Berserker: Blue Death [Paperback]

Fred Saberhagen (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback: 288 pages
• Publisher: Tor Books (August 1987)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0812553292
• ISBN-13: 978-0812553291
• Product Dimensions: 6.7 x 4 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 0.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,056,463 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Ahab finally wins one..., January 14, 2002

By 

Trent Schaaf (Houston, TX USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Berserker: Blue Death (Paperback)

If you haven't read any of the Berserker books, I'd recommend starting at the beginning and working your way through them. The series is different in that the books can be read in any order, as long as you have the backplot established. Read "Berserker", a collection of short stories that sets up the plot, then pick any other Berserker book and go.

Berserker: Blue Death can be compartmentalized as a science fiction equivalent to Moby Dick. Captain Ahab is protrayed by Nils Domingo, an enigmatic man who has lost a family instead of a leg to what he thinks is the ultimate enemy. Ishmael, Queequeg and the others are more than adequately picked up in the form of Spence Benkovic, Branwen Galway, etc. as members of Domingo's crew who have their own reasons for being there, but are struggling with their captain's reasons as well. Throw in Fourth Adventurer, a Carmpan, (you have to know the backplot of the universe this story is written in to understand how amazing this is) and the berserker, the unfeeling bringer of death, Leviathan (a.k.a. Moby Dick) and you've got a story ready to explode.

Simply put, this book is about a father's misplaced quest for revenge against the murderer of his daughter. The same things that made Moby Dick such a good read apply here as well. Characters who are developed to the point that you can relate to them on a personal level, strong intermediate story about the quest for revenge, and a titanic ending, with a very interesting twist. In this one, Ahab wins, twice in fact, but at the cost of his soul. Fantastic read.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Captain Ahab in the 25th Century, July 7, 2006

By 

Stewart Teaze (San Diego, CA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Berserker: Blue Death (Paperback)

BERSERKER BLUE DEATH (1985)(**1/2 stars) is a novella-size tale, based on the classic THE WHALE (MOBY "D"). The main character Niles Domingo, like Captain Ahab, is obsessed with the destruction of the Blue-tinted Berserker ship (instead of the White Whale) that was reponsible for the death of his wife and children, and indirectly responsible for the loss of his left leg. In this story, the Captain is fitted with a leg made from "the bone" of a captured berserker android, rather than the bone of a whale.

Many Berserker stories include nebula-based situations, and this story takes place mostly in the Milkpail Nebula.

Computer technology plays a big part in this story written in 1985; the author describes "3-D hologram plots" which the ship's computer takes a great amount of time to "assemble"... this technology is dated, given the ability of any modern PC with a decent graphics card to render 3-D images instantaneously... while it can take a good amount of time to build graphics databases - but not to build the image from the completed database (as described in the book).

By the end of this story, we have a faily good idea of the personalities of the main characters, but we don't have a really good idea of what they look like physically.

This early Berserker story is now available in the Berserker Omnibus BERSERKER DEATH (2005), published by Baen Books - which is probably the best place to start reading stories from the Berserker series.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars I love Saberhagen, but this is not his best..., August 11, 2004

By 

webgrunt (USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Berserker: Blue Death (Paperback)

Fred Saberhagen is a terrific writer, but this book is not a good example of his capabilities. Though there is some character and plot development, it is often agonizingly slow. Toward the last third of the book, it does pick up the pace a bit. Worth a read if you like the Berserker series, but don't set your expectations up very high.