| Title | : | War Stories from the Future |
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | |
| ISBN | : | 1619779609 |
| Language | : | English |
| Format Type | : | free online |
| Number of Pages | : | 161 |
| Publication | : | First published November 9, 2015 |
- Martin Dempsey, foreword to War Stories from the Future
War Stories from the Future is the culmination of the Atlantic Council Art of Future Warfare project’s first year exploring the future of armed and social conflict.
Featuring a foreword by Martin Dempsey, former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the collection features new science fiction stories, as well as the project’s contest-winning short-story writers and visual artists.
The anthology explores many of the most important looming issues in defense and security, but in a way that no white paper or policy brief can.
To do so, the project commissioned established writers such as Ken Liu (privateers in cyber war) and Madeline Ashby (war breaking out in the world’s most connected city in Korea as experienced by its least connected population, street vendors), Jamie Metzl (the operational implications of bio-enhanced targeting and weaponry), Mathew Burrows (effective foresight in intelligence), and project Director August Cole, who edited the collection (swarm warfare and crowd-sourced intelligence). The collection also features two stories from best-selling science-fiction writer David Brin (the nature of heroes and warriors) and Linda Nagata (linked ground combat overseen from afar).
Crowd sourcing is a cornerstone of the project’s goal of bringing in new voices. The anthology includes contest-winning stories from Alec Meden (drone operations in space and non-state actors), Nikolas Katsimpras (outbreak of a great power war), and Ashley Henley (the president’s address after a catastrophic cyber attack). Visual artists EG Douglas and Sam Cole (propaganda posters from the next world war) and Alex Brady (future of urban warfare) also feature in the collection.
The Atlantic Council’s Art of Future Warfare project is driven by the Brent Scowcroft Center on International Security’s mandate to advance thinking and planning for the future of warfare. The project’s core mission is to cultivate a community of interest in works and ideas arising from the intersection of creativity and expectations about how emerging antagonists, disruptive technologies, and novel warfighting concepts will shape tomorrow’s conflicts.
War Stories from the Future Reviews
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This is available free here:
http://www.atlanticcouncil.org/public...
& it's worth a hell of a lot more than you pay for it. Great stories, better price. They're all short & to the point. The author biographies are important. I wish they'd been included before each story. It helps with the points & perspectives.
Introduction by Martin Dempsey
From a Remove by Alec Meden
Both very good, short, & to the point.
“From a Remove” by Alec Meden - short, but a full, new world, government, & war. Follows a soldier in it for an interesting problem. 4 stars
“Article I, Section 8, Clause 11” by Ken Liu - Wow! Great idea or WTF were you thinking of?!!! Internet privateers & politics. 5 stars!
“A Stopped Clock” by Madeline Ashby - kind of an interesting look at what tech does to the poor & what happens when tech breaks. 3 stars
“Big and Noisy” designed by Alex Brady - picture of a tank.
“A Visit to Weizenbaum” by Jamie Metzl - by an isolation warrior didn't work. I just couldn't buy into it properly & it was just talk. 1 star
“ANTFARM” by August Cole - crowd sourcing intelligence & the fickle public mind. 4 stars
We Can Win the War, You Must Win the Peace designed by EG Douglas - picture of a poster.
“Codename: Delphi” by Linda Nagata - a shift with war traffic controller. 5 stars
“The Exception That Proves the Rule” by Mathew Burrows - scary on several levels. Big data versus the human condition in the fight against terrorism. Could have been a 5 star story, but it seemed thin at the end. I don't know why. I'll give it 4 stars.
“Coffee, Wi-Fi and the Moon. The unknown story of the greatest cyber war of them all” by Nikolas Katsimpras is a newspaper report of just how easily our complex systems can fall like dominoes pushed by a bit of hacking & malware. 4 stars
“A Need for Heroes” by David Brin is excellent on several levels. Brin does a good job of painting a new world while focusing on the story. 4 stars
“North Shore Mujahideen” Graffiti designed by Sam Cole another picture. I don't get it.
“Another Day of Infamy” by Ashley Henley is a declaration of war. 1 star on a second look.
Author Bios is well worth glancing over. These authors have some heavy credentials. It might be worth reading this first or bookmarking it to read up on the author before the story. -
This science fiction anthology is available free online here:
http://www.atlanticcouncil.org/public...
This is a haphazard anthology with some good stories but others feel like they were thrown in as "filler." Here's my thoughts on each story, although I didn't bother to review the artwork that is also included in the anthology.
From a Remove by Alec Meden - 3/5 - This story actually feels like part of a bigger story and could probably be fleshed out into a full-length novel which would solve some of the pacing problems. The writing needs more polish. Entertaining though.
Article I, Section 8, Clause 11 by Ken Liu - 4/5 - Perhaps less entertaining than the prior story, but a much more thought-provoking set of ideas set in a very near future.
A Stopped Clock by Madeline Ashby - 4/5 - Well written but the ending was too abrupt and unsatisfying, almost as though the story had never been finished.
Big and Noisy by Alex Brady - (artwork)
A Visit to Weizenbaum by Jaime Metzl - 2/5 - Future warrior visits psychiatrist. Insert Homer Simpson voice: "BOR-ING!"
ANTFARM by August Cole - 4/5 - One of my favorites - near future air combat. Reminds me a little bit of "Damage" by David D Levine.
We Can Win the War, You Must Win the Peace by EG Douglas - (artwork)
Codename: Delphi by Linda Nagata - 4/5 - maybe my favorite story in the batch, an action-packed look at very near-future combat, but the ending felt unfinished or rushed like others in this anthology
The Exception That Proves the Rule by Mathew Burrows - 3/5 - a story on statistical predictions of terrorist attacks that felt more like a John Le Carre story than science-fiction
Coffee, Wi-Fi and the Moon. The unknown story of the greatest cyber was of them all by Nikolas Katsimpras - 3/5 - there are some interesting ideas here, but it reads less like a story and more like a summary
A Need for Heroes by David Brin - excerpted from his novel Earth - 4/5 - the most recognizable author in this anthology provided only an excerpt from his novel Earth instead of a stand-alone piece, still very enjoyable
North Shore Mujahideen Graffiti by Sam Cole - (artwork)
Another Day of Infamy by Ashley Henley - 1/5 - an uninteresting Presidential speech announcing war against cyberhackers on the 100th anniversary of the Pearl Harbor attacks. Would have been funnier just to re-print Buckeroo Banzai's "Declaration of War: The Short Form." -
“There will be an end to war, but there will always be a need for heroes.”
A collection science fiction tales focusing on warfare in the near future. Not all are traditional space operas. Variable quality.
“Nobody wanted to be responsible for the carnage that everyone constantly felt was imminent.”
My favorite is "Codename: Delphi", though several try to explore how remote command and control and crowd-sourcing battle field analysis impacts combat. Some unintentional funny.
“Just because the enemy is dead doesn’t mean you’re alive. Reality is simpler than games.”
Better than most SF/F anthologies.
“The trouble with foreign policy is that foreigners are so unpredictable.” -
"From a Remove" by Alec Meden: Not a bad story. The drama of the action is conveyed without getting too bogged down in jargon. Dialogue needs some work, but I guess people don't read MilSF for dialogue or characters. 3/5.
"Article I, Section 8, Clause 11" by Ken Liu: A good thing that the prologue is attached to this story, because there is no way this doesn't end without a world war breaking out. 2/5.
"A Stopped Clock" by Madeline Ashby: I liked this one quite a bit. Human, compassionate, clever. 4/5.
"A Visit to Weizenbaum" by Jamie Metzl: What was this even about? 1/5.
"ANTFARM" by August Cole: Was the intent here to get the reader to root for the drone swarm? That's where I ended up. And also, maybe wishing it might go after the author for writing entirely in codenames. Also, terrible OPSEC. 1/5.
"Codename: Delphi" by Linda Nagata: couldn't figure out the point of this story while I was reading it. It appears to be a prequel introducing us to characters in the author's books? 1/5.
"The Exception That Proves the Rule" by Mathew Burrows: Hurray for civil rights violations! 1/5.
"Coffee, Wi-Fi and the Moon. The unknown story of the greatest cyber war of them all" by Nikolas Katsimpras: I've not read many "20 minutes into the future" type stories, and this one was interesting satire. 3/5.
"A Need for Heroes" by David Brin: Interesting concepts, doesn't fill me with a desire to read more by David Brin. 2/5.
"Another Day of Infamy" by Ashley Henley: What? 1/5. -
The Atlantic Council Art of Future Warfare Project created in 2015 a book of science fiction, ostensibly "to shed the shackles which bind us to our current constructs and instead imagine things as they might be, for better or for worse," as Gen Dempsey says in the intro, "hope they make you think. Glean as many lessons as you can, but don’t blindly accept the authors’ conclusions. Challenge them. Wrestle with them. Refute them if you can. And build these insights into your mental arsenal so we can better understand how these evolutions—in some cases revolutions—of technology might affect our national security."
Pfft, say I. Read them as sci fi and review them the same. Hardly two stories made me think of how war would take place in the future, and I think they may already be outdated. So, here goes, story by story:
From a Remove by Alec Meden brings us a shadowy cyber group of 'sovereign citizens' who enforce the peace, at the point of space-based weapons platforms. Any of them could be your classmate sitting with you in a lecture, and controlling the drone spacecraft that protect the space reflectors set up to combat global warming, like Donya. But what if the nation states, displaced by the Sovs, chafe and plot revenge? Space opera, by all means.
Article I, Section 8, Clause 11 by Ken Liu. This story brings home how little the USA believes in international law except in its own understanding, though that's probably not what the author intended. An irritated presidential hopeful lets loose cyberterrorists, granted permission by the USA government as 'privateers', with not-so-well-anticipated consequences. Wish fulfilment, possibly.
A Stopped Clock by Madeline Ashby is a little love story set in the great cyber crash that afflicts future S Korea. A little rice and kimchi goes a long way to a return to barter when the entire cybergrid mysteriously goes down. This one is more pure story than thought experiment, and better for it.
A Visit to Weizenbaum by Jamie Metzl is a story of psychological support provided to soldiers manning the last line of defence, by an AI. It's also a chilling look at the kind of pressure a 'last line' faces, and how dehumanising such military demands can be, never mind the light touch and relatively innocuous problem the soldier brings.
ANTFARM by August Cole is one of the most future-war stories in the collection. The title of the story is the name of a flying 3D fabricator which produces custom bombs and drones to destroy designated human targets. The targets are validated by crowd-sourcing analysis from civilians back at home, who have rather strong views on how seriously their thumbs up or down should be taken. The pilot on the spot, though, feels he has to overrule them sometimes. That's a conflict entirely separate from the distant war of drones that most of us already know about at the current, less high-tech levels. This one is macabre in its opinion on what's just. One of the best in the book.
I normally read the story first, and then check the author but when you see that Linda Nagata wrote Codename: Delphi, you won't be surprised to find I thought this one of the strongest stories in the book, heartbreaking and eerily predictive. Delphi is the code name of a volunteer who makes extra money by taking a shift, sitting in the home country, monitoring the drones that gather on-ground intelligence for soldiers in the field, and giving them back-office support in real time. This is one of the stories that seems to be a likely prediction of the wars of the future. It's the stage between human-run wars and wars run by drones and AI.
The Exception That Proves the Rule by Mathew Burrows is based in near-future UK, with its ubiquitous surveillance, and shows how human failings break the best models. The story is about a predictive system to analyse everything from DNA to friends' networks to finger terrorists before they strike. It only needs one failure...
Coffee, Wi-Fi and the Moon
The unknown story of the greatest cyber war of them all by Nikolas Katsimpras starts with blank computer screens and the sound of typewriters in newsrooms, and walks us through a cyberwar that brings most nations to their knees. Like most near-future sci fi that predicts near future, it gets some things spectacularly wrong: Dick Cheney has comprehensively beaten the predicted death in 2016, Putin is still alive and Hillary Clinton is not the President of the USA. But it's not yet 2019... Nope, I see no chance of this story being real in any way.
A Need for Heroes by David Brin has a war in Central Europe in its past, and the big military targets being ... poachers. UNEPA is the glam group that mere UN soldiers aspire to. This is still a story of the camaraderie, cowardice and courage that form most soldiers' real life experiences, not really predictive in any sense.
Another Day of Infamy by Ashley Henley is a future declaration of war, bland and scary in its almost stereotyped phrases. I don't forgive it for the acronym of the Federation Alliance of Socialist, Communist, and Islamic State Members. I suspect the writer giggled his way through 1000 words on that basis alone. Nope, buddy, no forgiveness.
All in all, mostly good stories, three good pieces of art inside the covers, and a few gems. -
Contains truly atrocious writing intermixed with mediocrity and flashes of brilliance. Almost exactly what you'd expect from a collection like this.
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Consistently not great. Got about 2/3 through before deciding I didn't want to spend my time on it just for the sake of finishing it.
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A good anthology of stories but a little on the short side. As with all anthologies the quality of the stories varied, but there was only one I considered a turd in the punch bowl.
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Stories of the future; some written by students.
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Anthology of short stories re (what else?) the future of war, and as usual with an anthology, it's a mixed bag. My favorites are "Codename: Delphi," about wired-in civilian contractors in an office assisting soldiers in the field via cameras and sensors. Lots of tension and good writing. That one alone makes the book worth the read.
Also good are "ANTFARM" (crowd-sourcing wartime targets) and "A Stopped Clock" (street vendors in Korea in a virtual future when everything suddenly goes offline).
The rest of the stories aren't quite. Some are better written, others worse, and some are downright strange. Let's call this one three stars. -
Some of these were interesting, and one or two might've worked well expanded or in longer series of their own. On the whole though, they were too conceptualised and abrupt to be stories of significance to me; I came away having finished the volume without being able to really say that I'd enjoyed it especially.
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Variable quality of stories, most were great and I really enjoyed them (in the 4 or 5 star range if rated individually). However a few were quite weak and ought not to have been included without further work (the premises were interesting, and from the point of view of the commissioning organisation these are useful, but they work less well as entertainment in a published anthology).
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This is a great series of stories on fictional, futuristic war scenarios such as cyber war, electromagnetic bombs, drone escorts (controlled by handlers) for infantry units, space warfare, etc. Great book to get the mind thinking about the realm of possibilities in the future.
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The only impressive thing about this book is that it manages to encapsulate virtually every literary, narrative, and genre-specific misstep imaginable.
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Нелоши разказчета, макар и на места малко наивни.
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A very mixed bag
