Warriors

For this mammoth collection, 20 award-winning, bestselling authors (including the editors) were commissioned to write original stories about warriors, with no other parameters. The result is an unpredictable assortment, where SF and fantasy rub elbows with mystery, historical, and military fiction, and even a western. The Vikings of Cecilia Holland’s “The King of Norway,” the secret community in Howard Waldrop’s WWI tale, “Ninieslando,” and the rogue AIs in Dozois’s own “Recidivist” provide a little something for everyone. Urban fantasy author Carrie Vaughn turns in “The Girls from Avenger,” a straight historical piece about female WWII pilots, while historical fantasist Naomi Novik’s “Seven Years from Home” is pure SF. There are a few clunkers, but on the whole, the editors succeed admirably in their mission to break down genre barriers and focus on pure entertainment. (Mar.)