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Dilbia #1
Spacial Delivery
A Nebula Award-winning Author In the good old days they gave you a suit of armor and a mighty steed to rescue a maiden in distress. But John Tardy didn't know about this battle until he was in it. No suit of armor, no magnificent charger. He'd have been happy just to arrive on his own two feet, or any way other than as a package labeled "Spacial Delivery."
208 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1961
3 people are currently reading
183 people want to read
About the author
Gordon R. Dickson
589 books377 followersGordon Rupert Dickson was an American science fiction author. He was born in Canada, then moved to Minneapolis, Minnesota as a teenager. He is probably most famous for his Childe Cycle and the Dragon Knight series. He won three Hugo awards and one Nebula award.
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Displaying 1 - 22 of 22 reviews
June 6, 2010
The planet Dilbia lies in the Neutral Zone between the Federation and Klingon Empire, and according to the terms of the Organian Peace Treaty, control of it will go to whichever power can prove they can best develop the planet.
Er, no. Wrong universe. But the similarity is strong enough that I wonder if David Gerrold had crumbs of this book in his mind while writing "The Trouble with Tribbles," the episode that established the terms of the Organian Peace Treaty.
Anywho, Dilbia is a star system strategically located between human and Hemnoid space. Its inhabitants are a rustic, ursine race that is suspicious of both races, though they feel they have more in common with the bellicose Hemnoids.
When the human ambassador insults the Streamside Terror by saying he's not worthy of marrying the Mayor of Humrog's daughter, the Terror responds by kidnapping Ty Lamorc, a human sociologist who's been studying the Dilbians. To get her back, someone must first satisfy Dilbian honor by besting the Terror in a fight.
Enter John Tardy, a decathlete and biochemist who is drafted by the government for this most important mission. But the Terror lives high in the mountains. To reach him, John needs a guide. Someone who knows the wilderness. Someone who is so well respected that no one would dare hamper him.
Someone like Hill Bluffer, the postman.
And so John, now given the Dilbian nickname of "Half-pint Posted," is strapped to the back of a bipedal bear and carried through the wild country of Dilbia so he can eventually wrassle an even bigger bear.
Although written as a science fiction novel, the story resembles nothing so much as Robert E. Howard's Breckinridge Elkins series -- no one's quite as dim as ol' Breck, but both feel like a tall-tale that's being told with the same sensibility as the comic scenes in a John Ford movie. Which is great if you're a person who finds that sort of thing funny, and completely baffling if you aren't.
Me, I think Ken Curtis and Hank Worden are the best parts of The Searchers.
Er, no. Wrong universe. But the similarity is strong enough that I wonder if David Gerrold had crumbs of this book in his mind while writing "The Trouble with Tribbles," the episode that established the terms of the Organian Peace Treaty.
Anywho, Dilbia is a star system strategically located between human and Hemnoid space. Its inhabitants are a rustic, ursine race that is suspicious of both races, though they feel they have more in common with the bellicose Hemnoids.
When the human ambassador insults the Streamside Terror by saying he's not worthy of marrying the Mayor of Humrog's daughter, the Terror responds by kidnapping Ty Lamorc, a human sociologist who's been studying the Dilbians. To get her back, someone must first satisfy Dilbian honor by besting the Terror in a fight.
Enter John Tardy, a decathlete and biochemist who is drafted by the government for this most important mission. But the Terror lives high in the mountains. To reach him, John needs a guide. Someone who knows the wilderness. Someone who is so well respected that no one would dare hamper him.
Someone like Hill Bluffer, the postman.
And so John, now given the Dilbian nickname of "Half-pint Posted," is strapped to the back of a bipedal bear and carried through the wild country of Dilbia so he can eventually wrassle an even bigger bear.
Although written as a science fiction novel, the story resembles nothing so much as Robert E. Howard's Breckinridge Elkins series -- no one's quite as dim as ol' Breck, but both feel like a tall-tale that's being told with the same sensibility as the comic scenes in a John Ford movie. Which is great if you're a person who finds that sort of thing funny, and completely baffling if you aren't.
Me, I think Ken Curtis and Hank Worden are the best parts of The Searchers.
March 16, 2021
Dilbians look a lot like Kodiak bears, and have personalities reminiscent of the stereotypical Vikings: brusk, often combative but also people who like their beer and have good senses of humor. John Tardy, a one-time Olympic athlete who just wants at this point in his life to be a chemist, is drafted to go to Dilbia and help with a diplomatic situation. It seems that a human woman, one of only two humans on the planet, has been kidnapped by a Dilbian known as the Streamside Terror, who is annoyed that the human ambassador messed up his courtship of Boy Is She Built (the Dilbians all have evocative and often funny nicknames for everyone). But only after he gets there does Tardy find out that he'll be expected to find the Terror.
To reach the Terror, Tardy must get across country by the most efficient means available: he's mailed, and carried across country by the Dilbian postman, Hill Bluffer. Because of this, Tardy gets his Dilbian nickname: the Half-Pint Posted. He travels across country, he and Bluffer have several adventures along the way, and in the end he must face the Terror. It's all a lot of fun, both exiting and often funny.
I first read this years ago, and it was nice to re-read it to get ready for the local SF reading group meeting that's coming up next week.
To reach the Terror, Tardy must get across country by the most efficient means available: he's mailed, and carried across country by the Dilbian postman, Hill Bluffer. Because of this, Tardy gets his Dilbian nickname: the Half-Pint Posted. He travels across country, he and Bluffer have several adventures along the way, and in the end he must face the Terror. It's all a lot of fun, both exiting and often funny.
I first read this years ago, and it was nice to re-read it to get ready for the local SF reading group meeting that's coming up next week.
August 21, 2024
This book was part of the collection of three books. But seeing as how I DNF the whole book after reading this story I'm not going to review the overall story but just this individual one. But overall I just don't get it. I bought the main book basically on the cover alone and the brief description of the book on the back seemed interesting. But boy was this story boring. Its not a very long book but it was so hard to read. Either the humor was something I didn't get or it wasn't very good. The names the bears used for translation purpose as their names are not easily to be pronounced by other species seemed very childish and doesn't make sense as the humans are trying to get an alliance with the bears so culturally there's not alot of integration, so the names seem to have a context that is not explained. Overall this book and its series seem to not be something meant for me as a reader. Their are others out there that would enjoy this but I am not one of them
February 10, 2022
Dilbia is inhabited by sentient beings that look like Kodiak (Alaska Brown) bears that stand on 2 legs. And, yes, they're BIG. John Tardy, and ex-decathlon athlete, now a bio-chemist, has been drafted to rescue a human female being held by "The Stream-side Terror", a Dilbian with a tough reputation, because of the Terror's desire to marry a Dilbian woman, "Boy is She Built". And he will have to do it bare-handed.
He's loaded aboard a fast-walking Dilbian known as the "Postman" (yes he delivers mail) to be delivered to the Terror to battle him and rescue the woman -- before he's given a proper briefing.
The story moves along and John's adventures kept me engaged to the surprising end. There are bad "guys", competing aliens who also want to befriend the Dilbians, and a few allies -- some of them surprising.
Dickson usually spins a good yarn and this is one of them.
He's loaded aboard a fast-walking Dilbian known as the "Postman" (yes he delivers mail) to be delivered to the Terror to battle him and rescue the woman -- before he's given a proper briefing.
The story moves along and John's adventures kept me engaged to the surprising end. There are bad "guys", competing aliens who also want to befriend the Dilbians, and a few allies -- some of them surprising.
Dickson usually spins a good yarn and this is one of them.
May 9, 2017
A former Olympic athlete is drafted by the diplomatic corps and given an assignment with very little briefing. Off he goes to settle a dispute on a planet of large bear-like creatures. The only way to get him across the countryside is in the pack of the huge bearish mail-being. As he travels along he learns that he has been summoned to FIGHT one of the bear creatures, SAY WHAT?
A nice short Science Fiction novel that isn't especially heavy on Science Fiction, but has comical moments and is nothing short of CLASSIC Sci-Fi counter-cultural ideas. Reminds me why I liked to read Dickson years ago and made me pick up a couple more at the local library sale.
This one is nothing short of a FUN read.
A nice short Science Fiction novel that isn't especially heavy on Science Fiction, but has comical moments and is nothing short of CLASSIC Sci-Fi counter-cultural ideas. Reminds me why I liked to read Dickson years ago and made me pick up a couple more at the local library sale.
This one is nothing short of a FUN read.
January 21, 2020
Spacial Delivery is mid century Scifi at its best. The book is definitely dated, but that's all part of the fun. It's half rip roaring adventure and half sociological time machine. The addition of a bunch of boisterous bear-men only makes it better. Fans of H. Beam Piper's Little Fuzzy are sure to love it.
September 9, 2019
Great story a classic, a different look at logic.
Also in anthology.
Also in anthology.
September 9, 2020
A good old classic scifi romp through an alien world inhabited by talking bears. Talking bears? Lol. I don't care. This was a fun read.
January 4, 2021
Very goofy and ultimately pointless little story, but it was also very short and most of the characters were giant dumb-guy alien bears so you gotta love it. Thoroughly enjoyed.
August 24, 2022
Just saw this book at the book store recently and remembered I read it. I liked it enough to buy 3 more of his novels for 1 dollar a piece. Fun sci-fi slop.
February 23, 2023
An excellent start to Dickson's bears series. Dilbia is a place I'd want to visit.
November 14, 2022
This short novel's premise is actually kind of genius - bears are one of the few other large mammals to habitually go on two legs, and they can look disarmingly human when they do. It's only a skip and a jump to a species of bear-like aliens who share the same kind of self-assured and occasionally ornery mentality as a grizzly. The story appears simple at first, with protagonist John shanghaied and mailed as a package to a Dilbian who kidnapped a human woman, so John can rescue her. It manages to keep itself afloat by constantly confounding the protagonist's understanding of the motives of everyone involved, and even gets some amusing twists in at the end (John tossing the damsel into the lake was priceless), but it really was mostly John getting in and out of scrapes of various kinds. The Dilbian characters were fun, especially how seriously they take the delivery of mail. Dickson also displays an impressive economy of language, and balance between description and dialogue. It's a cut above your average wooden midcentury SF verbiage but it's not going to make you break out in tears at its beauty. There's almost certainly more amusement to be mined from this premise, so here's hoping the sequel is worthwhile.
Now for Barlowe's Guide:
I really don't know what went wrong here. This is a rare case of the book cover getting the alien exactly right and Barlowe fumbling. The book describes the Dilbians as looking almost exactly like a brown bear, but upright, with a higher cranium, a more humanlike lower jaw, and paws with thumbs. This hardly looks like a bear to me. Where is the shag? Why the pointed ears? I can see what he was trying to do with the jaw, but I think he went a bit too far. What I took the text to mean was that they had a bit more of a chin than a real bear, but Barlowe gave them a really big square jaw. The expression is way too thoughtful for the boisterous characters in this book, except maybe One Man. It's sad, because he manages an amazing humanity of expression in a non-human face here, but it just doesn't fit the text its paired with. This is more of a reinterpretation of the Dilbians than anything.
Now for Barlowe's Guide:
I really don't know what went wrong here. This is a rare case of the book cover getting the alien exactly right and Barlowe fumbling. The book describes the Dilbians as looking almost exactly like a brown bear, but upright, with a higher cranium, a more humanlike lower jaw, and paws with thumbs. This hardly looks like a bear to me. Where is the shag? Why the pointed ears? I can see what he was trying to do with the jaw, but I think he went a bit too far. What I took the text to mean was that they had a bit more of a chin than a real bear, but Barlowe gave them a really big square jaw. The expression is way too thoughtful for the boisterous characters in this book, except maybe One Man. It's sad, because he manages an amazing humanity of expression in a non-human face here, but it just doesn't fit the text its paired with. This is more of a reinterpretation of the Dilbians than anything.
December 19, 2015
This is one of those “I read it for the aliens” books where the aliens didn’t quite meet my expectations. I’ve never read anything else by Dickson, so I won’t judge his writing on the basis of this slender paperback, but I found this story to be generally lacking in imagination. Pretty much the whole thing could be set on Earth, if you just changed the characters from aliens to a biker gang, and you wouldn’t even have to change the character names.
The premise is a future interstellar society where humans are competing with other spacefaring races for resources and trade routes. Our main character is an athlete with training in bio-chemistry, who is “drafted” for a job on Dilbia by the Diplomatic Service. Dilbia is a planet almost identical to Earth (specifically the North American continent, from what little we see of it), but populated by talking bears. The bears (Dilbians) have a loose tribal culture, and at first I’d hoped there would be some consideration of colonialism and narratives of indigenous peoples caught between warring empires, but the whole thing is too simplistic and good-natured for that. Basically the humans have gotten into trouble by interfering with a wedding, which has caused one of the Dilbians to go rogue and kidnap a human female, and the hero must go out and rescue her. It never gets any cleverer than that.
The one aspect of Dilbian culture that was at least amusing is how seriously they take their postal service. The hero is “posted” with one of their carriers, who becomes duty-bound to “deliver” him to the enemy. This saves a lot time in the plot wherein the protagonist would have had to navigate an unfamiliar planet to track down a single entity who doesn’t necessarily want to be found. But, it also gives Dickson a chance to explore how bears would communicate over distances in a semi-literate society, which is sort of interesting.
This book is good enough for short-term entertainment, but doesn’t offer much else.
The premise is a future interstellar society where humans are competing with other spacefaring races for resources and trade routes. Our main character is an athlete with training in bio-chemistry, who is “drafted” for a job on Dilbia by the Diplomatic Service. Dilbia is a planet almost identical to Earth (specifically the North American continent, from what little we see of it), but populated by talking bears. The bears (Dilbians) have a loose tribal culture, and at first I’d hoped there would be some consideration of colonialism and narratives of indigenous peoples caught between warring empires, but the whole thing is too simplistic and good-natured for that. Basically the humans have gotten into trouble by interfering with a wedding, which has caused one of the Dilbians to go rogue and kidnap a human female, and the hero must go out and rescue her. It never gets any cleverer than that.
The one aspect of Dilbian culture that was at least amusing is how seriously they take their postal service. The hero is “posted” with one of their carriers, who becomes duty-bound to “deliver” him to the enemy. This saves a lot time in the plot wherein the protagonist would have had to navigate an unfamiliar planet to track down a single entity who doesn’t necessarily want to be found. But, it also gives Dickson a chance to explore how bears would communicate over distances in a semi-literate society, which is sort of interesting.
This book is good enough for short-term entertainment, but doesn’t offer much else.
November 4, 2024
Before this, I had only read "Alien Art" by Dickson, which had a completely different feel to it. Some themes are vaguely similar, but "Alien Art" is more somber and better written.
I don't believe anyone actually sat down to proofread this. There are so many sentences where the author changed his mind about the wording at the last second, but no one bothered to edit out his half-written original wording. A certain character is called "Little Bite" by the Dilbians, but somehow it's mistyped as "Little Blue" at one point. There were lots of little typos like that. Anyway, this book is in desperate need of some editing.
As for the story, while the premise is amusing, it doesn't go anywhere. Thankfully, it's pretty short. I liked how the Dilbians referred to themselves as "real people," whereas humans and Hemnoids are considered lesser beings.
...
5/10 (2.5 "stars")
I don't believe anyone actually sat down to proofread this. There are so many sentences where the author changed his mind about the wording at the last second, but no one bothered to edit out his half-written original wording. A certain character is called "Little Bite" by the Dilbians, but somehow it's mistyped as "Little Blue" at one point. There were lots of little typos like that. Anyway, this book is in desperate need of some editing.
As for the story, while the premise is amusing, it doesn't go anywhere. Thankfully, it's pretty short. I liked how the Dilbians referred to themselves as "real people," whereas humans and Hemnoids are considered lesser beings.
...
5/10 (2.5 "stars")
June 6, 2013
This is a science fiction book about a man who gets into some trouble on a planet where the aliens (Dilbians) resemble gigantic Kodiak bears. Along the way he teams up with a Dilbian mailman and saves a damsel in distress. It reads exactly how it should, and if you're in the mood for some corny 1960's sci-fi, then look no further.
August 4, 2011
This sure is Gordon R Dickson. No risk to the main character, "Funky aliens" Everything turns out perfect in the end. Eh.
By the way, the publisher's blurb has very little to do with the character's actual view of the situation.
By the way, the publisher's blurb has very little to do with the character's actual view of the situation.
February 12, 2008
A fun book.
May 6, 2012
Good fun entertaining read -
April 3, 2014
It was a silly book. Empty calories. Better for the brain than watching reality TV.
October 31, 2015
Just some silly fun, along the lines of the John Carter series of books.
It took me a little while to get into, but once I was invested I really enjoyed this old gem.
It took me a little while to get into, but once I was invested I really enjoyed this old gem.
February 11, 2016
a very creative story that leaves you wanting to complete each chapter.
October 21, 2013
Nothing special, but very cute.
Displaying 1 - 22 of 22 reviews