First published 2005
Editor Stephen Coonts gathers aviation stories spanning over a century of flight. The collection opens with Jules Verne's balloon adventure and moves through William Faulkner's tale of clashing pilots in World War II Britain. Louis L'Amour contributes a story about an American aviator framed for espionage in Russia. Ernest K. Gann delivers white-knuckle tension as a crippled airliner struggles across the Pacific. Coonts includes his own Vietnam War piece following A-6 Intruder pilots on a deadly mission against MiGs in Laos. Dale Brown presents modern air combat simulation with the EB-52 Megafortress. Ralph Peters closes the anthology with futuristic cavalry soldiers piloting advanced war machines against an Iran-Japan alliance. The stories trace aviation from fragile wood-and-wire contraptions of the 1920s to speculative military aircraft of 2020, capturing both the romance and terror of flight across multiple conflicts and eras.
Genres: 20th-century, military-fiction, adventure, 21st-century, aviation, short-story-collection
Vibes: emotional, fast-paced, suspenseful
Tropes: enemies-to-lovers, found-family
Setting: Britain, Laos, Pacific, Russia
Period: 1920s, 2020
448 pages · Mass Market Paperback · Forge Books