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Berserker by Fred Saberhagen
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Berserker (1967)

by Fred Saberhagen

Series: Berserker (1)

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8271326,233 (3.63)13
The art of speculative fiction lies in the ability to create a plausible future that tells us a great deal about our present. This critically acclaimed recording by narrators Aaron Lustig and Henry Strozier chronicles human reactions on earth to an invasion by alien exterminators intent upon wiping out all sentient life on earth.… (more)
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Title:Berserker
Authors:Fred Saberhagen
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Berserker by Fred Saberhagen (Author) (1967)

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Showing 1-5 of 11 (next | show all)
Excellent Space War stories

Read a lot of Berserker short stories as a kid, these collections are great... still better stories that most modern works from others ( )
  acb13adm | Sep 13, 2023 |
  This review is written with a GPL 3.0 license and the rights contained therein shall supersede all TOS by any and all websites in regards to copying and sharing without proper authorization and permissions. Crossposted at Bookstooge.booklikes.blogspot.wordpress.leafmarks.tumblr.com by express permission of this reviewer.   Title: Berserker Series: Berserker Author: Fred Saberhagen Rating: 2.5 of 5 Stars Genre: SF Pages: 179     Synopsis: Humanity has spread through the stars and every intelligent race is so ultra-peaceful that when an ancient set of planet size killing machines wake up, Humanity is the last chance of All Life in the Entire Universe.   My Thoughts: I read this back in highschool and all I can remember from that time was that I found the overall tone rather dry.   Well, this time through I STILL found this dry and bordering on the line of plain old boring. A series of short stories that were tangentially related through various characters. Of course, each story is dealing with the Berserkers.   Berserkers, left over machines from an ancient race so old that there isn't even a record of them except for the Berserkers, were created to be death dealers in a war so vast that it got out of control and the Berserkers wiped out their masters.  And now they are OUR problem.   This should have been cool, thrilling and edge of your pants exciting. But it wasn't. Saberhagen seemed to do his best to be pedantic and putting his words together like he was building a brick wall instead of a thrilling roller coaster. There was no menace, no real sense that the End of Everything is upon us. The narrator was an alien, but that was no excuse for how text-book like this was.   There are several more books in the Berserker series, but I certainly will not bother with them. I don't want to take a drink of water with every chapter I read. " ( )
  BookstoogeLT | Dec 10, 2016 |
Fred Saberhagen was primarily a Sf writer. Bron in 1930, he died in 2007 at 77.. His wrote Sf for 41 years, for 38 of them he write an extended story called "The Berserkers" composed of novels and short stories. They focused on killer machines and cover a vast territory. This book is made up of the first set of short stories.
  drbrendan | Jul 2, 2016 |
Berserker is an old classic I've been meaning to read for years and have finally gotten around to it. And I'm glad I did. It's a collection of short stories loosely tied together about Death Star-sized and like robot machines/ships with one sole purpose: to destroy any life they encounter anywhere they encounter it. No one knows why these apparently ancient machines came from or why, but when hundreds of them appear in humanity's galaxy and start wiping out entire planets, humanity is forced to act. The cool thing about this book is that it is told from a variety of perspectives, such as from a painter, a comic, a mercenary, the human fleet's commander, etc. Even a shepherd. Berserkers show a great deal of flexibility in their ability to adjust to man's attacks, even though ultimately man's biggest fleet wipes out most of the Berserkers. The Berserkers just retreat to rebuild. One interesting moment occurs when one of these newly built Berserkers takes a human prisoner and admits to him it is programmed to destroy life, but it doesn't know what life is. The human uses that knowledge to save his planet. This is probably a four star book, but when I look at the David Weber and Jack McDevitt books I've given four stars to, this can't compare at all, so I'm forced to give it three. Nonetheless, recommended. ( )
  scottcholstad | Nov 18, 2015 |
Although I haven't read this book in decades, I remembered most of the stories pretty well. They were originally published separately & have graced many an anthology over the years. I was curious to see how they'd do as an audio book. Pretty good, although I'd recommend reading them separately for the best impact.

The stories are tied together by a hokey alien reading minds over many years & introducing each story. Since the stories were separate, Saberhagen had to establish who the Berserkers were in each story. As text, that's easy enough to skim over. As an audio book, it got really old.

There are a lot of stories for such a slim volume & they're all quite well done. Saberhagen started writing these stories in the 60's & I was quite impressed by how well the stories held up to the technological changes we've undergone. He concentrated on the human attributes & managed to make much of the technology rather timeless. He had a better grasp of computers than a lot of others, too. Definitely a great book & it was well read. ( )
  jimmaclachlan | Aug 18, 2014 |
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Author nameRoleType of authorWork?Status
Saberhagen, FredAuthorprimary authorall editionsconfirmed
Powers, RichardCover artistsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed

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I, Third Historian of the Carmpan Race, in gratitude to the Earth-descended race for their defence of my world, set down here for them my fragmentary vision of their great war against our common enemy.
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The art of speculative fiction lies in the ability to create a plausible future that tells us a great deal about our present. This critically acclaimed recording by narrators Aaron Lustig and Henry Strozier chronicles human reactions on earth to an invasion by alien exterminators intent upon wiping out all sentient life on earth.

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