There's no other way to say this, but my second read of the SNAFU series as edited by Geoff Brown was very much a mixed bag. Thinking about my overall feelings, I kept coming back to the poem by Henry Longfellow, entitled When She Was Good:

And when she was good, she was very, very good,
But when she was bad she was horrid.

The collection starts out very, very impressively. S. D. Perry's Badlands is a fantastic Vietnam set tale of a squad of soldiers coming up against a bizarre, but extremely deadly, undead enemy. Perry wrote a number of my favourite Aliens tie-in novels from when I was a teen, and it was fantastic to see she has lost none of her skill as a writer. My other favourite story was the third, In Vaulted Halls Entombed by Alan Baxter, an excellent Lovecraftian spin on a group of soldiers in the very wrong place and not knowing when to call it a day.

And as much as there are a number of other decent tales - such as They Own the Night by B. Michael Radburn and After the Red Rain Fell by Matt Hilton - some of the others included too much pre-supposed knowledge for me to care overly much about proceedings. I speak specifically here of Cold War Gothic II: The Bohemian Grove by Weston Ochse and Show of Force by Jeremy Robinson & Kane Gilmour. Both were well-written but ultimately seemed strange inclusions for a collection that is meant to stand alone when their character building is extremely limited, since the reader is meant to have read the stories that came before the events that each depicted.

Those stories I have yet to mention did little for me. Either because their tone was too light or "out there" for my tastes, or because they were incredibly dull and had me wishing for them to end and end swiftly

So, as is the case with most collections, the highs and lows in SNAFU: Survival of the Fittest effectively cancel one another out, effectively rendering this one a straight down the line ...

3 Decisions to Defy Last Orders for SNAFU: Survival of the Fittest.

The follow-up to Pandemic sees Stephen Knight take the major reigns from Craig DiLouie and have to guide the reader through the often difficult second-book in a series.

Straight off, the best part of Slaughterhouse is how authentic it feels. Not the infected people who laugh like hyenas while they're trying to pull your larynx out through your ass, but rather the way in which the military characters in this book speak and behave screams believable. Not that I've ever been in the army, so I cannot accurately say, but compared to other books of this apocalyptic type, this one seems to be aiming to get it right.

Of course, that also works against Slaughterhouse insofar as making it a chore to read through the repetitive, technical nature of much of what is being described. But worse than that, is the way in which none of the characters - other than the single female POV character, Rawlings - seem to have any real depth to them. Instead they just felt like variations on military cliche. And as such, I cared barely at all when some of them died.

It's a shame, but this one just did not do it for me. I'm clearly in the minority looking at the other glowing reviews of Slaughterhouse online; which is a good thing because the third in the series is about to drop and I wish the authors every success with it.

I just won't be a part of it, because, sad to say, I'm going AWOL from this series.

2 Homicidal Maniacs Flying an Assault Helicopter for Slaughterhouse.

Recently there was a series of graphic novels that totally emphasised the "graphic" part of that term entitled Crossed, Vol. 1. It was originally conceived and written by Garth Ennis and drawn by Jacen Borrows. In it, an infection did the rounds turning people into maniacs who killed and slaughtered indiscriminately, and who even seemed to enjoy being tortured, mutilated and killed themselves. The infected all had a wound which opened on their faces in the shape of a cross running both ways over their noses.

The Retreat #1: Pandemic by Craig DiLouie with assistance from Stephen Knight and Joe McKinney could have been set in the same world if the magically appearing face wounds had also been included. Because, otherwise, the people who have been turned in The Retreat, dubbed "Klowns" behave in exactly the same way as Ennis' Crossed maniacs.

So as well-written, engaging and tension-filled as DiLouie et al's first book in this series is, I could not help but feel I'd been there and done it all before. Sure, writing the book from the POV of various personal in the army who are fighting to keep the infected from overwhelming Boston was different. But not sufficiently so as to allow me to forget that every scene featuring the Klowns felt exactly like a scene lifted from Crossed.

With that major gripe out of the way, I thoroughly recommend picking up The Retreat #1: Pandemic. DiLouie keeps things moving at a breakneck pace, utilises short chapters to assist with this, and is not afraid to bump any number of major characters - all massive positives for me. Some may balk at the level of technical detail on display, but unlike say, his earlier work Tooth and Nail, The Retreat never gets bogged down in this, and the reader is simply able to accept the fact the author clearly knows his stuff, either having served himself or done a ludicrous amount of research into what soldiers experience in and around combat situations.

Entertaining, fast-paced and ruthless, DiLouie's introduction to The Retreat series is a must for fans of military horror and those who enjoy watching an apocalypse unfold. Just don't expect something entirely fresh and original.

3.5 Maniacs Laughing Manically for The Retreat #1: Pandemic.

As niche as military horror is, it's a sub-genre I find myself warming to. As such, after hearing editor Geoff Brown speak on the THIS IS HORROR podcast, I decided to track down the shortest of his military horror anthologies and check out what he was putting out there.

Snafu: Heroes brings together four tales involving soldiers taking on some kind of supernatural threat. The first tale, The Hungry Dark: A Templar Chronicles Mission by Joseph Nassise, depicts a sacred order of soldiers battling an outbreak of cadaver-controlling demons in small village Germany. It's a solid tale without being overly impressive, though perhaps some appreciation was lost for me as I was not familiar with the series of novels within which this story takes place. It's also by far the longest story in the anthology, even though it ends oddly suddenly, so I was ready for it to be over by the time it was. 3 stars.

The next tale, Tarzan Doesn't Live Here Any More by Weston Ochse is a little more sci-fi as well as a lot more out there than Nassise's contribution. Dealing with one man's effort to report on one of many deep rifts that have opened in the earth and from which numerous things try to escape, this story opts for an odd character point which drives the nerrative (and is hinted at in the title) that never really worked for me. Yet, the last third of this one is action-packed and had me on the edge of my seat, so it redeemed itself in a very entertaining way. 3.5 stars.

War Stories, by James A Moore, was easily my favourite of the three. A more personal take on returning war veterans and the bond they share - but, of course, with a horrific twist - Moore's story has a WWII vet grandfather offering his Vietnam vet grandson some words of wisdom before telling his most personal, terrifying story. Moore writes with an effortless power that completely won me over and has left me wondering about numerous facets of the story since I finished reading it earlier today. 4.5 stars.

The last story, Changeling: A Joe Ledger Adventure by Jonathan Maberry I did not read. Because there's an author's note saying that the events in this story take place after The Dragon Factory and that spoilers for that novel are sprinkled through this piece. Given I have that novel on my Kindle, I've decided to leave it alone for now and will return after I've gotten round to the aforementioned novel. So thank you to both Maberry and Brown for including this note.

All in all then, it's 3.5 FUBAR Enemies for the first three tales from SNAFU: Heroes, with an update to follow in future.