Harry Silver has already had a lifetime of trouble from ordinary Berserkers, the automated killing machines programmed an age ago to denude the galaxy of life. Now when his own family is kidnapped, he faces a deviant machine, a good fit for some or all of the Galactic Dictionary's definitions of ROGUE:
ROGUE: (1) A deceitful, double-dealing evildoer .. . (4) A fierce elephant or stamodont that has been banished from the herd . . . (10) Having a peculiarly malevolent or unstable nature . . . (11) No longer loyal, affiliated, or recognized, and hence not governable or accountable . . . erring, apostate. - Galactic Dictionary of the Common Tongue
Ordinary Berserkers armed with weapons powerful enough to kill an entire planet were enough of a nightmare. What worse deviltry will a killing machine gone rogue attempt-and even if Silver can stop it, will he ever see his family alive again?
Even those who have lost count of Saberhagen's Berserker novels should applaud this one….much fast action during which characterizations and hardware remain well balanced….Substantial rewards for sophisticated and longtime Berserker fans. --Booklist
Saberhagen has given science fiction one of its most powerful images of future war in his Berserker Series. --Publishers Weekly
The Berserkers, in their single-minded pursuit of their pre-programmed course of destruction, attain a kind of perverse stature that makes them worthy stand-ins for the dark side of human nature. --New York Times
Description:
Harry Silver has already had a lifetime of trouble from ordinary Berserkers, the automated killing machines programmed an age ago to denude the galaxy of life. Now when his own family is kidnapped, he faces a deviant machine, a good fit for some or all of the Galactic Dictionary's definitions of ROGUE:
ROGUE: (1) A deceitful, double-dealing evildoer .. . (4) A fierce elephant or stamodont that has been banished from the herd . . . (10) Having a peculiarly malevolent or unstable nature . . . (11) No longer loyal, affiliated, or recognized, and hence not governable or accountable . . . erring, apostate. - Galactic Dictionary of the Common Tongue
Ordinary Berserkers armed with weapons powerful enough to kill an entire planet were enough of a nightmare. What worse deviltry will a killing machine gone rogue attempt-and even if Silver can stop it, will he ever see his family alive again?
From Booklist
Even those who have lost count of Saberhagen's Berserker novels should applaud this one. Rogue pilot Harry Silver is hired by a wealthy magnate to retrieve the magnate's abducted wife and daughter. One of Silver's archrivals, the pilot Satranji, is also part of the scheme, as is a naval architect who has devised a fast scout ship that looks exactly like one of the smaller berserkers. Ideal for penetrating berserker-held space, this ship is not the only oddity in Harry's path. Others include an assassin machine sent by Berserker High Command to terminate a rogue berserker, a sex-surrogate robot, the aforementioned rogue berserker, and the abduction of Harry's own family. After much fast action during which characterizations and hardware remain well balanced, Harry gets his family back, but the rogue berserker, which kidnapped them for research on humans, is still on the loose. Substantial rewards for sophisticated and longtime Berserker fans. Roland Green
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Review
Even those who have lost count of Saberhagen's Berserker novels should applaud this one….much fast action during which characterizations and hardware remain well balanced….Substantial rewards for sophisticated and longtime Berserker fans. --Booklist
Saberhagen has given science fiction one of its most powerful images of future war in his Berserker Series. --Publishers Weekly
The Berserkers, in their single-minded pursuit of their pre-programmed course of destruction, attain a kind of perverse stature that makes them worthy stand-ins for the dark side of human nature. --New York Times