What do you think?
Rate this book
Three to Dorsai!
The Dorsai Trilogy-"Necromancer", "Tactics of Mistake", and "Dorsai!"
532 pages, hardcover
First published January 1, 1959
2 people are currently reading
169 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.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
June 9, 2024
I have the Nelson Doubleday edition of these three novels in the Childe Cycle, which is an incomplete series by Dickson focused on the evolution of man through the deeds of various historical Übermensch, starting with mercenary, John Hawkwood, of the 14th century and concluding with the Dorsai mercenary, Donal Grame, in the far future. This is also known as the Dorsai series because most of the stories are set in that universe.
The three novels are Necromancer, Tactics of Mistake, and Dorsai, listed in that order. I decided to read them in their publication order, instead, starting with Dorsai which was published in 1959, then Necromancer, 1962, and Tactics, 1971. Good thing. If I had started with Necromancer, I would have made a frisbee out of this and really, if you want to read this series, start with Dorsai. Otherwise, you’ll get caught up in Dickson’s rather odd metaphysics that defy understanding no matter how much I tried. I supposed I could have made a better effort, but it seemed like a lot of work to invest in a series that wasn’t all that compelling.
Not that these novels weren’t entertaining, they were, but in a nostalgic, standard 50s space opera kind of way. It comes across rather quaint now. Dickson is not the clearest writer; his descriptions are less than descriptive, making it hard to imagine or visualize what he’s writing about. But that’s okay, it’s a good story with interesting characters, if a bit dated.
Dorsai is about Donal Graeme, a citizen of Dorsai, which is the Sparta of the far future, turning out supersoldiers that are then hired out to various factions to fight their wars. Mankind has colonized several planets and each of them have developed a specialty that creates a trade in humans who contract to perform their specialty on whatever world needs their services. Dorsai is resource poor but has really tough people who undergo really tough military training that would drop a Marine to his knees. Donal has just graduated from the academy and is seeking his first assignment. He is a bit unusual, having an enhanced intuition that gives him a greater insight into possible tactics and strategies than his hidebound superiors, and a confidence that borders on hubris, pretty much torquing off everyone he works for and knows and loves. Especially his sort-of girlfriend, Anea of Kultis, who asks Donal to rescue her from a contract with the odious William of Ceta, and about which he immediately informs William of Anea’s intent and gets himself hired by William.
Romance is not exactly a highlight in these novels.
Donal takes on contract after contract, in each of them going against conventional wisdom and, naturally, proven right by the end of the particular conflict. It gets to the point that you wonder why anyone bothers to question him because he always wins. Always. But in a very entertaining way, so enjoy.
Necromancer is a whole different animal, set a few centuries before on an Earth that is just getting into the starfaring business. I have no idea why the title because there’s no real necromancy going on, but there is contact with future and past lives so I guess that applies. Chronologically, this is the first novel of the Childe Cycle, while Dorsai is the last. But tell ya, Dorsai is a better set up for Necromancer than the reverse.
Paul Formain is an engineer in a gigantic mine when an accident tears his right arm from his body, effectively ending his career driving a huge borer. Grafts don’t take and the beleaguered Paul finally ends up joining the Chantry Guild, which promises him the ability to regrow his arm. The Guild, a combination of the People’s Temple and Aum Shinrikyo, seeks the destruction of the world so a new evolutionary being can emerge. They have a place on Mercury and can, somehow, transfer back and forth between there and Earth, an ability that really isn’t explained. There’s not a lot explained in this, and you’ll be hard pressed to see in what manner this book applies to the Childe series, except for that evolutionary development theme.
Tactics of Mistakes centers around Donal’s great-great-great-great whatever grandfather Cletus Graeme, who is an officer in the Western Alliance of Old Earth when he retires. He is writing a twenty-volume book on military tactics that nobody wants to read, and decides he needs to get back out in the field to see if his ideas, called Tactics of Mistakes, work. Based on fencing, you try to get your opponent to overcommit to what looks like an obviously winning strike but is actually a trap. Yeah, Sun Tzu already did this. Cletus signs on with the Bakhalla colony on the planet Kultis in their war with Neuland. On the way out, Cletus meets Colonel Khan, who is in charge of Dorsai troops assigned to Bakhalla. Of course, he is wildly successful with his Tactics of Mistakes and sows the seeds for the events of Donal’s time.
Between these three novels are interludes involving Tam Olyn and Hal Mayne, and I’m not really sure who they are or even where they are. They appear to be involved with something called The Final Encyclopedia, which they use to find the people in history who will contribute to human evolution; these interludes then segue into Paul and Cletus and Donal. It seems a lot like Foundation to me.
Overall, not bad as far as space opera goes, but confusing. I was never sure what was going on and really just gave up trying to understand the intent and concentrated on the action, which was pretty good. That may be all you need.
The three novels are Necromancer, Tactics of Mistake, and Dorsai, listed in that order. I decided to read them in their publication order, instead, starting with Dorsai which was published in 1959, then Necromancer, 1962, and Tactics, 1971. Good thing. If I had started with Necromancer, I would have made a frisbee out of this and really, if you want to read this series, start with Dorsai. Otherwise, you’ll get caught up in Dickson’s rather odd metaphysics that defy understanding no matter how much I tried. I supposed I could have made a better effort, but it seemed like a lot of work to invest in a series that wasn’t all that compelling.
Not that these novels weren’t entertaining, they were, but in a nostalgic, standard 50s space opera kind of way. It comes across rather quaint now. Dickson is not the clearest writer; his descriptions are less than descriptive, making it hard to imagine or visualize what he’s writing about. But that’s okay, it’s a good story with interesting characters, if a bit dated.
Dorsai is about Donal Graeme, a citizen of Dorsai, which is the Sparta of the far future, turning out supersoldiers that are then hired out to various factions to fight their wars. Mankind has colonized several planets and each of them have developed a specialty that creates a trade in humans who contract to perform their specialty on whatever world needs their services. Dorsai is resource poor but has really tough people who undergo really tough military training that would drop a Marine to his knees. Donal has just graduated from the academy and is seeking his first assignment. He is a bit unusual, having an enhanced intuition that gives him a greater insight into possible tactics and strategies than his hidebound superiors, and a confidence that borders on hubris, pretty much torquing off everyone he works for and knows and loves. Especially his sort-of girlfriend, Anea of Kultis, who asks Donal to rescue her from a contract with the odious William of Ceta, and about which he immediately informs William of Anea’s intent and gets himself hired by William.
Romance is not exactly a highlight in these novels.
Donal takes on contract after contract, in each of them going against conventional wisdom and, naturally, proven right by the end of the particular conflict. It gets to the point that you wonder why anyone bothers to question him because he always wins. Always. But in a very entertaining way, so enjoy.
Necromancer is a whole different animal, set a few centuries before on an Earth that is just getting into the starfaring business. I have no idea why the title because there’s no real necromancy going on, but there is contact with future and past lives so I guess that applies. Chronologically, this is the first novel of the Childe Cycle, while Dorsai is the last. But tell ya, Dorsai is a better set up for Necromancer than the reverse.
Paul Formain is an engineer in a gigantic mine when an accident tears his right arm from his body, effectively ending his career driving a huge borer. Grafts don’t take and the beleaguered Paul finally ends up joining the Chantry Guild, which promises him the ability to regrow his arm. The Guild, a combination of the People’s Temple and Aum Shinrikyo, seeks the destruction of the world so a new evolutionary being can emerge. They have a place on Mercury and can, somehow, transfer back and forth between there and Earth, an ability that really isn’t explained. There’s not a lot explained in this, and you’ll be hard pressed to see in what manner this book applies to the Childe series, except for that evolutionary development theme.
Tactics of Mistakes centers around Donal’s great-great-great-great whatever grandfather Cletus Graeme, who is an officer in the Western Alliance of Old Earth when he retires. He is writing a twenty-volume book on military tactics that nobody wants to read, and decides he needs to get back out in the field to see if his ideas, called Tactics of Mistakes, work. Based on fencing, you try to get your opponent to overcommit to what looks like an obviously winning strike but is actually a trap. Yeah, Sun Tzu already did this. Cletus signs on with the Bakhalla colony on the planet Kultis in their war with Neuland. On the way out, Cletus meets Colonel Khan, who is in charge of Dorsai troops assigned to Bakhalla. Of course, he is wildly successful with his Tactics of Mistakes and sows the seeds for the events of Donal’s time.
Between these three novels are interludes involving Tam Olyn and Hal Mayne, and I’m not really sure who they are or even where they are. They appear to be involved with something called The Final Encyclopedia, which they use to find the people in history who will contribute to human evolution; these interludes then segue into Paul and Cletus and Donal. It seems a lot like Foundation to me.
Overall, not bad as far as space opera goes, but confusing. I was never sure what was going on and really just gave up trying to understand the intent and concentrated on the action, which was pretty good. That may be all you need.
March 17, 2013
Three books here, the first a little more standard sci-fi and the second two leaning heavily into military sci-fi. If you like Heinlein's Starship Troopers, or Haldeman's Forever War then this will appeal to you. My recommendation would be to avoid the introductions, prefaces, endnotes, etc. this was supposed to be part of a much larger series that was never finished.
April 25, 2022
This is a collection of three books, delivered in the order the author intended the stories to be read and with a loose wrapper connecting the stories. Each story easily stands alone and without the wrapper, other than where they take place not a lot connects them. Each story has it positive and negative, I enjoyed Tactics of Mistake the most of the three. Necromancer was very hard for me to get through, but worth the read. I’m not a sci-fi fan, while I did my toes in just to try it again, not my favorite
May 6, 2022
Interesting mashup of Asimov’s Foundation and the weird eugenics from Dune with some quantum mechanical spirit time travel thrown in.
This is an omnibus edition with the middle story coming closest to Asimov’s Foundation with political twists and turns mixed with thinly disguised references to Vietnam in it.
Keeping it from the 5 stars is that tired old trope “ young people if they had to struggle like us would be so much better…that is what is wrong with kids these days “.. theme that is so prevalent among the grumpy old white male Sci Fi writers of the late 50s through the early 70s.
This is an omnibus edition with the middle story coming closest to Asimov’s Foundation with political twists and turns mixed with thinly disguised references to Vietnam in it.
Keeping it from the 5 stars is that tired old trope “ young people if they had to struggle like us would be so much better…that is what is wrong with kids these days “.. theme that is so prevalent among the grumpy old white male Sci Fi writers of the late 50s through the early 70s.
August 12, 2024
This was Required reading
April 7, 2016
Although these books fall into some of the trappings of Golden Era science fiction - few and stereotyped female characters being the most prominent - the overarching theme and development of particularly American yet Nietzschean ideas about human evolution makes for good reading. The first book (published second) "Necromancer" is the weakest in the sequence, but for all that forms a good base for the following two novels, which do have weak and stereotyped female characters, but are fantastic still.
It is also interesting how Mr. Dickson becomes more aware that there are different skin colors and human cultures as the books progress in terms of chronological publishing order.
I never have liked the genre of "Millitary SF," but the tactics described in these books were compelling reading.
It is also interesting how Mr. Dickson becomes more aware that there are different skin colors and human cultures as the books progress in terms of chronological publishing order.
I never have liked the genre of "Millitary SF," but the tactics described in these books were compelling reading.
January 11, 2016
very enkgrotwsing
August 30, 2016
Necromancer (3 star). Tactics of Mistake (4) Dorsai (4). Bit hard to follow the philosophy, but interesting.
April 24, 2010
A clever mercenary invents a new, efficient way of fighting.
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews