Brother Assassin: Amazon.ca: Fred Saberhagen: Books

Product Description

Ingram

When the planet Sirgol is targeted for destruction by the Berserker war machines, who plan to travel through time to kill a pivotal scientist in history, Time Operative Derron Odegard becomes the world's only hope. Reprint. NYT. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Customer Reviews

6 Reviews

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
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Average Customer Review

4.2 out of 5 stars (6 customer reviews)

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Most helpful customer reviews

2.0 out of 5 stars Assassin lacks killer punch, May 24 2001

By	jrmspnc (Maryland, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Brother Assassin (Mass Market Paperback)

Just as one expects from Fred Saberhagen, Brother Assassin is a quick, unstressful read. Assassin makes up for a glaring defect in its predecessor by focusing on one planet and having one character tie each story together; on the other hand, the Berserkers themselves leave little impression with the reader, the sense of menace from the first book is absent. While there is little negative to be said about the book (except, as another reviewer has noted, a blatent and disappointing chauvinistic remark near the end), there is little positive, either. It is competently written and holds the attention, but it is not likely to bring one hurrying back for a second read.

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5.0 out of 5 stars The 'UNDO' Command, Mar 17 2000

By	Pantagruel (orbit) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Brother Assassin (Mass Market Paperback)

Hiding in their bunkers beneath a blasted world, the inhabitants of Sirgol are still not defeated. They have a unique colony world; their civilization is as old as Earth's, since Sirgol is the only planet known where time-travel can happen, and the first colonists dropped back thousands of years. Now the berserker machines have found them, and almost beaten them by scouring off the surface of their world, but the Sirgolians still have a chance as they fight the machines through the loops and bends of their planet's earthlike history. And on Sirgol, you can really go back and make it not happen. Saberhagen's berserkers are always a scary concept, but here they have a different side. It's a question critical to my own survival: how complicated can a machine be before it can be said to be 'alive?'

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5.0 out of 5 stars My favorite of the bunch, Jan 26 2000

By	Steve Herr (Jackson, MI USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Brother Assassin (Mass Market Paperback)

I've been a fan of Saberhagen for decades, his early Berserker books being his first I'd read. This one is by far the best I've read yet.

The story takes place on a planet where a type of radiation surrounding the planet makes time travel possible. Human explorers who first came to the planet were caught unawares, sent far into the past and de-evolved so that they had to advance all over again.

Now in the "present," they had learned to harness the radiation and look into the past and even travel there.

When the Berserkers, planet-sized doomsday machines from some long-forgotten intergalactic war whose prime directive is to destroy all life, arrive they are repelled by the planet's defenses. They then try to make use of the time travel to affect the planet's past.

The story starts kind of slowly, but soon has you in its grip so that you won't want to put it down.

Check it out.

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Most recent customer reviews

4.0 out of 5 stars A good berserker novel
Overall, a good read, though it plays more like three good novellas stitched together with a decent framing story rather than a novel cut from whole cloth. Read more

Published on Oct 1 1999

5.0 out of 5 stars It's a battle in time to stop the Berserkers.
This is yet another great Berserker book... Saberhagen goes into great detail about all the events of Sirgol's history, the planet literally comes to life... Read more

Published on Jul 15 1998

4.0 out of 5 stars The Beserkers continue to try and wipe out all life
Another great Beserker book! This story revolves around a battle waged via time travel. These beserkers are more subtle in their efforts to wipe out humanity.

Published on Jan 20 1998