David Drake is perhaps best known for his "Hammer's Slammers" series, which, according to Booklist critic Roland Green in a review of The Warrior, offers "some of the best in military science fiction." In addition to this sub-genre, Drake has written fantasy novels and other types of science fiction. His experience in Vietnam, his penchant for fantasy and the supernatural, and his extensive knowledge of history, literature, and folklore generate science fiction, fantasies, thrillers, and militaristic stories and novels.

One ever-present element in Drake's works, no matter the sub-genre, is graphic, and often gruesome, violence. "Drake can write. There's no doubt about that," wrote Analog Science Fiction/Science Fact critic Tom Easton in a review of The Forlorn Hope. "But Oh! He loves the gore." While some critics have lamented this "gore," a critic for Science Fiction Review explained in a review of At Any Price that it...