Berserker's Planet

Berserker #3

by Fred Saberhagen

A Nebula Award-winning Author Five hundred years have passed since humanity vanquished the Berserker armada. Yet in that struggle a lone Berserker survived. Now single human sacrifices will no longer satisfy this Berserker-god. It is time to offer up the whole human race.

Genres: Science Fiction, Fiction, Space Opera, Science Fiction Fantasy, Audiobook, Fantasy, Adventure

233 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published January 1, 1975

About the author

Fred Saberhagen was an American science fiction and fantasy author most famous for his ''Beserker'' and Dracula stories.

Saberhagen also wrote a series of a series of post-apocalyptic mytho-magical novels beginning with his popular ''Empire of the East'' and continuing through a long series of ''Swords'' and ''Lost Swords'' novels. Saberhagen died of cancer, in Albuquerque, New Mexico

Saberhagen was born in and grew up in the area of Chicago, Illinois. Saberhagen served in the [[U.S. Air Force]] during the Korean War while he was in his early twenties. Back in civilian life, Saberhagen worked as an It was while he was working for Motorola (after his military service) that Saberhagen started writing fiction seriously at the age of about 30. "Fortress Ship", his first "Berserker" short shory, was published in 1963. Then, in 1964, Saberhagen saw the publication of his first novel, ''The Golden People''.

From 1967 to 1973, he worked as an editor for the Chemistry articles in the ''Encyclopædia Britannica'' as well as writing its article on science fiction. He then quit and took up writing full-time. In 1975, he moved to Albuquerque, New Mexico.

He married fellow writer Joan Spicci in 1968. They had two sons and a daughter.

Reviews

[Karl · Rating 4 out of 5]

DAW Collectors #147

Cover Artist: Jack Gaughan.

Name: Saberhagen, Frederick Thomas, Birthplace: Chicago, Illinois, USA, (18 May 1930 - 29 June 2007)

Five hundred years have passed since the combined fleets of humanity met and broke the berserker armada at Stone Place. But though the human victory was total, one of the killer machines—weaponless, its star drive a ruin—managed to limp to a secret sanctuary on a planet called Hunter's World. Over the years since then, a new cult has arisen there: a cult dedicated to Death as the only and ultimate good.

For Hunter's World has become Berserker's Planet.

[Glen · Rating 3 out of 5]

The appeal of the series is beginning to pall. Maybe I've read too many too close together.

[hotsake (André Troesch) · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was an extended and improved version of a previous short story.

[Manny · Rating 2 out of 5]

I still haven't read any of the Hunger Games books, but it sounds like the formula may have been adapted from this thoroughly forgotten piece of SF trash. You have an elimination tournament where, I believe, an original field of 64 gladiators kill each other until only one is left. The contest is organised by the crazed machines which run the planet, and rich tourists get their kicks spectating - there's a particularly revolting scene where one of the tourists has sex with a prostitute as he simultaneously watches the gladiators hack each other to death.

Not very subtle, you'll gather. Having read Meredith's and Ceridwen's reviews, I get the impression that the Suzanne Collins version is a lot better... I must check it out!

[Phil · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was really fun in a 1970s he-man way. Some series tend to get tired after a few extensions, but the Berserker series by Saberhagen keeps changing and getting better each volume. The first is a collection of short stories, the second basically 3 novella, and this a complete novel. Berserker's Planet is more of a mixture of fantasy/scifi than anything else. Fun plot, engaging characters (excluding the women-- remember the 1970s he-man thing) and fast. 4.5 stars.

[Kevin Findley · Rating 3 out of 5]

This third book is set on a world compromised by a damaged, nearly inactive berserker. Saberhagen shows once again that man's worst enemy is often himself. Someone trained in philosophy or psychology could probably lay out an interesting diagram about how death cults form around nearly anything, but the author did a great job in showing how this particular 'religion' got going. If it were not for the berserker's human agents, there would have been no threat to anyone. Let that thought soak in for a minute and then shake off the chill with a hot beverage. I went with Irish Coffee.

The heroes in this novel turned out to be a pacifist (sort of) and a revolutionary who knew his limitations. That's as close to a spoiler as I'm going to go. Fans of Eastwood will recognize the paraphrase and get a chuckle out of it by the reveal.

Recommended for fans of Saberhagen, sword and sandal, or sci-fi in general.

Find it! Buy it! Read it!

[Alex Sarll]

My edition has a classic SF cover, with both tagline and image entirely inaccurate. "The Berserkers – hunting is their only instinct; mankind their only prey.' Well, no – much like their contemporaries the Daleks, they're bent on the elimination of all life, not just humanity. And these killing machines can take many forms, but they definitely don't tend to look like a spoddy Terminator. Also, the blurb (and even, in a loose sort of way, the cover) give away a reveal which only comes about a third of the way through the novel: namely, that Hunter's World is not just a former human colony that has fallen into barbarism over the centuries since the great war against the berserkers – rather, its dominant religion secretly worships a berserker who's been hiding out there all this time (so in that sense, they're also a lot cannier than "hunting is their only instinct" suggests – though I suppose when you look at the centuries of fancy misdirection nonces and bullies have expended in the creation of Earthly organised religion, you could argue that ultimately it all counts as hunting). Anyway! As the novel begins, a ship of humans from civilised interstellar society is headed to Hunter's World for a spot of semi-licit big game hunting, taking advantage of the impressive fauna which come along with its long seasons and extreme climate. Meanwhile, the Hunterian* humans are engaged in a lethal tournament to establish who is the mightiest killer among them, and will have the honour of ascending to sit alongside their great god, Thorun**. If you're expecting the story to go down certain well-trodden paths, many of them often to be found in action films that don't get cinematic releases, then congratulations: man really is the most dangerous game (well, OK, except the berserker); the hunter does indeed become the hunted; and verily, some of the contestants in the game of death shall conclude that their real enemy is not the man standing across the ring from them. For further painfully macho credentials, I'm pretty sure none of the Hunterian women even gets a name, let alone agency, while two of the three female characters in the offworld expedition are introduced as "playgirls brought along on this expedition as items for male consumption, like the beer and cigars". But don't worry, there's plenty more description of them than that, all of it exactly the sort on which Twitter would seize were this a more recent or canonical book. What makes this all the more awkward is that alongside the massive sexism, Saberhagen's space travellers, and even his neo-primitives, are determinedly post-racial in a slightly awkward seventies way, so that each warrior who dies in the tournament is promised that in the local Valhalla, finer in its gradations than the classic model, he "will have eternally with him four lovely maids of a beauty surpassing any in this world, two of ivory white and two of ebon black, to satisfy his every wish". See! Equal opportunities!

So this is absolute trash of the sort only the Puppies think modern SF should still be emulating, right? Well...it's not not pulp action. Nor is it on a par with the first Berserker book I read, and still the best, the later The Berserker Throne, which uses the killer machines as the boundary and engine for a very human tragedy, just like many of the best Judge Dredd stories are stories where Dredd is not protagonist, but Nemesis. Still, there are touches which elevate it above the godawful film into which I could easily see it being adapted. Once its components are set in motion, they crash into and refract each other in fascinating patterns, and there's an interest in the psychology of the key players – even, to some extent, the third of the offworld women, Athena Poulson – which raises it above plenty of mid-20th century SF, even some of the more celebrated authors (I never could get along with Asimov). Not just the champions slowly realising they've been gulled or the tycoon seeking the ultimate thrill, either; if anything, Saberhagen seems more interested in men like the priest gradually realising that his church isn't what he thought, and the guy who's pretty much agreed to a date he really shouldn't have***. There's some really cool SF detailing too, whether it be the lovely description of why you can never give an exact time for an interstellar journey, or playing on the way faster than light travel would mean you could sometimes catch radio broadcasts from the heart of great historical battles. All of which is pulled together nicely in a widescreen climax with some ingenious elements, but one still grounded in that psychological element – I particularly liked the detail about the berserker itself, while it may be an omnicidal death machine, only being interested in death proper, but putting up with all the torture and gruesomeness because needless cruelty seemed to keep the human worshippers happy.

*If you know London, the choice of name has some rather unhelpful associations.
**There are plenty of space Viking details here, but all considerably less jolly about it than Love & Thunder, which I'd seen the night before starting the book. And which has one other marked correspondence with a character here, though I'd be very surprised had there been a direct influence.
***This last does verge a little on the Nice Guy at times, though compared to a lot of the other gender stuff, it's nowhere near as noxious as it could have been.

[Robert Defrank · Rating 5 out of 5]

A short, fun book. As an entry into the Berserker saga it feels like an episode of a TV series, perhaps a two-parter. A ship of thrill-seeking poachers makes an unauthorized landing on a planet devastated and sunk into barbarism after the Berserker War, only to find the natives have taken to worshipping the deranged death machine as a god, and the machine is quite interested in appropriating their ship…

At a little over 200 pages, the book could almost feel padded since the amount of story could easily fit into a short story or novella, but avoids it with a sub-plot about a native tournament where the best warriors from across the planet fight to the death for the worship of the Berserker god and it’s corrupt priests. How each of them prepares to face his death makes for some fascinating and absorbing segments. The captured space travelers are quite interesting as well, and of course, it is always a dark treat to encounter the horrific Berserkers once again.

[Tom · Rating 3 out of 5]

I couldn't get enough of the first two Berserker books, but this one is probably the weakest of the series so far. The concept is decent if not original: what if technology is enshrined with religious significance on a planet with primitive technological development. It's definitely been done, there was a Star Trek episode with a similar pitch which would have been out at least 5 years before the original publication, but I think it works particularly well in the Berserker universe when there is such a good antagonistic force to lurk in the shadows of the religious/technological complex. It doesn't feel like an arbitrary plot line, but rather a logical tactic for the machines to take.

Another critique concerns the lengthy stretches devoted to describing an entire 64-man gladiatorial bracket. The descriptions in the round of 64 are brief, expanding with each round, but some of it could probably have been cut down without losing much from the narrative.

[Paul · Rating 3 out of 5]

As it often occurs with picking up a used book on a whim, I didn't realize this was a series, and so I'm starting somewhere in the middle or end. And while it does stand alone adequately, my ignorance of some of the Berserker's lore probably hindered my enjoyment. The story wasn't exciting enough for me to pick up the rest of the series, but if I happen upon them, I may give them a go.

The beginning portion was a slog. For example, at one point, it was literally a series of names and then a short paragraph description of their fight. It was like reading highlights of a sport, say cricket, that you know nothing about and don't know any of the teams. It was weird.

The book eventually found its footing, urging me to keep reading. The concept of the book and its eventual outcome were disjointed, like the author started one way and had to pivot. I think, honestly, it made it better as the tournament concept wore out quickly.

Three Berserker Death Gods out of five.

[Clay · Rating 4 out of 5]

Exciting story (with a pinch of '70s sexism).

500 years after Karlsen had defeated the Berserker fleet, a group of six travellers arrive on Hunters' planet (near the site of the Human victory) for some hunting and to witness the Tournament. The to-the-death tournament begins with 64 contestants and is controlled by a secret Death cult whose God is actually a fallen, crippled Berserker.

Saberhagen weaves the two plots separately and then together with just the right amount of interactions and emotional conflict between the outworld travellers to drive the story and the final outcome. His descriptions of the tournament battles, especially with the field of competitors being halved each day, is well-done and never over the top.

[Pete · Rating 3 out of 5]

The first novel in the Berserker series. This book is not as good as the first two. The story takes place on a planet that the Berserkers have blasted back to a pre-industrial level. The most popular religion on the planet is actually a secret cult that worships the remaining Berserker that is plotting a way to exterminate the humans. A promising scenario, but unfortunately it does not quite come off at novel length. Much of the novel describes the fights in a tournament in which champions from across the planet must fight to the death to win a place next to their false god. These battles have little to do with the central concept, but do serve to pad the story to novel length.

[Gary Fortuin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Saberhagen published this in 1974 from what I can tell and the way women are represented has not held up well over time. Not surprising. The story and plot themselves do hold up however. Hundreds of years after the war with the Beserkers, a handful of adventurers stumble upon a plot by one of the long dead machines to destroy the planet they are on. The heroes of our story have to square off with a death cult as well as an annual tournament of death to win their freedom and save a planet that isn’t theirs.

[TomK2 · Rating 4 out of 5]

Finally getting around to reading this classic Saberhagen series. This is the third book in the series, not very long, and it was easily digested. The plot flows well enough, and I was able to consume it in less than two days. I always looked forward to picking it back up, and didn't put it down until about a third more of it was enjoyed. If you have gotten this far in the Berserker series, you will like it.

[Shawn · Rating 3 out of 5]

This feels more like the structure of the story progressed/developed rather than the character progression/development. Rolling to an adventerous conclusion from the pulp sci-fi era.

Somehow fitting that this felt like the beginning was unfocused and the story refined as it progressed, as this was the first of the Berserker series I was able to get my hands on.

[Oldklingon · Rating 5 out of 5]

Saberhagen is always a really good bet. The story is a classic.

[Bradley · Rating 2 out of 5]

Average sci-fi tale. Eh.

[Ike · Rating 3 out of 5]

One word = bloodsport

[Jeff Means · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fun read, lots of interesting details getting into how or what might happen if technology gets out of control with lethal results.

[Matthew Poehler · Rating 5 out of 5]

Classic Science Adventure Fiction

This is great retro work. It's interesting to see it framed by its era. So much of modern fiction springs from work like this.

[Andy Plonka · Rating 1 out of 5]

Well I read it still didn't like it. So I'll beg off on this series.

[Dave · Rating 2 out of 5]

I needed distraction and this audio book was available through online digital download from our library. It isn't great science fiction in my estimation but the story line made for good diversion. Escapist fluff sci-fi, imho. For me the quality of the stories and writing is on a par with Dr. Who novels and scripts. I suppose I could give it 2.5 to 3 stars since it had fun moments but overall it was not very impressive for me.

[Daniel · Rating 2 out of 5]

Saberhagen uses his Berserker-verse to concoct a gladiatorial scenario mixed with a global conspiracy, and the resulting story has some fun spots amidst an otherwise mediocre story. The planet in question seemed restricted to a tiny landmass that allowed people to walk from point A to Z. I got the sense that this started as a short story that Saberhagen then tried to stretch further.

[Joe Rosado · Rating 3 out of 5]

A decently written book, but it shows it's age. Specifically his female characters and his descriptions of them are jarringly distracting with their sexism. You can expect a certain level from older science fiction but this book is more than most.

I liked the story, I like the writing style and will continue to read the rest of the series.

[Sparrow Knight · Rating 3 out of 5]

Puts me in mind of the old Conan books. A couple of decent plot twists to a basic he-man, strong arm sort of space fantasy. Is there such a thing as a He-man cozy? There is now. A basic fun, quick read.

[Onefinemess · Rating 2 out of 5]

It was OK, not great. Very slow start.

Not Saberhagen's best, but still some interesting ideas and worth reading if you're a fan or completionist or just into the Berserker stuff for whatever reason.

[Jason Farley · Rating 3 out of 5]

Insightful about the worship of death, but a little odd and upside down in a couple of places.

[João Neves · Rating 4 out of 5]

A more complete story, really nice but the plot was a bit obvious given the context. Very entertaining nonetheless.

[Bob · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book is a mess. The characters are barely present or forgettable. There's almost no plot at all. It reads like a set of stapled-together shorts.

[Ronald · Rating 4 out of 5]

read SOMETIME in 2010