The Hammer’s Slammers series is a collection of military science fiction short stories, novels and novellas by David Drake, following the exploits of an interplanetary mercenary company through a string of planets torn apart by war.

Looking back on my reviews of the Royal Cinnabar Navy and Lord of the Isles series, it is easy to see the common influences on Drake, and that the flaws in his other works can be traced back to trying to recapture what makes the Hammer’s Slammers so special out of context. The planets, most with rice patties, jungles, and unreliable local forces will be familiar to anyone who has read the RCN or Lord of the Isles series’, and a clearly influenced by Drake’s service in Vietnam.

Like the Royal Cinnabar Navy, the Slammers’ usually win, but the stories lack the air of smugness that is part of the pulpier RCN series. Victories come at high cost in both casualties and moral compromise, and the Slammers are forced to work with the unreliable locals with disastrous consequences for both, instead of simply sneering down from orbit. It doesn’t feel like the assured victory of the RCN series, with fresh and short plots working with the rotating cast of characters to keep the reader guessing. The stories are focused on ground combat and campaigning, which Drake handles much better than orbital combat.

This is due to the clear inspiration from the Vietnam war- the on the ground perspective gives the Hammer’s Slammers an authenticity that Drake’s later work lacks, but also a dark rawness. It does not go as far as Drake’s best work, Redliners, which deals mainly with the psychological effects of war, but this psychological trauma is one of the main themes of Hammer’s Slammers, and sharply contrasts with the cleanliness of the Honor Harrington series and other more sanitary works, without being grimdark or violence for its own sake.

Characters come and go, often appearing only in a single story or novella, which keeps things fresh and interesting since Drake does not so much develop characters as slowly reveal them. The characters who are repeated- Colonel Hammer, Major Steubin, Daniel Pritchard- appear briefly or on the periphery. We never get to know them that well, so they never become predictable in contrast to Drake’s longer works. The main cast is usually there just long enough to get to know them, and then the story is over. Paying the Piper, the longest novel in the series, goes on for a bit too long in my opinion, but otherwise the stories are tight- saying everything they need to in a brief but complete arc.

World building in the Slammers is excellent and handled in a similar manner to the characters, brief flashes in each story slowly painting a cohesive picture without bogging down the flow of the individual stories. Hammer’s Slammers is a fun read and interesting read with something to say about society; it’s good science fiction.

TL,DR- The series that helped spawn the military sci-fi genre remains one of its best works. If you have not read it yet, do so. Link to the first volume of the collection I read and image source; a smaller collection called The Tank Lords is also available for free at most major online retailers via the Baen Free Library.