The War Tour Paperback – 27 Dec. 2010

Some of the stories really stay with you and the essay made me think at the end. The War Tour is gently pushing into an area that not that many books can go into without seeming overwrought, callous or cliched.

Comma Press is the bees knees for short stories and it's great to see them publishing more stuff by women these days. These stories are brilliant, everything you would expect from first class short fiction.

As the title suggests, the fifteen diverse pieces in this anthology of short stories are linked by the theme of war. They range in geography from Western Europe to the Middle East; from Central and Eastern Europe to Africa. Their timeline spans much of the twentieth century as well as the present day. In some cases, they are set in a war zone, with direct and immediate consequences; in others, the war is a distant memory which impacts on behaviour many years later.But although the setting is war, it is not the main focus. This is an anthology of literary stories; they are character-led rather than driven by plot. Some, like the stories about Rosa Luxemburg and Lise Meitner are based on historical fact. Others are completely fictional, although based on the experiences of people Lambert has met during her work as an activist on asylum seeker issues.Some of the stories, especially These Words are No More Than a Story About a Woman On a Bus which is set in Lithuania, struck a particular chord with me. Others such as From Kandahar were thought-provoking, more for what they left out than what they said. Two were particularly poignant since they presented different sides of the same conflict: When the Truck Came is about the training of young boys to be Tutsi soldiers while We'll Meet Again centres on a young boy growing up in a Hutu stronghold. Both stories are told dispassionately without making a judgement and remind us that every conflict has at least two sides.I found this a relatively easy book to read, easier than I'd expected, given the theme. The only two stories I didn't find particularly engaging were the title one, The War Tour and Our Backs to the Fort. These are two pieces about the same pair of relatively unsympathetic characters who either deliberately or unwittingly become `war tourists' in Eastern Europe. They are observers rather than participants in events, raising questions of ethics and morality -- and, on reflection, I guess that was the point Lambert was making.

These are wonderful short stories. So often these days war is just a hazy backdrop to our lives, but Zoe Lambert has us zoom-in to the people for whom war is a bitter reality. This collection of stories spans various times and places and through the convincing voices of Lambert's characters helps us come to a deeper understanding of what it means to be a casualty of war. The War Tour is a significant contribution to the literature of war.

If you're a great fan of short stories and you'd like to be taken on a realistic yet emotional journey then 'The War Tour' will make an amazing addition to your book collection. I stumbled across Zoe Lambert's work only recently and her work is so inspirational and shows great insight into how different people are affected by the different aspects of war. 'From Kandahar is my favourite,' because I'm taken away from a world I know so much about then I'm dropped into a completely different world, which i knew nothing about... Fantastic writer... Fantastic stories and a real eye opener...I'd recommend this book to all...

Good book, good stories. I'd recommend for anyone who's interested in the stories of people dealing with the consequences of conflict and surviving in warzones. There are some pretty impressive ones here; my favorites were 33 Bullets, Her Blue Shadow, My Sangar and When the Truck Came. There are connections between and nuances in the stories that make them all worth re-reading, and the collection as a whole feels like a coherent and substantial effort to depict the lives of people who have endured the situations that war and conflict create and sustain truthfully and realistically. Worth a look for anyone interested in thoughtful, realistic short stories and reportage.

The stories in The War Tour are charged with a quiet intensity - worlds that unfurl and ensconce themselves in your mind, lingering long after reading. Hewn from a palette rich in location, culture and voice, the collection lays testament to humans' ability to both wreak devastation and to be capable of immense compassion and love. Lambert's skill is to bestow her characters - the dispossessed, the exiled, even the complicit - with an emotional resonance that's both affecting and disturbing. And as with the best collections, these stories speak to themselves, an intertextuality of theme and poignancy, the whole somehow greater than the sum of its parts. Never didactic, the power to interpret, to engender meaning, is handed firmly over to the reader, whilst the often silent and unseen victims of the echoes and ravages of war are given a voice. The War Tour shows us not only what the short story can do, but also why it matters.