The Planet of the Robot Slaves

Bill, the Galactic Hero #2

by Harry Harrison

While chasing rampaging dragons, Bill and his sidekicks land on an alien planet where they battle two warring factions of self-replicating robots and discover a lost tribe of Martians

Genres: Science Fiction, Humor, Fiction, Satire, Science Fiction Fantasy, Fantasy, Audiobook

236 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published July 1, 1989

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.

Harry Harrison (born Henry Maxwell Dempsey) was an American science fiction author best known for his character the The Stainless Steel Rat and the novel Make Room! Make Room! (1966), the basis for the film Soylent Green (1973). He was also (with Brian W. Aldiss) co-president of the Birmingham Science Fiction Group.

Excerpted from Wikipedia.

Reviews

[Bradley · Rating 3 out of 5]

Okay, maybe this isn't quite the scathing satire that the first one was, and it doesn't really hold up on a re-read (after many, many years,) but if you're looking for less social-issue satire and a direct lampoon of the then-modern SF tropes, like skewering McCaffrey's dragons, or making fun of ooold classics like John Carter of Mars, or even throwing in a little arena action leading right to King Arthur to round out your chuckle-meter (or the groan one), then this is still a light-hearted adventure with plenty of old-style easter eggs to point and snicker at.

Obviously, it's better if you know the SF field of the day.

But does it hold up now?

Yes, with that pretty big caveat: It makes fun of the sexism of the day, has a grand time calling every military type stupid, and none of it is very sophisticated. It is, however, self-aware and subversive with its own points. (The sexism underscored its opposite, as did the times where the military was quite smart, and the apparent sophistication, when scratched, became fairly subtle. But first, we had to enjoy it enough to get there.)

Frankly? I don't think it would hold up well today. You'd almost have to be a scholar of the field to eke out an appreciation for it. But for its time, it wasn't bad.

[Scott Rhee · Rating 3 out of 5]

It took Harry Harrison nearly 40 years to write a sequel to his underrated anti-war satirical novel, "Bill the Galactic Hero", and, while it's not nearly as clever, scathing, and apropos as the original, "Bill the Galactic Hero: The Planet of the Robot Slaves" is still humorous and entertaining.

Published in 1989, "Bill Part 2" (as I will henceforth refer to it, even though it is inexplicably numbered "Volume 1" on the cover, which doesn't make sense as the first "Bill" book was actually published in 1965, although I'm guessing that Harrison was basically trying to distance himself from the original book due to the sharp contrast in theme and political commentary, of which there is really little to none in this sequel, in an attempt to recreate the series---the contemporary term would be "reboot"---as a light, comedic sci-fi parody, which ultimately succeeds, and which continued in six more sequels) basically carries on where the first book left off.

"Bill Part 2" is silly-dumb. It's closer in spirit to the goofiness of Mad magazine and Heavy Metal comic books than it is to the social commentary of the original, which is fine by me, as I grew up reading both magazines. It helps to be a sci-fi geek when reading this, as it abounds with a ridiculous amount of sci-fi in-jokes and references. Everything from cyberpunk, Anne McCaffrey's "Pern" series, Edgar Rice Burrough's "John Carter of Mars" series, and Arthurian legends are lampooned here, and there are probably a half-dozen more references I missed.

Needless to say, there's not much plot of which to speak. It's just Bill and a group of rag-tag characters thrown together jumping from one ridiculously silly situation to another, with a plethora of bad puns, knee-slappers, and groaners along the way. There's even some occasional T&A, but it's mostly PG-13 rated, so don't expect it.

All in all, "Bill 2" was good, clean fun. Utterly pointless, but nonetheless entertaining. I have already been searching Amazon for the other six books in the series.

[Juho Pohjalainen · Rating 2 out of 5]

The first Bill novel wasn't brilliant or perfect, but it held a few good laughs and had an important message or two hidden underneath. This second one, by comparison, falls quite flat. It trades away much of the established setting in favour of pretty shallow and nonsensical parodies, none of which really fit in very well with the initial mission statement, and more to the point, none of which made me laugh.

I usually like Harrison's work, but nobody's perfect, I suppose. I hope the third book will follow more of the first one than this second.

[Chuck · Rating 3 out of 5]

Okay, imagine a world in which a ship has crash landed. Half the people love Malory's Morte d'Artur and model their culture on King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table, and the other half love Edward Gibbons The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, and they have based their culture on Ancient Rome. A man, posing as the god Mars, keeps the two at perpetual war with each other to keep things "sharp" for the Romans.

That's just one chapter.

It's a pretty breakneck pace; pure satire and not a lot of character development. There's a twenty year plus lag between this book and the first Bill book; this is much superior to the first.

This is continuing my Harry Harrison kick; I'm also five books away from my personal goal of reading a book a week, or 52 books in a calendar year. This must be done by the last week in April for me to reach the goal. I'm actually a week ahead! Yeah!

[Rafa Araujo · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5
Es una parodia a las historias de ciencia ficción pulp ¡y me encanta!
Bill es el personaje que bajo otro género literario lo odiaría pero aquí es la perfecta pieza que hace girar la historia, todos los personajes tan clichés que me sacaban carcajadas y los plot twist más ridiculos en cada capítulo que me dejaban de WTF. Altamente recomiendo este título a los amantes de las primeras historias intergalácticas de ciencia ficción ya que es un disfrute.

*Si te has leído los libros de Edgar Rice Burroughs lo disfrutarás aún más :)

[Kieran McAndrew · Rating 5 out of 5]

Bill is a quintessential soldier. First into the fray and definitely first to complain that it was the senior officers' fault for putting him there. Testing a new FTL Drive for use in the Earth war against the Chingers, Bill and a ragtag crew find themselves crashing into a planet inhabited by living machines.

Harrison is a very funny writer, but the humour is used as a tool to examine the absurdity of war. Definitely a classic, counter culture SF novel.

[Martin Willoughby · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very dated, but still amusing and entertaining enough to keep you reading.

[Benjamin · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book is so dumb it took me 2 years to get through.

[P.J. Taylor · Rating 2 out of 5]

I read this book originally when I was in my late teens and this is the first time since then that I've re-read it. And, to be perfectly honest, I didn't enjoy this book very much at all. It seems my tastes have changed. Whilst I chuckled occasionally this is nowhere near as good as I remember. Very silly, school boy humour with very little plot. Best avoided . . .

[Kumar Ayush · Rating 3 out of 5]

Towards the end, it feels like some plot elements are being stretched without any reason. There are some repetitive elements too.

I enjoyed the absurdist humour, and the characters do a good job, but not very happy with the plot.

[RandomSkev · Rating 2 out of 5]

Probably a good read if you're a youngster. Passable jokes. Decent writing. Not nearly as good as I expected from Harrison after reading "The Adventures of the Stainless Steel Rat."

[Letande D'Argon · Rating 1 out of 5]

The first half is just bad. Just your usual cheap Sci-Fi from late 80s. Something to read and forget right away. The second half? It's a complete disaster. Anti-militarist satire from the first novel disappeared without a trace and was replaced by some cheap laughs and dumb parodies. Which made me feel like this novel was written by a kid. Even more so since all situations are random, meaningless and don't lead anywhere.

It's just that. Cheap laughs for cheap laughs. I remember reading some interview, in which Harrison claimed that he was talked into writing another Bill novel by a third party who made him believe it's a good idea. Unfortunately, when you actually read this book, it feels like he did it just for money. Without caring at all about the actual thing.

This novel feels so cheap that it actually hurts. Anyone who every wrote something can do this. Get a couple of beers and simply write down all stupid nonsense that comes to mind. With no purpose or proper direction. If you like this kind of humor, you may actually pick this one up for laughs but honestly, it's just a major waste of everybody's time.

[Jimbo · Rating 2 out of 5]

The only other Bill book written (solely) by Harrison is a disappointment. There's a huge gap between these two books and the break from Bill hasn't done him any favours. This is a mishmash of ill-defined characters and a frustratingly frantic tour of sci-fi, late 80s pop culture, and historical references.

Despite Harrison being on record saying he had fun writing it, it reads like an author grudgingly returning to a character he'd forgotten about, only coming back because Terry Pratchett's success made this sort of thing seem like a profitable idea.

Worth reading only to see how some the Bill series has had a noticeable influence on, e.g., Grant/Naylor's Red Dwarf.

[Xabi1990 · Rating 3 out of 5]

7/10. Media de los 17 libros que he leído del autor : 7/10.

Ciencia ficción de humor exagerado donde Bill es una parodia de todos los heroes super-cachas que hayan podido existir.

Exagerado, esperpéntico, semiabsurdo, un humor bestia con el que no dejas de sonreir si te lo tomas tan a broma como lo ha hecho su autor al escribirlo.

Hay una serie de, creo, 7 libros pero son independientes, se pueden leer por separado. Este es el primero de la saga y el comentario vale para todos ellos.

Yo empezaría a leerlo y si no te gusta este humor, pues lo dejas y en paz.

[Carlos Ayerbe · Rating 3 out of 5]

Algo mas humoristico que el primero de la colección, pero si buscaba algun rasgo de critica como el anterior, se perdio en la trama.
En este primer libro de la serie (el verdadero numero uno, se puede considerar aparte aunque dentro de la linea), se empieza a ver lo de pasar muchas aventuras con una conexion cogida de los pelos con respecto a la linea principal. Al menos en esta se ve algo de coherencia en como suceden.

[Simon Evans · Rating 1 out of 5]

Tired (and would have been in the 80s when it was published) and dull.

I was expecting so much more having heard great things about Harrison. I guess I chose the wrong book to begin with but I picked this – and four more from the Bill series – up cheaply but I simply cannot see me reading the rest.

The jokes are old, the plot is mundane, the language is trying way to hard (I counted 5 uses of the word ‘lambent’, for example, none of which added to the prose a great deal.

[Mark Isaak · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed Harrison's "Stainless Steel Rat" series, so I had high hopes for this book. But unlike the cleverness of the Rat, all the characters in this book are stupid, often extremely so, and few have any virtues to mitigate it. Deliberately, the plot makes not the slightest effort at plausibility. The writing shows cleverness, and the action is non-stop. The book is an effective satire showing the stupidities of war, but the incessant stupidity detracts from my enjoyment of it.

[Nenad Pavlović · Rating 2 out of 5]

If it was a knock-off Sierra video game or a short story on the back of a dirty magazine, I might look upon it more favorably. As it is, I can't believe it even got published. If not for a few jokes that made me chuckle I would've given it a 1/5. Almost total garbage.

[Zed · Rating 4 out of 5]

These books hold the same attraction as the Pratchett's. Outlandish world's and over the top behaviors punctuated by unlikely happenstance and entirely illogical choices.

[Andy · Rating 2 out of 5]

I groaned a lot listening to this one

[Mark Bates · Rating 4 out of 5]

Bill rides again, fun and silly adventures.

[Jaime · Rating 3 out of 5]

kindle

[Jim Mullen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Stupid fun.

[John · Rating 3 out of 5]

Sadly, the vast bulk of THE PLANET OF THE ROBOT SLAVES can't live up to Harrison's brilliant lampooning of military SF in its opening chapters. The rest of the novel is very ho-hum, but I was admittedly amused by the scope of Harrison's parodying, which ranged from Edgar Rice Burroughs to Charles Darwin to the Arthurian legends. Most of it doesn't really work, but I appreciated the attempt regardless.

[Geert Daelemans · Rating 4 out of 5]

An enjoyable read with a message

Bill does not like danger, although he is supposed to really get a kick out of it, him being a Space Trooper and all. But no matter what he does -mainly trying to get danger as far as possible away from him or vice versa- heroism keeps following Bill without mercy. That is why he is still alive and kicking. That is, because of an earlier accident: kicking with his two right arms -there weren't any spare left ones- and his chicken leg -there weren't any human legs left. When his camp is attacked by gigantic metal dragons he volunteers not to be made member of the revenge mission, and that is exactly what his commander officer decides not to do.

Harry Harrison has a talent for the absurd. With seemingly no effort he paradises the whole science fiction genre and gets away with it. If you would want to compare him with to writers, you are bound to think of him as Terry Pratchett being genetically cloned in the neighborhood of Douglas Adams. Although Harrison never reaches the level of absurdness of Adams and is only a few times as funny as Pratchett, he still has created a quite enjoyable character in the hero of Bill. What makes this story special is its continuous anti-war message. Although most of the characters crave for some kind of unending battle, it is clear to the reader that the absurdness of the wars described in this book is certainly not far from what is happening in our world. It is certainly quite surprising and refreshing to see such theme appear in this kind of book.

[Saul · Rating 3 out of 5]

It goes without saying the book is well written by a master of SF. However, I think this particular chapter in the series lacks depth. Its theme is clear, that war is a ridiculous tragedy and promoted by the jingoistic machinations of nihilistic leaders. However, I'm not sure the well intended message follows the plot's cadence. Bill's antics, as seen before, are like a garbled stream of thought. One crazy act of self preservation simply leads to another with humorous outcomes. As fun as this may have been, I was never convinced that the plot's intended comedy unified the book's theme into a satisfactory whole.

That said, the writing is strong enough to keep the reader going. I also found interesting Harrison's homage to other famous works of SF. Perhaps I'm not well read enough to get every joke, but the book's satire of Edgar Rice Burroughs' Warlord of Mars series was quite good. I also enjoyed Harrison's spoof of Neuromancer, which included a pretty good parody of Gibson's jargon filled prose. You don't see that sort of thing often.

Finally, this book was intended to reboot Bill as an ongoing franchise. Other authors are employed to carry on the torch, one of which is David Bischoff (a personal favorite). And the cover art by Kaluta is truly eye catching.

[Witchi · Rating 2 out of 5]

I really wanted to like this book, I really did. Stainless Steel Rat is my old time favourite and this book being written by the same author must be as good, right? Not so much.

I don't like the main character and I don't think he was made to be likeable, but there is absolutly nobody who reader could care about and keep fingers crossed for. Somebody told me that this book was written as a pastiche on goverment, but at some point it became so riddicules that it reminded me one of the comments from 'Princess Bride'.

In additional notes author of 'Princess..' was saying that he cut out a whole fragment of the book that lasted for 14 pages and described how woman was unpacking her clothes. Apparently in times when orginal author of 'Princess Bride' lived it was consider a beautiful satire on french high society, but on us was lost.

This book sounded for me like that removed fragment.

[melydia · Rating 3 out of 5]

Though it claims to be Volume 1, this is technically a sequel. However, there's a complete summary of Bill the Galactic Hero at the beginning of this book, so it's a fine standalone read.

I don't know where the title came from, since there aren't really any robot slaves anywhere. Bill of the ever-changing military rank is stranded with a few others on a planet inhabited by metal creatures, Virginians, Romans, and various characters from Arthurian legend. It is, in a word, silly. Extremely silly. But I would expect nothing less from Harrison. I don't think I could read multiple books in a row from this series but it's a nice diversion from time to time.

[John Lawson · Rating 2 out of 5]

Eternal army private Bill finds himself marooned on a planet largely run by sentient machines. Very juvenile humor ensues.

I liked the first book. It was edgy and funny, in the same vein as HITCKHIKERS. But this book was just silly, in a dumb way. The first half was dominated by sex and drinking and bodily function jokes (and not very good ones). The second half takes a very sudden turn from humor into satire, first with a fairly dead-on parody of JOHN CARTER OF MARS (Dejah Vu and all, National Lampoon would be proud) and then with a really BAD parody of King Arthur. (Yeah, huh?)

The plot had all the focus and depth of a 13-year old with ADHD after four espressos.

[Nass]

,,Jak możesz w ogóle myśleć o seksie w takim momencie! - krzyknął Bill, wyślizgując się z ciepłego uścisku. - Za parę godzin możemy być martwi, z tego co widać". – Zadaję sobie to pytanie za każdym razem, gdy w jakiekolwiek książce pojawiają się niepotrzebne sceny erotyczne.

,,Znalazł młodego Bly w łóżku ze swą żoną i swym siostrzeńcem. Nie wspominając już o owcy i ulubionym psie myśliwskim. Dowódca naprawdę kochał tego psa".