The Complete Hammer's Slammers: Volume I »

David Drake was attending Duke University Law School when he was drafted. He served the next two years in the Army, spending 1970 as an enlisted interrogator with the 11th armored Cavalry in Viet Nam and Cambodia. Upon return he completed his law degree at Duke and was for eight years Assistant Town Attorney for Chapel Hill, North Carolina. He has been a full-time freelance writer since 1981. Besides the best-selling Hammer’s Slammers series, his books for Baen include the popular Leary of the RCN series, with seven volumes so far: With the Lightnings; Lt. Leary, Commanding; The Far Side of the Stars; The Way to Glory; Some Golden Harbor, When the Tide Rises and In the Stormy Red Sky. His “Lord of the Isles” fantasy novels for Tor are genre best sellers. Among his other Baen titles are Ranks of Bronze, All the Way to the Gallows, Redliners, and many more.

With a veteran’s eye for the harsh and gritty details of war, David Drake depicts a futuristic analog of tank combat in his Hammer’s Slammers fiction. The Slammers are neither cartoon heroes nor propaganda villains; rather they are competent professionals engaged in a deadly business. The inevitable conflicts between policy, necessity, and human nature make Drake’s Slammers fiction instantly identifiable and utterly compelling. This is the first of a three volume set presenting for the first time the entire genre-defining Slammers series in a uniform trade paperback set, with new introductions by major SF figures and new afterwords by David Drake. Each volume will also include a Slammers story not collected in previous Slammer’s books.

“Fans of Drake's edgy stories of a mercenary tank regiment in a future not all that different from our present will rejoice [at the publication of] the entire series in three volumes. Drake, a Vietnam vet who served in the Blackhorse Regiment, uses prose as cold and hard as the metal alloy of a tank to portray the men and women of Hammer's Regiment. . . . In his depiction of combat, Drake rivals Crane and Remarque.”

—Publishers Weekly, reviewing the Night Shade hardcover edition

Publishers Weekly

Fans of Drake's edgy stories of a mercenary tank regiment in a future not all that different from our present will rejoice that Night Shade is issuing the entire series in three volumes. Drake, a Vietnam vet who served in the Blackhorse Regiment, uses prose as cold and hard as the metal alloy of a tank to portray the men and women of Hammer's Regiment as neither cartoon heroes nor propaganda villains but as competent professionals trying to survive in a deadly business. His bad guys are typically the politicians and extremists who think that war can be desirable and positive when it's merely sadly necessary. In "The Butcher's Bill," we see how every line trooper makes policy regardless of higher wishes, while "Hangman" shows the ethical dilemmas facing a soldier of conscience. If the 21 stories collected here present an episodic account of the Slammers' history, that's because this is the way that the line soldier experiences a campaign. In his depiction of combat, Drake (The Way to Glory) rivals Crane and Remarque. (Feb.) Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.