I picked up David Drake’s Men Hunting Things anthology for its amusingly frank title and, as has been a trend as of late, ended up finding a new favorite anthology. 😀Â
Its straightforward title belies a book of unexpected variety and complexity.
While some of the stories are simple and hilarious (Wilson Tucker’s “Gentlemen, The Queen!”), others offer a deep and often unsettling look at the psychologies of hunter and hunted, and frequently question which is actually the animal (or monster) in the story – the literal target, or the one hunting that target (or commissioning the hunt, in the case of Robert Silverberg’s “The Day The Monsters Broke Loose.”) Â
There’s a great diversity of story types, too, from the hard sci-fi of Clifford D. Simak’s “Good Night, Mr. James” and Eric Frank Russell’s “Mechanical Mice” to the moody Victorian-style horror of Alister McAllister’s “The Hunting on the Doonagh Bog” to the downright dystopia of Henry Kuttner’s “Home is the Hunter.”
I name these as standouts, but honestly there’s not a bad story in the bunch. If you’re looking for an anthology that balances the fun with the deep and hard sci-fi with the light, give it a try!
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