3.5 

Combat Monsters

By Henry Herz & Joshua Palmatier &
Combat Monsters by Henry Herz & Joshua Palmatier &  digital book - Fable

Publisher Description

Combat Monsters brings together twenty award-winning and bestselling speculative fiction authors who each bring their own spin on an alternate history of World War II.

New research has uncovered deeply buried military secrets—both the Allied and Axis special operations during World War II included monsters. Did the Soviets use a dragon to win the Battle of Kursk? Did a vampire fight for the Canadians in Holland? Did the US drop the second atomic bomb on a kaiju?

This collection takes real events from World War II and injects them with fantastical creatures that mirror the “unreality” of war itself. Each story—and two poems—feature mythical, mystical, and otherwise unexplainable beings that change the course of history. Dragons rise and fall, witches cast deadly spells, mermaids reroute torpedoes, and all manner of “monsters” intervene for better or worse in the global turmoil of World War II.

Together, Combat Monsters challenge the very definition of monstrous, with the brutality of war as a sobering backdrop.

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Combat Monsters Reviews

3.5
“Thanks to NetGalley and Blackstone Publishing for this audio arc. A concise set of stories meshing monsters with the atrocities of WWII. Vampires, witches, werewolves, dragons, krakens, genetically modified humans and animals, and DNA-altered bears, oh my. I particularly appreciated the generous take on “monster” as well as the shaping of war being the true evil. I don’t tend to enjoy war stuff that alters historical events in any big way as I feel it takes away from the people that paid for the outcome with their lives, and I’m glad to say this one skirted that exceptionally. The editor asked each contributor to ground their story in fact, within real events, but the outcomes were the same and the supernatural elements were simply helping or layered within. I enjoyed how each story took readers to a new place, a new perspective, a new country even. Including countries I wasn’t even aware took part in the war. We traveled the world and learned of the supernatural just under the surface. We read stories from the beginning of the war, and we read stories from the very bombing that ended the war. The variety within is really what makes this collection so special. Particular stand outs included a story that acted as almost an unauthorized sequel to Dracula and the Demeter, a werewolf that’s helped by something else, a crazy croctopus taking out strike teams, and the farming bears. I apologize because as I did the audio, which I typically do while driving, I didn’t think to note the names/authors!”

About Henry Herz

Henry Herz has authored fourteen picture books and edited eight anthologies for Albert Whitman & Co., Blackstone Publishing, and others. His short stories have been published by Weird Tales, Baen Books, Pseudopod, Metastellar, Titan Books, Highlights for Children, and Ladybug magazine. He holds a BS in engineering from Cornell University, an MS in engineering from George Washington University, and an MA in political science from Georgetown University.

Joshua Palmatier

Joshua Palmatier was born in Coudersport, PA, but since his father was in the military he moved around. A lot. He started writing science fiction and fantasy novels and short stories in the eighth grade, and hasn’t stopped writing since. He now resides in upstate New York, where he teaches mathematics at the State University of New York.

Eugen Bacon

Eugen Bacon is an African Australian author of several novels and fiction collections as well as Writing Speculative Fiction. Her books Ivory's Story, Danged Black Thing, and Saving Shadows were finalists for the British Science Fiction Association Awards, and she has been nominated for, or has won awards, including the Foreword Indies Award, Bridport Prize, Copyright Agency Prize, Horror Writers Association Diversity Grant, Otherwise Fellowship, Nommo Award, and others. Bacon's creative work has appeared in Award Winning Australian Writing, Fantasy magazine, Year's Best African Speculative Fiction, and Fantasy & Science Fiction.

Jeff Edwards

Jeff Edwards is a retired Navy chief and anti-submarine warfare specialist. From chasing Soviet submarines during the Cold War to launching cruise missiles in the Persian Gulf, he had a military career of twenty-three years that spanned the globe. He lives in California with his wife and family where he works as a military consultant.

Peter Clines

Peter Clines is the New York Times bestselling author of The Broken Room, Paradox Bound, several books set in the Threshold universe, and the Ex-Heroes series. He grew up in the Stephen King fallout zone of Maine and—inspired by comic books, Star Wars, and Saturday morning cartoons—began writing horrible X-Men and Boba Fett stories at an early age. Clines lives in southern California. Visit his website at www.PeterClines.com.

Bishop O’Connell

Bishop O’Connell authored the fantasy novels The Stolen, The Forgotten, Three Promises, and The Returned, all from Harper Voyager Impulse.

Tori Eldridge

Tori Eldridge is the author of The Ninja’s Oath, book four in the Lily Wong thriller series—nominated for the Anthony, Lefty, and Macavity Awards, winner of the 2021 Crimson Scribe Best Book of the Year—and the Brazilian dark fantasy Dance among the Flames. Her shorter works appear in numerous anthologies. A former actress, singer, and dancer on Broadway, television, and film, Tori holds a fifth-degree black belt in To-Shin Do ninja martial arts. ToriEldridge.com.

Harry Turtledove

Harry Turtledove, known as the “Master of Alternative History,” is the Hugo and Nebula Award–winning author of a number of bestselling series and standalone novels. He received his PhD from UCLA in Byzantine history and worked as a technical writer for the Los Angeles County Office of Education before becoming a full-time fiction writer. He also served as the treasurer of the Science Fiction Writers of America. He has written a number of successful series, including the Crosstime Traffic series, the Darkness series, and the Worldwar I Colonization series, among others. His standalone works include Ruled Brittania, Every Inch a King, Conan of Venarium, Household Gods, and Justinian.

Catherine Stine

Catherine Stine is a USA Today bestselling author of historical fantasy, paranormal romance, sci-fi thrillers, and young adult fiction. Witch of the Wild Beasts won a second prize spot in the 2019 RWA Sheila Contest. Other novels have earned Indie No-table awards and New York Public Library Best Books for Teens.

Gaby Triana

Gaby Triana is the Cuban American author of twenty-five books for adults and teens, including Moon Child, Island of Bones, River of Ghosts, City of Spells, Wake the Hollow, Cubanita, and Summer of Yesterday. Her short stories have appeared in Classic Monsters Unleashed, A Tribute to Alvin Schwartz’s Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark, A Conjuring for All Seasons, Novus Monstrum, and Weird Tales Magazine. She has coauthored ghost hunters Sam and Colby’s horror novel, Paradise Island, and edited the ghost anthology series Literally Dead (Tales of Halloween Hauntings and Tales of Holiday Hauntings). Her books have won the IRA Teen Choice Award, ALA Best Paperback, and Hispanic magazine’s Good Reads awards.

Ann Dávila Cardinal

Ann Dávila Cardinal is a novelist and director of recruitment for the Vermont College of Fine Arts where she also earned her MFA degree in writing. She comes from a long line of Puerto Rican writers, including father and son poets Virgilio and José Antonio Dávila and her cousin, award-winning fiction writer Tere Dávila.

Jonathan Maberry

Jonathan Maberry is a New York Times bestselling author, five-time Bram Stoker Award winner, four-time Scribe Award winner, Inkpot Award winner, and comic book writer. His vampire apocalypse book series, V-Wars, became a Netflix original series. He writes horror, science fiction, epic fantasy, thrillers, and more. He is the president of the International Association of Media Tie-in Writers and the editor of Weird Tales magazine.

Andrea Tang

Andrea Tang pens fiction by night and collects geopolitical gossip by day. A graduate of Bryn Mawr College and the University of Oxford, she’s also a perpetually recovering theater kid, Fulbright scholar, former pentathlete, tae kwon do black belt, and serial dabbler in various martial and movement arts. Among other things, she enjoys superheroes, giant robots, and the endless versatility of pie.

Kevin Andrew Murphy

Kevin Andrew Murphy is an American novelist and game writer currently living in Reno, Nevada. He is a graduate of the University of California, Santa Cruz, and has a masters of professional writing from the University of Southern California. He has written game books and fiction for Steve Jackson Games and White Wolf, including the solo Mage novel Penny Dreadful, and fiction for numerous anthologies. He is one of the contributors to the Wild Cards series edited by George R. R. Martin, for which his story “Find the Lady” in Mississippi Roll won the 2019 Darrell Award for Best Midsouth Novella.

Jeremy Robinson

Jeremy Robinson is the author of bestselling thrillers, including XOM-B, SecondWorld, The Last Hunter: Descent, Project Nemesis, and the Jack Sigler thrillers, including Threshold and Ragnarok. His novels have been translated into ten languages. He began his creative career as a comic book illustrator and screenwriter.

Tanya Huff

Tanya Huff spent three years in the Canadian Naval Reserve then earned a degree in radio and television arts from Ryerson Polytechnical Institute. She is the author of numerous short stories and more than twenty novels, including the bestselling Blood books, the Smoke series, and the Keeper’s Chronicles. She has been the guest of honor at numerous American and Canadian conventions, and her work has been nominated for several awards, including winning the Aurora Award for Best Novel. She lives in Ontario, Canada.

various authors

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