Breach the Hull

Defending the Future #1

by Mike McPhail (Editor), Jack McDevitt, Patrick Thomas

HARDCORE NEGOTIATIONS HAVE BEGUNS First in the Defending The Future anthology series. Get Ready for plenty of action-packed military science fiction as the dogs-of-war are let loose on an unsuspecting universe in sixteen hard-hitting stories by: Jack McDevitt, John C. Wright, Mike McPhail, James Danielle Ross, Danielle Ackley-McPhail, James Chambers, Jeffrey Lyman, John G. Hemry ( Jack Campbell ), Bud Sparhawk, Lawrence M. Schoen, Patrick Thomas, Tony Ruggiero, and C.J. Henderson. Winner of the Dream Awards for Best Anthology.

Genres: Science Fiction, Fiction, War

222 pages, Paperback

First published September 14, 2007

About the author

Mike McPhail is the award winning Author and Anthologist of the military science fiction series Defending The Future, published by Dark Quest Books, and editor of the publisher's DTF Publications imprint. He is a member of the Military Writers Society of America (MWSA), and the creator of the Alliance Archives (All'Arc) series and its related Martial Role-Playing Game (MRPG), a manual-based, percentile system, that realistically portrays the consequences of warfare.

Born into a military / engineering family, his lifelong dream was to join NASA and become a mission specialist; to that end, he attended the Academy of Aeronautics in New York, as well as enlisting in the Air National Guard. While working towards his goal, a sudden illness brought a halt to these dreams.

After recovering, he came to grips with his new reality; so he chose to put his hard-earned technical skills and imagination to use as a graphic artist, writer/editor and game designer.

To learn more about his work visit:
www.mcp-concepts.com
www.defendingthefuture.com
www.milscifi.com

Reviews

[Lawrence Schoen · Rating 4 out of 5]

This anthology had a rough birth, going through three different publishers before finally finding a home at DarkQuest where it has not only flourished, it has spawned an entire series.

When I was invited to contribute to this anthology I was a bit hesitant; I'd never written Military SF before. I'd never read much of it either. And, needless to say, I've never served in the miliary (SFnal or otherwise). With my contribution to the book, "Thresher," I skirted the requirements of writing Mil SF and wrote a pirate story set in space instead. It should be noted, I'd never written a pirate story before either.

[Tony · Rating 4 out of 5]

A collection of military S.F. from a well mixed group of authors, both new and established. Found it a good source for some new authors to investigate.

[Michael Burnam-Fink · Rating 4 out of 5]

Breath the Hull is a very 'swingey' military sci-fi short story collection. The best stories are "Cryptic" by Jack McDevitt, and "Peter Power Armor" and "Forgotten Causes" by John C. Wright, which lead off the collection with the best kind of sideways meditations on existence that SF is capable of. From there, the stories move through more or less forgettable exploits of space marines and space pirates, and doomed soldiers executing impossible orders. But for the price is a good read, and the stinkers are easily skipped.

[Linda · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fabulous anthology of short stories. I enjoy short stories. It gives me a taste of so many authors that I often look for to read their full length novels. However, the most chilling story from this book, is a story by Danielle Ackley-McPhail. I still have nightmares from it. But I do re-read it! LOL

[Julia]

This is a book of short stories, mostly military-oriented science fiction. Only one story is by Jack Campbell. (I had chosen the book based on the author under whom it was listed.)

The ebook does not have an interactive table of contents. There is a table of contents at the beginning, obviously copied from the print version, so the page numbers listed don't match up with the page numbers in the ebook. This made it very hard to find where each story began or ended, so I couldn't just skip from one to another or look for the authors whom I was more interested in.

Since it is short stories I had kept it as something to go back to periodically, but eventually gave up in frustration.

[Justin · Rating 1 out of 5]

Most of the stories are dull, action movie style pulp offering cliches, stupidly macho characters, bad dialogue, and nothing new by way of theme or content. I was surprised at the sheer number of typos and grammatical errors found in nearly every story, giving the works a very rushed, sloppy feel. Peter Power Armor was the only story worth a close read. This was my first and last venture into what I thought might be the exciting world of military sci-fi.

[Zare · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great military SF short-story collection. My favorites are stories by Jack McDevitt and James Daniel Ross.[return][return]Great stories (and not all are military per-se which makes this even better collection). Recommended.

[R. Alexander · Rating 4 out of 5]

An excellent collection of stories, some are much better than others (there were a couple that shouldn't have been included, in all honesty). A great collection of stories if you're a die-hard military SF reader.

[Robert · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fine collection of military-themed science fiction short stories.

[Gary]

Good collection of short stories. Best: black to move

[Erin Penn]

Received as part of the Defending the Future anthology Kickstarter from eSpec Books.