiting Station” by A.E. Van Vogt (Astounding Science-Fiction, March 1942) — 139
“The Oldest Soldier” by Fritz Leiber (The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, May 1960) — 221
“House of Bones” by Robert Silverberg (Terry’s Universe, 1988) — 239
“Free Time” by Sarah A. Hoyt & Robert A. Hoyt (original) — 261
“Choosers of the Slain” by John C. Wright (Clockwork Phoenix, 2008) — 281
“Against the Lafayette Escadrille” by Gene Wolfe (Again, Dangerous Visions, 1972) — 289
“Doctor Quiet” by Jacob Holo (original) — 293
“Remember the Alamo” by T.R. Fehrenbach (Analog Science Fact – Science Fiction, December 1961) — 313
“Comrades of Time” by Edmond Hamilton (Weird Tales, March 1939) — 325
“Time Crime” by H. Beam Piper (Astounding Science-Fiction, February and March 1955) — 359
About the Authors — 455