Armored

I bought this book based on a recommendation from both Amazon and Goodreads that those who had read John Steakley's "Armor" would enjoy it. I am happy to report that they were correct. As with all short story anthologies, there were a few that missed the mark in my opinion. The majority however did exactly what Orson Scott Card and John Joseph Adams said was planned: explored the relationship between Mech and Man... explored the limits of both man and machine... explored futures where being human means something different from what you might expect.Several of these stories had me reading author bios to find out where I could read more of their writings. Two of the best, as you might expect, come from Michael Stackpole and Brandon Sanderson. That is not to take anything away from any of the other amazing stories, but these two did such a good job exploring the emotions and building the worlds around the armor that I found myself disappointed when I got to the last page and found an end instead of another chapter or volume.If this is the quality of anthology that Adams commonly puts together, I will have to find more of them.

As usual in a collection of short stories, you will find that you like some better the others and there even be a few which you simply did not like at all. It is largely a matter of personal taste. As far as I am concerned, I found that 7-8 were superb, another dozen were good to very good, and there were about 3 that I did not like. I will refrain from telling you which ones and why, partly because other reviewers have already mentioned their own preferences and partly because I do not trust myself to avoid spoilers.My three favourite stories were Power Armour: A love story, where a man from the future has to remain permanently in his power armour to prevent him from being murdered, Don Quixote, which takes place towards the end of the Spanish Civil War, as the Republicans are about to lose, and the rather horrific and nightmarish Helmet where human beings are imprisoned into powered armour and commit atrocities. However, this does not mean in any away that the 20 other stories were not good. It only means that my personal and very subjective preferences went to these three.As hinted to above, I very much liked this collection and most of its stories. However, the higher the number of stories included, and the higher the chances that there will be at least one of them that you may not like.Accordingly, since it is unlikely that someone would like ALL of the stories and think that they are all wonderful, it is also somewhat unlikely that the book deserves five stars. For me, there were three weaker stories. This is less than 15% of the total number, implying a four star rating...

I grew up loving mecha stories and once I heard about this anthology I couldn't wait to get my hands on it. After reading through it the collection opened me up to some differing points of view on powered armor. Every story and every author tells a unique story from a unique perspective. The art of the short story in the last decade has been overlooked in favor of multi-book stories detailing a continuous and expansive universe, but these short stories go the opposite direction and give you snippets into other realities in a very satisfactory manner.

Each of these stories was high quality, exploring the contrast between msn and machine, with augmented strength and sensory capabilities actually emphasizing just what is so important a bout being human. Highly recommend.

For fans of John Steakly, this is a tribute to his Armor novel, from a group of notable SF authors.

The book:I've only read a couple stories from this collection, but they were really good. I am excited to read the others.Its condition:Not bad. The book is a bit spine-cocked, but other than that it is as described, that is, "very good" condition.

Wow I got it and thought I'd hate this little book and was pleasantly surprised and engaged in almost every story except one, Heuristic Algorhithm...etc. So boring had to skip it, but the rest were all good to really good to great and even fascinating. Not just military action stories but some real futuristic tech and sci fi mental experiments in technological/social/emotional futurism and some really solid predictions and fun to read hor differently so many authors can spin the same basic assignment. Worth the read.

...not just about the evolution of the military aspects of human conflict, but the human condition and the underlying question of what it means to be human. Very interesting collection that has led me to buy several additional full length SF novels with similar theme. Of course, there is some serious combat, violence and destruction, but there is more here than meets the sensors...and it is well worth your time.