The Mammoth Book of Sword and Honor — Mike Ashley

The Napoleonic Wars in Europe, the Zulu conflict in Africa, the Civil War in America-in the nineteenth century, on battlefields around the world, cavalrymen and infantry marched into combat that was unparalleled in the number of lives it claimed and the amount of blood it shed. For the common soldier on the front lines at this time, swords and bayonets, not rifles and heavy artillery, defined the day-to-day fighting experience. Out of that experience have been woven some of the most memorable tales of courage in our literature. While some of the nearly thirty stories in this anthology are culled from classics by such celebrated fiction writers as Arthur Conan Doyle, Alexander Dumas, Prosper Merimee, Ambrose Bierce, and Stephen Crane, others have been especially commissioned for this volume. John Jakes, for one, brings to life a crucial moment of military doubt in his tale of the American Civil War, while John Aquino illuminates anew the military character of a young Robert E. Lee. Just as Richard Howard revisits the Napoleonic era with a new Alain Luisard story, so does Garry Douglas return to the Crimean War with a new adventure of Sergeant John Crossman, and George Macdonald Fraser embroils his redoutable Flashman in the Indian Mutiny. In all, there's adventure enough to thrill readers of any century.