Sometimes I see people who have been hooked by the board/miniatures-game asking for fiction recommendations, and I almost always manage to stay away from expressing my feelings about game fiction. I have read my fair share, and most of it is dreck! Some of it is more terrible than other, and a kerfuffle within the last 6 months saw a Battletech author of the more chauvinistic and unpleasant kind get dropped and it reminded me of the reasons some of these books are terrible literature.

I did pick up the first issue I read of Shrapnel because I knew one of the hosts of the podcast WolfNet Radio had been published in this series. I was curious about Charles' skill as a writer, as he came across as witty and informed on the podcast. It turns out he can indeed write decent enough!

The reason I've read more than that first taste was that apart from Charles' work, there were some others that did stand out as more than half decent. It almost seems like the shorter format, with the discipline needed to utilize that form, might bring out more skilled writers. Also, maybe editor Philip A. Lee does a better screening job than the novel editors whose products I had tried before?

In any case I got hooked on a story by Tom Leveen, serialized in 4 parts, called Three Ways Home and ended up buying all the issues of Shrapnel it was published in. In the end I have not finished all those issues yet, but having finished off this volume I decided to put down my thoughts on the series.

This is a bona fide game magazine, with scenarios and source book style materials in addition to fiction. It's a rare beast these days, and I guess many read it as an ebook, and not the POD paperback I insist on. Still, I love they provide that option.

The scenario material is good, and the articles with in-world news and descriptions are useful and well written. The fiction, as I alluded to above, is pleasant enough to read. You have to love military sf with big stompy robots, but why would you even look at a magazine like this if you weren't? Some stories are funny, some are tense and the editor have managed to find writers who write stories with interesting plots and with the characters in focus. Sure, they are often a bit super human in their efforts, and the toil and suffering before the final victories can be slightly over the top, but still I found them engaging.

Will I keep buying more issues of Shrapnel? I wont be buying it regularly, but maybe if I see one of the writers that have impressed me on the cover, I will be tempted to get another fix.