What do you think?
Rate this book
Bolo #3
The Stars Must Wait
Astronaut John Jackson expects to wake from suspended animation in another world, but instead he opens his eyes a century later to an Earth populated by post-Armageddon nasties
- GenresScience Fiction
283 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published January 1, 1990
4 people are currently reading
192 people want to read
About the author
Keith Laumer
498 books227 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
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
September 23, 2020
I read the original Bolo books quite a while ago now and I don't remember too much from Keith Laumer's original presentation of the story premise other than it was about very large sentient tanks. Which, the BattleTech fan in me will get interested for sure! Now, I must confess I'm not largely into pulp sci-fi as I am into more modern takes on the genre. So my disinterest in the writing may relate to that, but I remember the early books feeling very disjointed, since they probably just started as short stories, but "Rogue Bolo" was a novel and just kind of weird. Anyway, I finally made it to "The Stars Must Wait" from the 1990's. I was absolutely expecting campy, but I was also expecting Bolos...
"The Stars Must Wait" is one of the most confusing Bolos related books around, I would imagine. This book is more like Laumer wanted to write a post apocalyptic story and needed some tanks, but called them Bolos. The real confusing aspect of this entire journey is how wrong all the dates are when you compare them to the back of the book, the Bolos time line and what's actually written.
This book is written in the first person and it tells the tale of Torrence "Jack" Jackson, who is also called "Whiz"... so we've got four names to keep track of throughout this book. Already we're off to a bad start. Anyway, Jackson was supposed to be an astronaut going on an experimental mission which involved being frozen in stasis, but before the ship can launch all hell broke loose on Earth and the mission never took off. Instead Jackson wakes up 100 years in the future in the aftermath of this apocalypse when his stasis pod has an emergency and decides to revive him automatically. Now, despite all this sci-fi stuff going on I got the impression this was written in 1990, despite the fact that all the lingo feels very 1960's. Jackson talks about leaving his wife and son behind and even finds her grave that says "died 1992" and Jackson comments that she only lived one more year after he went into stasis. The back of the book says he started preparing for his mission in 2002... so already the dates are at odds. I have no idea when things are happening and it doesn't seem like Laumer does either.
Jackson, upon leaving his stasis pod runs into a Mark II Bolo and comments that the machine is still there, implying it was there when he went into stasis. The Mark II according to the history in "The Compleat Bolo" was made in 1999. Later we'll run into a Mark III that is listed as being made in 2020. So, Laumer couldn't be bothered to refresh his memory on the series and it really shows. He clearly had no interest in writing a book about Bolos or care about writing within the frame work of the series.
After Jackson leaves the facility we basically never hear about the Bolos again, except some discussion about the Mark III which is not working for half the book. Instead Laumer brings us through what's left of human society and it really is pretty wild and feels quite a bit like a story out of Fallout. I think some of the assumptions Laumer made about the degeneracy of the human race were pretty stupid and way off point. Like the whole part about people being afraid of having babies so when they have them, they just kill them. That's just utterly ridiculous. Or how about humans would forget everything and be afraid of eating food like chicken in favor of expired and rotten canned foods found in old malls. Also, ridiculous. I was expecting ridiculous to a degree... but this was just silly because he tried to frame it from our real world. And then to say in eighty or ninety years we'd be like this without modern systems in place? Just stuff and nonsense.
The overall story of Jackson finding his way through these places was pretty boring. Most of the time Jackson just walked into places, claimed to be important and then people let him in, even though people never saw him before. At some point Jackson runs into an old astronaut that had been revived 20 years before him, but now he's some crazy warlord trying to take over the world. This part made sense and you'd think there'd be more conflict and intrigue. But no... Jackson just escapes from him after he gets the Mark III working, then the other guy just leaves. At least in this process Jackson ran into some hot chick that immediately fell for him and helps him out. The whole story about her and the other astronaut is utterly stupid, because she betrays the other guy in seconds (her reasons made sense), but the other guy basically does nothing about it and trusts her enough to leave her in charge again. I mean what? But hey, after a couple days of knowing Jackson and probably only really hanging out with him for a few hours she's ready to bear his children by the end of the book, so there's hope for the human race right?
I could go on and on. There is one battle between bolos involving the Mark II and Mark III and it lasts a solid two pages. Hence why I am baffled this is a Bolo book. Laumer could have easily just talked about any old tanks. I'm kind of glad that after this other authors have stepped into the series. I really do hope they are better. I have no idea how Laumer expects the complete collapse of society to occur and then somehow we're manufacturing Mark XXX's at some point in the future... Give this book a hard pass if you wanted awesome hi-tech tanks and battles.
"The Stars Must Wait" is one of the most confusing Bolos related books around, I would imagine. This book is more like Laumer wanted to write a post apocalyptic story and needed some tanks, but called them Bolos. The real confusing aspect of this entire journey is how wrong all the dates are when you compare them to the back of the book, the Bolos time line and what's actually written.
This book is written in the first person and it tells the tale of Torrence "Jack" Jackson, who is also called "Whiz"... so we've got four names to keep track of throughout this book. Already we're off to a bad start. Anyway, Jackson was supposed to be an astronaut going on an experimental mission which involved being frozen in stasis, but before the ship can launch all hell broke loose on Earth and the mission never took off. Instead Jackson wakes up 100 years in the future in the aftermath of this apocalypse when his stasis pod has an emergency and decides to revive him automatically. Now, despite all this sci-fi stuff going on I got the impression this was written in 1990, despite the fact that all the lingo feels very 1960's. Jackson talks about leaving his wife and son behind and even finds her grave that says "died 1992" and Jackson comments that she only lived one more year after he went into stasis. The back of the book says he started preparing for his mission in 2002... so already the dates are at odds. I have no idea when things are happening and it doesn't seem like Laumer does either.
Jackson, upon leaving his stasis pod runs into a Mark II Bolo and comments that the machine is still there, implying it was there when he went into stasis. The Mark II according to the history in "The Compleat Bolo" was made in 1999. Later we'll run into a Mark III that is listed as being made in 2020. So, Laumer couldn't be bothered to refresh his memory on the series and it really shows. He clearly had no interest in writing a book about Bolos or care about writing within the frame work of the series.
After Jackson leaves the facility we basically never hear about the Bolos again, except some discussion about the Mark III which is not working for half the book. Instead Laumer brings us through what's left of human society and it really is pretty wild and feels quite a bit like a story out of Fallout. I think some of the assumptions Laumer made about the degeneracy of the human race were pretty stupid and way off point. Like the whole part about people being afraid of having babies so when they have them, they just kill them. That's just utterly ridiculous. Or how about humans would forget everything and be afraid of eating food like chicken in favor of expired and rotten canned foods found in old malls. Also, ridiculous. I was expecting ridiculous to a degree... but this was just silly because he tried to frame it from our real world. And then to say in eighty or ninety years we'd be like this without modern systems in place? Just stuff and nonsense.
The overall story of Jackson finding his way through these places was pretty boring. Most of the time Jackson just walked into places, claimed to be important and then people let him in, even though people never saw him before. At some point Jackson runs into an old astronaut that had been revived 20 years before him, but now he's some crazy warlord trying to take over the world. This part made sense and you'd think there'd be more conflict and intrigue. But no... Jackson just escapes from him after he gets the Mark III working, then the other guy just leaves. At least in this process Jackson ran into some hot chick that immediately fell for him and helps him out. The whole story about her and the other astronaut is utterly stupid, because she betrays the other guy in seconds (her reasons made sense), but the other guy basically does nothing about it and trusts her enough to leave her in charge again. I mean what? But hey, after a couple days of knowing Jackson and probably only really hanging out with him for a few hours she's ready to bear his children by the end of the book, so there's hope for the human race right?
I could go on and on. There is one battle between bolos involving the Mark II and Mark III and it lasts a solid two pages. Hence why I am baffled this is a Bolo book. Laumer could have easily just talked about any old tanks. I'm kind of glad that after this other authors have stepped into the series. I really do hope they are better. I have no idea how Laumer expects the complete collapse of society to occur and then somehow we're manufacturing Mark XXX's at some point in the future... Give this book a hard pass if you wanted awesome hi-tech tanks and battles.
April 14, 2017
Decent premise, awful execution. Would recommend - to no one.
June 27, 2021
Keith Laumer, in one of his last books, describes a dystopian United States from the perspective of Terrance Jackson, an astronaut awoken from suspended animation after eighty years.
It's a delicious premise. Just as the spaceship was to launch a colonization trip to Callisto, the launch was aborted with one second to go. There are about a dozen crew members aboard: a full crew and a full backup crew.
All the crew is suspended, but they awake at different times by the computer program. Meanwhile, the launch site is guarded by an automated tank, the Bolo, which destroys any intruder.
Just before the launch, an unknown agent shoots down Air Force One, killing the President. Chaos descends on the US and the world. Society breaks down.
It takes Jackson a while to realize what's going on. Everyone treat him brutally and is quick to kill anyone for anything. Then Jackson has to figure out what to do.
Don't miss this book by one of my favorite authors.
It's a delicious premise. Just as the spaceship was to launch a colonization trip to Callisto, the launch was aborted with one second to go. There are about a dozen crew members aboard: a full crew and a full backup crew.
All the crew is suspended, but they awake at different times by the computer program. Meanwhile, the launch site is guarded by an automated tank, the Bolo, which destroys any intruder.
Just before the launch, an unknown agent shoots down Air Force One, killing the President. Chaos descends on the US and the world. Society breaks down.
It takes Jackson a while to realize what's going on. Everyone treat him brutally and is quick to kill anyone for anything. Then Jackson has to figure out what to do.
Don't miss this book by one of my favorite authors.
January 29, 2013
Re-reading this after many years. An expanded version of a short story which I normally don't like. But anything by Laumer is always good. Even his so called worst is still an enjoyable read.
Addendum: I forgot how Laumer turned the ending completely around. Still another enjoyable read.
Addendum: I forgot how Laumer turned the ending completely around. Still another enjoyable read.
January 5, 2010
I have 2 copies. I wish I could add to goodreads how many copies of each book I have.
August 18, 2024
This is a pretty good book overall. I do like Laumer. This is an expansion of one of his Bolo stories into a full novel, done by adding a part two. The original story is excellent. The second part seems kind of forced and while still a good story in not quite as well done. The first half gives it the four stars.
September 23, 2018
Parts of the book are pretty slow, but it is "sort of" part of the Bolo series and it is also one of the few books to make me cry at one point (not gonna give any details), so going to rate it at 4 stars for those 2 reasons. Those aside, I'd give it 3 stars as it's a good basic read.
February 28, 2023
Is it dated? Yes
Is it believable, especially in the timeframe it proposes? Not really
Is it a good story? Yes
Is it believable, especially in the timeframe it proposes? Not really
Is it a good story? Yes
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews