Some quite good stories, mixed in with some fairly pedestrian stories. From glancing at the editor's prefatory comments, I had expected stories that drew inspiration from, built on, or followed in the footsteps of John Steakley's classic novel Armor (one of my all time favorites), but I didn't really sense much of that here..

For me the stand-outs were "Power Armor: A Love Story' by David Barr Kirtley (a new author to me), and "Trauma Pod" by Alistair Reynolds. ( )

Great collection of short stories about various kinds of armor. Some stories I liked better than others - but overall they were all good. ( )

This anthology was included in the Hugo Voting Packet as the sample of Adams' work for the short form editor category. As one might expect from the title, the stories are all about powered armour. However, it's not just military powered armor. There are plenty of civilian uses, and some of them get an airing in this book.

Most of the stories are at least readable, and some are excellent. The anthology does suffer a little from the stories starting to seem too much the same after a while, but I think that could be dealt with by not reading the whole thing in a couple of sittings. If sf shorts about powered armour are your thing, this is a nice solid anthology. ( )

(This review is based on an ARC.) How to rate an anthology has always been a struggle. Invariably, they end up in the 3-star "I don't know" category. Plus I seldom read all the stories. So for this exercise, I'll give ratings for each story that I actually try to read.

5-star

4-star
"Hel’s Half-Acre" [a:Jack Campbell|55547|Jack Campbell|http://d.gr-assets.com/authors/1302415236p2/55547.jpg]
"Jungle Walkers" [a:David Klecha|6456211|David Klecha|http://www.goodreads.com/assets/nophoto/nophoto-U-50x66-251a730d696018971ef4a443cdeaae05.jpg] & [a:Tobias S. Buckell|107891|Tobias S. Buckell|http://www.goodreads.com/assets/nophoto/nophoto-U-50x66-251a730d696018971ef4a443cdeaae05.jpg]


3-star
"The Johnson Maneuver" [a:Ian Douglas|4702581|Ian Douglas|http://d.gr-assets.com/authors/1343233907p2/4702581.jpg]
"The Cat’s Pajamas" [a:Jack McDevitt|73812|Jack McDevitt|http://d.gr-assets.com/authors/1225722326p2/73812.jpg]

2-star

1-star

See my review at Innsmouth Free Press: http://www.innsmouthfreepress.com/?p=18188 ( )