Successful spies change history. Failures are never heard from again.
From simple data theft or sabotage to protecting state secrets and last-ditch gambles that alter the tides of war, it’s the spy—professional or amateur—who gets the job done! Whether it’s for King and country or private vendetta, it is often the lone agent, through stealth, skill, and sometimes a little luck, who makes the difference.
If only it were that easy.
In Last-Ditch you’ll find sixteen original stories of men, women, aliens, and even creatures who face seemingly insurmountable odds to achieve their goals. So come join in on a little heart-pounding espionage, as Jason M. Hough, Tanya Huff, L.E. Modesitt, Jr., D. Thomas Minton, Nemma Wollenfang, Hayden Trenholm, Edward Willett, Blake Jessop, Steve Perry, Ember Randall, Derryl Murphy, Chadwick Ginther, Russell Hugh McConnell, Gary Kloster, E.C. Ambrose, and Donald McCarthy put it all on the line to take you behind the scenes and behind enemy lines.

The sixteen stories in ‘Last-Ditch’ all start from a protagonist who is positioned to make a last-ditch effort to change the outcome of a conflict, sometimes even the fate of a world. There are spies and assassins, wizards, witches, aliens and AIs.

It’s a diverse collection full of focused, intense stories that compress whole worlds into a few pages and raise questions that got under my skin.

These are stories where the characters often don’t fit the traditional roles of hero or vilain, who are in situation which may offer no good options and where what they choose to do will define who they are.

I bought the collection because it had a Tanya Huff story in it and read it in the hope of finding new-to-me authors to follow. All but two of the stories worked well for me and I’ve now either bought or am on the look out for more work by Jason M Hugh, Nemma Wollenfang, Jake Blessop and Derryl Murphy. I count that as a good result.

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ALAVUS by Jason M Hugh

Slick, fast-paced, high-tech spy-as-puppet story with a high bodycount, exotic locations and a classic car in flames. Big fun.

I’ve added his novel ‘Zero World‘ to my TBR so that I can read more about this character and his world.

 TURN ABOUT by Tanya Huff

It was good to be back in Confederation Space and to see one of the events that shaped the war, even if no one knew that at the time. 

This one is for the fans, (like me) as I doubt that anyone not already familiar with the Confederation series and Gunnery Sergeant Torin Kerr would have the context to understand what was happening.

For a fan like me, well, this is why I bought ‘Last-Ditch‘.

MIRROR’S SPY by L. E. Modesitt Jr

This one didn’t work for me. It read like an extract from a book rather than a short story and the constant repetition of “…and then another ghost hit me” quickly became tedious and highlighted how thin the plot was.

INTERMEZZO by D. Thomas Minton

This one was a well put together story but was not to my taste. It had too much of a testosterone-soaked Fleming meets Hemmingway vibe and too much philosphising in a vacuum followed by too neat a solution.

OF DARKLING SOULS by Nemma Wollenfang

I liked the concept, especially an invasion that wasn’t about conquest but about stripping the Earth of assetts until there was nothing left, like locusts arriving in a field of corn. Telling the story from the alien point of view worked, especially as the alien was a parasitic bug. The twists in the story kept me guessing.

I went looking for a novel by Nemma Wollenfang but could find only short stories so far. I’ll be watching for more of her work.

CITY OF SHADOWS by Hayden Trenholm

This was fun. Set in an Alternative World War II Paris, it had lots of ‘Hellboy’ type atmosphere but was a little thin on plot. It woul make a great episode in a graphic novel.

I have Hayden Trenholm’s ‘In The Shadow Of Versaille‘ in my TBR. I’m looking forward to seeing how he conjures Paris in it.

TEN SECONDS by Edward Gillett

This story is a thought experiment purusing an intriguing idea around time travel. It had a clever structure that maintained that tension and it was neatly done.

SWALLOWTAIL by Blake Jessop

I loved this. It was rich in ideas and emotions. It didn’t get lost in the tech or the politics and yet it managed to breathe life into both. What I liked most was the way it brought into focus the necessity to and difficulty of taking personal responsiblity in a time of war.

I’d like to read more of Blake Jessop’s work so I’ve added the anthology, ‘Apocalyptic‘, which also has stories by Tanya Huff and Seanan McGuire, to my TBR.

CANDLE by Steve Perry

I loved the candle metaphor. The storytelling was slick and hard-boiled and had a clever resolution that I didn’t see coming. I was surprised to see that there was a formatting issue in the ebook. There were lost of random hyphens which I found distracting.

DIE ONCE FOR LOVE, TWICE FOR JUSTICE by Ember Randall

Well, that will teach me not to judge a story by its title. I almost skipped this as it sounds like a romance. It was actually a tough story in a brutal setting. I loved that, although the magic in this was barely explained and I got to see only a slim shard of the world the story was set in, I understood everything and felt that I was standing somewhere solid and complete.

MARS NEEDS PSYCHOPATHS by Derryl Murphy

This riffs on the insanity of the idea, currently popular amongst the Techobroligarchy and some senior scientists, that the future of humanity lies in leaving behind the mess we’ve made of earth and inhabiting Mars. I love how the dual point of view is used to reveal the story and give it texture.

I wanted more Derryl Murphy so I added his novella, ‘Cast a Cold Eye‘ to my TBR.

ENDLING by Chadwick Ginther

I liked this take on a dragon story. The dragon is trapped in human form and caught up in a last-ditch effort to end a long, bloody war, fought with blades and magic. Told from the dragon’s point of view it a Light versus Dark struggle filled with deception, betrayal and destruction with an ending that’s a long way from Tolkein.

THE LEVER THAT MOVES THE WORLD by Russell Hugh McConnell

This It’s a tightly focused story, told from inside the mind of an assassin who is moments away from sucess or failure. It was a sliver of a story, slight but sharp, that slipped into my imagination like a blade showing me that even if love is the lever that moves the world, the movement may be lethal, .

THE SHORTEST NIGHT by Gary Kloster

A dark, bloody tale that took a close up look at the sadism and bloodlust at the heart of an empire that worships the night by offering human sacrifices. The story is told from the point of view of a young woman who has just become the one thousand and seventh wife of the Empoeror of the Last Lands, She has the calm focus of a woman raised in the knowledge of her fate and determine to fulfill it. This calm, while it doesn’t look away from the violence and the cruelty, succeeds in keeping them at arms length in a way that accentuates the evil that they embody. This is an assination story drenched in blood that still manages to be about love and the hope.

A SNAKE IN THE THE GRASS by E. C. Ambrose

This was a story of a Latvian witch taking on the Nazi’s at the Polish border after Poland had been overrun and Germany and Russia were dividing the spoils. The action scenes were engaging and the magic system, involving burning amber, the spirits of the dead and a partnership with snakes was original and flamboyant.

THOSE WHO HELP THEMSELVES by Donald McCarthy

This dropped me into a version of the human diasprora to the stars that owed more to ‘1984‘ than to ‘Star Trek’. I liked that telling the story from the point of view of a disaffected young man allowed me to understand both the bleakly totalitarian character of the world he lived in and his naive understanding of how it worked. The final image was vividly horrific, it’s impact increased rather than diminished by not being surprising.