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Bolo #Anth2
The Unconquerable: Bolos 2
The Unconquerable continues the amplified history of the Bolo--an almost indestructible, nearly unstoppable tank controlled by a sophisticated artificial intelligence. These stories by S.M. Stirling, William R. Forstchen, Christopher Stasheff, Shirley Meier, Todd Johnson and more tell of the faithful and tireless protectors of the human race: the Bolos.
Contains:
ANCESTRAL VOICES
S. M. Stirling
SIR KENDRICK'S LADY
S. N. Lewitt
YOU'RE IT
Shirley Meier
SHARED EXPERIENCE
Christopher Stasheff
THE MURPHOSENSOR BOMB
Karen Wehrstein
LEGACY
Todd Johnson
ENDINGS
William Forstchen
Contains:
ANCESTRAL VOICES
S. M. Stirling
SIR KENDRICK'S LADY
S. N. Lewitt
YOU'RE IT
Shirley Meier
SHARED EXPERIENCE
Christopher Stasheff
THE MURPHOSENSOR BOMB
Karen Wehrstein
LEGACY
Todd Johnson
ENDINGS
William Forstchen
275 pages, Paperback
First published October 1, 1994
2 people are currently reading
321 people want to read
About the author
Keith Laumer
498 books225 followersJohn Keith Laumer was an American science fiction author. Prior to becoming a full-time writer, he was an officer in the U.S. Air Force and a U.S. diplomat. His brother March Laumer was also a writer, known for his adult reinterpretations of the Land of Oz (also mentioned in Keith's The Other Side of Time).
Keith Laumer (aka J.K Laumer, J. Keith Laumer) is best known for his Bolo stories and his satirical Retief series. The former chronicles the evolution of juggernaut-sized tanks that eventually become self-aware through the constant improvement resulting from centuries of intermittent warfare against various alien races. The latter deals with the adventures of a cynical spacefaring diplomat who constantly has to overcome the red-tape-infused failures of people with names like Ambassador Grossblunder. The Retief stories were greatly influenced by Laumer's earlier career in the United States Foreign Service. In an interview with Paul Walker of Luna Monthly, Laumer states "I had no shortage of iniquitous memories of the Foreign Service."
Four of his shorter works received Hugo or Nebula Award nominations (one of them, "In the Queue", received nominations for both) and his novel A Plague of Demons was nominated for the Nebula Award for Best Novel in 1966.
During the peak years of 1959–1971, Laumer was a prolific science fiction writer, with his novels tending to follow one of two patterns: fast-paced, straight adventures in time and space, with an emphasis on lone-wolf, latent superman protagonists, self-sacrifice and transcendence or, broad comedies, sometimes of the over-the-top variety.
In 1971, Laumer suffered a stroke while working on the novel The Ultimax Man. As a result, he was unable to write for a few years. As he explained in an interview with Charles Platt published in The Dream Makers (1987), he refused to accept the doctors' diagnosis. He came up with an alternative explanation and developed an alternative (and very painful) treatment program. Although he was unable to write in the early 1970s, he had a number of books which were in the pipeline at the time of the stroke published during that time.
In the mid-1970s, Laumer partially recovered from the stroke and resumed writing. However, the quality of his work suffered and his career declined (Piers Anthony, How Precious Was That While, 2002). In later years Laumer also reused scenarios and characters from his earlier works to create "new" books, which some critics felt was to their detriment:
Alas, Retief to the Rescue doesn't seem so much like a new Retief novel, but a kind of Cuisnart mélange of past books.
-- Somtow Sucharitkul (Washington Post, Mar 27, 1983. p. BW11)
His Bolo creations were popular enough that other authors have written standalone science-fiction novels about them.
Laumer was also a model airplane enthusiast, and published two dozen designs between 1956 and 1962 in the U.S. magazines Air Trails, Model Airplane News and Flying Models, as well as the British magazine Aero Modeler. He published one book on the subject, How to Design and Build Flying Models in 1960. His later designs were mostly gas-powered free flight planes, and had a whimsical charm with names to match, like the "Twin Lizzie" and the "Lulla-Bi". His designs are still being revisited, reinvented and built today.
Keith Laumer (aka J.K Laumer, J. Keith Laumer) is best known for his Bolo stories and his satirical Retief series. The former chronicles the evolution of juggernaut-sized tanks that eventually become self-aware through the constant improvement resulting from centuries of intermittent warfare against various alien races. The latter deals with the adventures of a cynical spacefaring diplomat who constantly has to overcome the red-tape-infused failures of people with names like Ambassador Grossblunder. The Retief stories were greatly influenced by Laumer's earlier career in the United States Foreign Service. In an interview with Paul Walker of Luna Monthly, Laumer states "I had no shortage of iniquitous memories of the Foreign Service."
Four of his shorter works received Hugo or Nebula Award nominations (one of them, "In the Queue", received nominations for both) and his novel A Plague of Demons was nominated for the Nebula Award for Best Novel in 1966.
During the peak years of 1959–1971, Laumer was a prolific science fiction writer, with his novels tending to follow one of two patterns: fast-paced, straight adventures in time and space, with an emphasis on lone-wolf, latent superman protagonists, self-sacrifice and transcendence or, broad comedies, sometimes of the over-the-top variety.
In 1971, Laumer suffered a stroke while working on the novel The Ultimax Man. As a result, he was unable to write for a few years. As he explained in an interview with Charles Platt published in The Dream Makers (1987), he refused to accept the doctors' diagnosis. He came up with an alternative explanation and developed an alternative (and very painful) treatment program. Although he was unable to write in the early 1970s, he had a number of books which were in the pipeline at the time of the stroke published during that time.
In the mid-1970s, Laumer partially recovered from the stroke and resumed writing. However, the quality of his work suffered and his career declined (Piers Anthony, How Precious Was That While, 2002). In later years Laumer also reused scenarios and characters from his earlier works to create "new" books, which some critics felt was to their detriment:
Alas, Retief to the Rescue doesn't seem so much like a new Retief novel, but a kind of Cuisnart mélange of past books.
-- Somtow Sucharitkul (Washington Post, Mar 27, 1983. p. BW11)
His Bolo creations were popular enough that other authors have written standalone science-fiction novels about them.
Laumer was also a model airplane enthusiast, and published two dozen designs between 1956 and 1962 in the U.S. magazines Air Trails, Model Airplane News and Flying Models, as well as the British magazine Aero Modeler. He published one book on the subject, How to Design and Build Flying Models in 1960. His later designs were mostly gas-powered free flight planes, and had a whimsical charm with names to match, like the "Twin Lizzie" and the "Lulla-Bi". His designs are still being revisited, reinvented and built today.
Ratings & Reviews
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
November 15, 2025
Various authors take a swing at creating a war story in the Bolo/Concordiat universe of Keith Laumer.
The first story was actually a somewhat decent attempt, if a little awkward.
Unfortunately, most of them are somewhat amateur efforts, using action and drama where they needed to instead learn something about battlefield actions and how they actually play out. One example: after an explosive strike behind you knocks you over, you are not going to turn around and find the corpse of the guy following you in the bottom of a big crater. Any recognizable pieces would be scattered over a large area OUTSIDE the crater made by the explosion!
Another story... Well, no! It was so bad I can't even review it yet!
The first story was actually a somewhat decent attempt, if a little awkward.
Unfortunately, most of them are somewhat amateur efforts, using action and drama where they needed to instead learn something about battlefield actions and how they actually play out. One example: after an explosive strike behind you knocks you over, you are not going to turn around and find the corpse of the guy following you in the bottom of a big crater. Any recognizable pieces would be scattered over a large area OUTSIDE the crater made by the explosion!
Another story... Well, no! It was so bad I can't even review it yet!
July 16, 2023
As always I like the backstory more than the writing of the actual stories.
July 6, 2011
Bolos are huge self-aware robotic battle tanks/mobile fortresses. Throughout a very long history of wars and conflicts, they have served humanity selflessly.
After Laumer’s death, Baen thought to resurrect the Bolos with a series of anthologies featureing a variety of authors. There is some excellent, some good, and some less good, but the overall quality is surprisingly high. It is military SciFi in a very pure form, and many will probably be put off by this. I have read the first four books:
Bolos Book 1 – Honor of the Regiment
Bolos Book 2 – The Unconquerable
Bolos Book 3 – The Triumphant
Bolos Book 4 – Last Stand
http://www.books.rosboch.net/?p=911
After Laumer’s death, Baen thought to resurrect the Bolos with a series of anthologies featureing a variety of authors. There is some excellent, some good, and some less good, but the overall quality is surprisingly high. It is military SciFi in a very pure form, and many will probably be put off by this. I have read the first four books:
Bolos Book 1 – Honor of the Regiment
Bolos Book 2 – The Unconquerable
Bolos Book 3 – The Triumphant
Bolos Book 4 – Last Stand
http://www.books.rosboch.net/?p=911
April 5, 2018
The Bolo is a gigantic, sentient tank, introduced by Keith Laumer in the 1976 "Bolo: The annals of the Dinochrome Brigade" (a collection of short stories).
This book is in the same manner - short stories (although by different authors this time, rather than one), going "historically" from earlier marks/earlier periods up until after the great war with some races almost eradicated.
The stand out story, in my view, is "You're It", which really keeps the momentum going until the end, the rest are mostly still quite good.
This is book 2 in a series, the others are proper full length novels, and generally better for it.
This book is in the same manner - short stories (although by different authors this time, rather than one), going "historically" from earlier marks/earlier periods up until after the great war with some races almost eradicated.
The stand out story, in my view, is "You're It", which really keeps the momentum going until the end, the rest are mostly still quite good.
This is book 2 in a series, the others are proper full length novels, and generally better for it.
January 10, 2013
Like other books in the Bolos series, this collection of short stories uses ultra-powerful tanks to tell tales of courage, sacrifice, and the search for meaning in a violent universe. While the use of different writers results in some inconsistencies in the technology and stories, there is a consistency to the universe that makes the collected Bolo stories memorable and enjoyable beyond the stories themselves. Like most collections, the quality of each story varies, but this is overall a very good collection.
July 29, 2009
A collection of stories about Bolos by other writers than Keith Laumer. Although it was not bad, I tend to prefer the original stories by Laumer more. The best tale here was by Forstchen, I thought.
February 21, 2011
Outstanding military science fiction.
Seven stories (S.M. Stirling, S.N. Lewitt, Shirley Meier, Christopher Stasheff, Karen Wehrstein, Todd Johnson, William Forstchen) about the giant war machines with artificial intelligence originally created by Keith Laumer.
Seven stories (S.M. Stirling, S.N. Lewitt, Shirley Meier, Christopher Stasheff, Karen Wehrstein, Todd Johnson, William Forstchen) about the giant war machines with artificial intelligence originally created by Keith Laumer.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews