I loaned this book, too, but I've been pleasantly entertained by the Frontline anthologies and would have picked it up had the Barnes and Noble in the Mall of America had this volume in supply. They didn't. Oh well. They didn't get that money, that's all there is to it! But, either way, I would give them a little exposure.
The preview for
War-Torn gave me the thought of the psychic kid Colin Phash going violently mad, but I was pleasantly surprised when he had hallucinations of a planet being destroyed. It showed more of Hector Sevilla's deeply satisfying art, and the story, about a bounty hunter chasing Colin Phash, set up nicely for the third story by Paul Benjamin and Dave Shramek,
Orientation and the
Ghost Academy series by Keith DeCandido.
War-Torn also has a small cameo by Kate Lockwell, making me happy. Their idea on what happened in Newsworthy is subtle and well crafted.
The second story,
Do Not Harm, presents the first example in my experience of a Terran-Protoss hybrid. He's appropriately bizarre, and the story is better than I had thought. I gots a suspicion that the hybrid might find his way into Starcraft RPGs, because he's rather unusual. Until Starcraft 2, anyway...
The third story is more from Grace Randolph.
Last Call reads like a spy story and a 01950s horror movie. Any description other than "a lounge sister gets caught up in intrigue on a mining outpost" would be a spoiler, and thanks to a Starcraft fan site, I did get spoiled. But it didn't bother me, and in fact, I might have to reread this one and find how the intrigues really worked.
Randolph obtains a YES! point from me for using a completely understated part of the Starcraft setting to fuel this story. I want more of your work, Ms Randolph!
The fourth story in the anthology,
Twilight Archon describes precisely the thing someone would expect if they know the units in Starcraft 2... and I do, because I'm, for the fact that I'm writing this review, a little neurotic and obsessed about this setting. The art, from Noel Rodriguez, gets most of the love, with a wild, flowing ocean of imagery.
This story is one I would recommend to a new Warder, and I can imagine it being powerful for a specific type of pairing.
So, that's the third volume of Frontline. The fourth volume has a story by Chris Metzen, the Grand Leader of the Craft settings, which should be bizarre. The primary thing I'm adoring about these Frontlines is that they're with unestablished characters, and building on new parts of the world.
Nonetheless, pick them up for your Starcraft obsessed friends. Then you can use them and point people toward other books... like
Twilight Archon has some things in common with
Revelation Space.
You know, about now, I wonder, how did I become addicted to writing book reviews? I certainly didn't like doing that in the Spur... maybe because I can write them however I want and talktalktalk? Yeah.