Berserker Prime [Hardcover]

This would be called a prequel, going back to the situation briefly sketched by the Carmpam first historial in the linking material in the first collection of Berserker stories. Mankind has spread to the stars, and two star systems are on the brink of war. And a Berkserker shows up. Having been a Saberhagen fan since my first delireous reading of Changeling Earth (part of Empire of the East), and still remembering my first discovery of his Berserker stories with pleasure. And I liked this one. I enjoyed seeing Hemphill as a cadet, a fascinating character who appeared in three of the original tales. And I especially like Saberhagen's wry use of Asimov's Three Laws set against the presence of the murderous berkserkers.

Berserkers are among the archtypical monsters of science-fiction. They are machines capable of self-replication and self-

repair that exist for no other purpose than to eliminate life, which of course has predictable consequences when said machines encounter humanity. The Berserker represents several common themes of science fiction--the potential danger of artificial intelligence, the wisdom of unleashing the ultimate weapon, the unknown dangers of space, parallells between artificial and natural intelligences, etc. Unfortunately, none of these ideas are explored in this book. The original stories were great, but Berserker Prime doesn't come close to delivering on its promise.

With the Berserkers, Fred Saberhagen tuned us into one of fantasy's great concepts. Other authors may have touched on it before he did, but with multiple short stories and novels, he brought the concept into focus.

I subtract a star from my rating because I have read almost all the Berserker stories, and they now lack the freshness of originality. If this is your first Berserker adventure, I give it five stars.

Long ago a race of intelligent aliens warred. They programmed war machines with artificial intelligence, and one side of the war got carried away with its programming. To make things easy for the AI, the machines were sent into enemy territory with this simple order: Destroy all life!

The machines were successful. Too much so. After carrying out their order against the enemy, they continued to carry it out against their creators.

Millennia passed. Now the machines have found new life forms to destroy.

"Berserker Prime" is not Saberhagen's first published Berserker story. It is, however, a prequel. "Prime" refers to the first Berserker to have contact with human beings. (Excluding Berserkers that have travelled back in time to attack primitive humans. Records of those encounters survive only as myth.) Just as two human solar systems are about to engage in war, one of them is invaded by a fifty-kilometer long spaceship. It remains silent. It vaporizes scout ships sent to investigate it. A malignant juggernaut, the Berserker proceeds toward one of the system's two planets, occupied by billions of humans.

Do not expect any in-depth development of characters. Though his heroes and villains have personalities, Saberhagen uses only a few words of suggestive imagery to describe them. But that is enough. With help from the characters' behavior and the story, I identified with the good guys and I shunned the bad guys.

This is lean space opera, without much plotting or biographical background or lengthy detail. Action is intense, and death is aplenty. Yet science and logic are respected, within reason.

Be advised: near the end, though it is a happy ending, a couple of things are left dangling. The reader is responsible for filling in details regarding the fates of some characters. And the author seems to contradict himself. At one point he says this is happening; at another point he says that is happening. I had to make my own mental insertion to understand that only one of those things actually did happen. (Sorry for being vague, but I do not want to give specifics that would spoil the story.)

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