Customer Reviews

Brother Assassin (Berserker Series, Book 2)

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

The planet Sirgol sits in a strange part of the space-time continuum, the only place in the universe where time travel is possible. And when the first Earth ship arrived, it was plunged 20,000 years into Sirgol's past, where the survivors became the first humans to live on the planet. And by the time the Berserkers arrived, Sirgol was a fully matured world with 400 million people which could assist Earth in its war against the enemies of life.

However, now the Berserkers are ready to use time travel against the humans of Sirgol, and it is up to Time Operations to thwart their plans. Lieutenant Derron Odegard is the man on the spot, and he will be intimately involved in the time war. But, the war will cost Odegard more than he expected, and take him farther than he ever thought.

I have always loved Fred Saberhagen's Berserker stories. To me, they are the quintessential villains, with no pity and no remorse. In this story, Mr. Saberhagen moves into new ground, pitting the Berserkers against humans in an alternate, but basically Earth equivalent, history. It's all here - the Neolithic, the late Roman Empire, and the Renaissance.

But, what did I think of the story? Well, it's not as blood-chilling as the other, pure science-fiction, Berserker stories I have read. But, I must say that I found it a very good read, a very interesting story. If you are a fan of good science-fiction, or time travel stories, or love the Berserkers, then this is a good book to read. I enjoyed it, and think that you will too!

Hiding in their bunkers beneath a blasted world, the inhabitants of Sirgol are still not defeated. They have a unique colony world; their civilization is as old as Earth's, since Sirgol is the only planet known where time-travel can happen, and the first colonists dropped back thousands of years. Now the berserker machines have found them, and almost beaten them by scouring off the surface of their world, but the Sirgolians still have a chance as they fight the machines through the loops and bends of their planet's earthlike history. And on Sirgol, you can really go back and make it not happen. Saberhagen's berserkers are always a scary concept, but here they have a different side. It's a question critical to my own survival: how complicated can a machine be before it can be said to be 'alive?'

This is yet another great Berserker book... Saberhagen goes into great detail about all the events of Sirgol's history, the planet literally comes to life... In this book time travel is the key. It's a race to stop the Berserkers from going back in time to destroy the planet's past.

Overall, a good read, though it plays more like three good novellas stitched together with a decent framing story rather than a novel cut from whole cloth. As such it's fine, part tale of the berserker wars and part alternative history and part time travel. The essential idea is that Saberhagen gives planet Sirgol a history parallel to Earth's--but not quite identical. This lets Saberhagen offer interesting variations on the history of King Arthur, Galileo, and St. Francis of Assisi. My only minor complaint is a sexist gaff near the end (the hero wants the heroine to have his baby) that somewhat dates the book. Nonetheless worthwhile if you're a fan of Saberhagen and especially a fan of the berserker series.

I've been a fan of Saberhagen for decades, his early Berserker books being his first I'd read. This one is by far the best I've read yet.

The story takes place on a planet where a type of radiation surrounding the planet makes time travel possible. Human explorers who first came to the planet were caught unawares, sent far into the past and de-evolved so that they had to advance all over again.

Now in the "present," they had learned to harness the radiation and look into the past and even travel there.

When the Berserkers, planet-sized doomsday machines from some long-forgotten intergalactic war whose prime directive is to destroy all life, arrive they are repelled by the planet's defenses. They then try to make use of the time travel to affect the planet's past.

The story starts kind of slowly, but soon has you in its grip so that you won't want to put it down.

Check it out.

The Berserkers are back! In the second volume of this series the humans must battle with the berserkers for mastery of a key star system-in the past. Oh yeah, we have aliens trying to mess with the timeline, and humans who are just as ready to stop them. Dramatic, thought-provoking action brings this story to life. Great read!

You can find this, among other places, as part of the Baen omnibus 'Berserker Man', and Brother Assassin, a book also known as Brother Berserker, is available there in all three parts, but you will have to look under Berserker Man to find it.

If that isn't confusing, then this is a fixup novel, or a collection, depending on how you like to look at it, with the three parts corresponding to these three previously published magazine stories, as part one, part two, and part three, rather than the story titles.

This is the weakest of the Berserker collections, as in the main it is a time police type of story, removing the cold menace of the Berserker machines from a lot of it, making it most definitely not as interesting as the other stories.

Brother Assassin : Stone Man - Fred Saberhagen
Brother Assassin : The Winged Helmet - Fred Saberhagen
Brother Assassin : Brother Berserker [short story] - Fred Saberhagen

Berserkers really are no joke.

2.5 out of 5


Time Ops again has a protection from Berseker job to do, this time with a barbarian Chieftain.

3.5 out of 5


Anti-Berserker time agent operation death.

3 out of 5



2.5 out of 5

Just as one expects from Fred Saberhagen, Brother Assassin is a quick, unstressful read. Assassin makes up for a glaring defect in its predecessor by focusing on one planet and having one character tie each story together; on the other hand, the Berserkers themselves leave little impression with the reader, the sense of menace from the first book is absent. While there is little negative to be said about the book (except, as another reviewer has noted, a blatent and disappointing chauvinistic remark near the end), there is little positive, either. It is competently written and holds the attention, but it is not likely to bring one hurrying back for a second read.

Another great Beserker book! This story revolves around a battle waged via time travel. These beserkers are more subtle in their efforts to wipe out humanity.