Created by the bestselling SF novelist Jerry Pournelle, THERE WILL BE WAR is a landmark science fiction anthology series that combines top-notch military science fiction with factual essays by various generals and military experts on everything from High Frontier and the Strategic Defense Initiative to the aftermath of the Vietnam War. It features some of the greatest military science fiction ever published, such Orson Scott Card’s “Ender’s Game” in Volume I and Joel Rosenberg’s “Cincinnatus” in Volume II. Many science fiction greats were featured in the original nine-volume series, which ran from 1982 to 1990, including Robert Heinlein, Arthur C. Clarke, Philip K. Dick, Gordon Dickson, Poul Anderson, John Brunner, Gregory Benford, Robert Silverberg, Harry Turtledove, and Ben Bova.
33 years later, Castalia House has teamed up with Dr. Pournelle to make this classic science fiction series available to the public again. THERE WILL BE WAR is a treasure trove of science fiction and history that will educate and amaze new readers while reminding old ones how much the world has changed over the last three decades. Most of the stories, like war itself, remain entirely relevant today.
THERE WILL BE WAR Volume VIII is edited by Jerry Pournelle and John F. Carr, and features 21 stories, articles, and poems. Of particular note are “Surviving Armageddon” by Jerry Pournelle, the brilliantly inventive “Dinosaurs” by Geoffrey A. Landis, “As It Was In the Beginning” by Edward P. Hughes, and the haunting “Through Road No Whither” by Greg Bear.
We are pleased to be able to say that the classic THERE WILL BE WAR anthology series is now complete. I’m sorry the late great Jerry Pournelle was unable to see it back in print in its entirety, but at least he did have the chance to see it revived. All ten volumes are now available from the Kindle store for less than $50.
And I’m very pleased to be able to announce that the Pournelle family has graciously granted Castalia House permission to continue expanding the series, which we will do with Vol. XI next year.
From the first reviews:
- The non-fiction presented interesting insight into survivalism (the precursor to preppers) and the politics and history of mutually assured destruction. The book missed the internet, cell phones, and the fall of the communism, but then so did most speculative science fiction…. The fiction was excellent, but the non-fiction made it even better. There Will Be War Volume VIII is definitely worth a read.
- An interesting primer on the game theory and doctrine concerning the cold war as it appeared to be heating up in the 1980s. The most interesting parts of this collection are the late Mr. Pournelle’s descriptions of mutually assured survival to make a first strike an uncertain enough proposition to render it too risky to contemplate. Of all the works collected in this volume, these essays have the greatest continued relevance today. Nuclear winter may have receded into memory as a daily threat, but resilience against potential plagues, natural disasters, large scale terrorist acts, and even limited nuclear exchanges is of continuing relevance.
- Having read all of the There Will Be War collections, I think this one may be my favorite overall, even if other collections have stronger individual stories or essays. The overall theme of Armageddon lends itself to the sober reflections we see in both the fiction and non-fiction stories, all of which have a truly eerie relevance today.