Berserker

Author: Fred Saberhagen

Fred Saberhagen was a brilliant writer whose works of the 1970s and 80s are sometimes forgotten. Berserker, an 1967 anthology of 11 stories set in the Berserker universe that were originally published between 1963 and 1966, established Saberhagen as a master of the military science fiction tale, and moreover, managed to set the foundation for an amazing series of novels and stories that followed. Berserkers are self-replicating spaceships of unimaginable power, and they are waging war on humanity. Their goal is pretty simple: destroy all humans! The war of Earthers against the berserkers is incredible, and the individual stories, which all fit together tighter than most novels manage, all have a particular bent, each giving a view of an idea or concept that doesn’t overwhelm the overall story, but makes it possible to explore more niche ideas. Opening with an impressive puzzle story, and including a marvelous, and more than a bit nihilistic, story called Patron of the Arts, makes this collection worthy of reading and re-reading. Why it’s on the list The entire cause of the berserkers can be boiled down to “To serve the cause of what men call death is good. To destroy life is good.” That alone makes the reading of the story all that more powerful.