Combat Monsters: Untold Tales of World War II

Herz (Red Stars and Shattered Shields) makes good on the fascinating premise of his latest anthology, bringing together 20 high-octane stories that add terrifying monsters to the battlefields of WWII. The creatures range from the familiar—the vampires in Peter Clines’s “The Night Crew”—to the more obscure, including taniwha, a monstrous serpent from New Zealand, which features in Lee Murray’s “Breakout.” That variety is also manifested in the list of contributors, which puts genre titans like Jane Yolen and Jonathan Maberry alongside relative unknowns. Herz himself provides one of the collection’s standout tales, the gripping, Soviet Union–set “Das Mammut.” In it, Germany deploys the eponymous weapon, a supersized “walking battleship,” and the Soviets summon a dragon to counter it. Jeff Edwards’s “The Fourth Man” is another highlight, told as an English academic’s confession to his priest about his battlefield clash with “a mountain-sized sea crab or lobster, with arms like a gigantic octopus.” All the entries provide gritty depictions of the fog of war and combat stresses that facilitate suspending disbelief at the introduction of mythic creatures. Fans of alternate history and military horror will want to check this out. (Feb.)