Some of this disappointment is simply a matter of taste, no doubt. For example, Andy Remic's "Psi.copath," set on a planet ravaged by left over war machines, seems intended to be funny, and for the right reader it might be, but it fell quite flat for this reader. Differently, I looked forward very much to Chris Beckett's contribution -- he's written some outstanding stories in recent years -- but his "Our Land", though well-written, seemed too stridently a by-the-numbers recasting of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as one between Celts reclaiming Britain and more-or-less contemporary English people. And more of the disappointment is just disappointment with decent but not exciting work -- most of the writers here do solid work, but rarely was I thrilled.

My favorite stories include Gareth L. Powell's "Fallout," in which a woman sort of chaperones a boy band as they visit a disaster site -- the difference is that the disaster was radiation from a crashed alien ship -- which of course implies certain possibilities when the boys go exploring. Also, Eric Brown's "Dissimulation Procedure," one of a generally enjoyable recent series about a starship captain and his crew. This one is a sort of origin story: the captain, Ed, and his engineer, Karrie, are looking for a pilot. And one Ella Rodriguez, a beautiful but strange young woman with a history, comes across them -- and she's a pilot. Of course, she's something else, as well, which wasn't a surprise to me (as I had seen a couple other stories in this series), but I'll leave the secret for the reader. At any rate, it's enjoyable if rather slight old-fashioned SF. Finally, Una McCormick's "War Without End" looks at the losing general of a long concluded war returning to the planet upon which he failed to stop a revolution. He's a villain to the inhabitants, of course, and he has his own issues to work through. There's not much new here -- and one could argue that the story didn't need to be SF, even -- but I found it fairly absorbing.

As I have said, the rest of the book is generally decent work, but never quite brilliant. Conflicts won't stand as one of the best anthologies of 2010, but it does offer fair value, all told.