Shiva in Steel: Library Edition [Unabridged] [Audio CD]

Fred Saberhagen (Author), Edward Lewis (Narrator)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 2001

One Berserker computer has suddenly developed a tactical strategy unlike anything the human opposition has ever seen. Shiva, like the Hindu god of destruction after which it was named, annihilates entire colonies with the help of its fiendish subordinates. It's up to Commander Claire Normandy to prepare for Shiva's attacks, with the help of Pilot Harry Silver. When the Berserkers approach, a decision is made to destroy the destroyer, whatever the cost. But will Normandy and Silver be ready to discover that something wholly unexpected yet eerily familiar lies gnarled within the steel?

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

This is another installment in Fred Saberhagen's ongoing saga of war between humanity and the almost-sentient death machines known as Berserkers. For long years the war has been at a stalemate, with humanity managing to fend off the bulk of Berserker attacks and even strike back from time to time. But on a remote planet called Hyperborea, things are about to change. The Berserkers have developed a new tactical computer that has proven unbeatable, and it could spell the death of all living things in the galaxy. A last-ditch effort to destroy the machine, code-named Shiva, has failed, and now the only thing that stands between Shiva and certain victory is a handful of humans that circumstance has thrown together on Hyperborea. In this Berserker book, Saberhagen returns to all of the things that have made his series such a mainstay in science fiction. His heartless enemy machines are as treacherous as ever, and the fragile humans who most stop them may not be perfect, but they are resourceful. --Craig E. Engler --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Publishers Weekly

Super saber-rattler Saberhagen strikes again, with the eighth installment of his popular Berserker series (Berserker Fury, etc.). Solarian humanity is fighting galaxywide for survival against ultimate-weapon machines able to redesign themselves and bent on exterminating all forms of life. With Shiva, a newly developed artificially intelligenced Berserker, heading her way, Commander Claire Normandy musters her slim force of converted courier ships piloted by a motley assortment of pickup crews in order to defend her top-secret code-breaking installation on the planetoid Hyperborea. While Normandy fights off the invading swarm of Berserkers, space-weary combat pilot-turned-smuggler Harry Silver and his lost-found-lost-again love Becky Sharp lead Saberhagen's crisply drawn characters through complicated maneuvers involving an autodog Sniffer, military monomaniac Major Marut, self-anointed Galactic Emperor Julius and an escaped homicidal lunatic. Saberhagen's taut tough-guy dialogue counterpoints the satisfying punch of man-vs.-machine combat, and his settings?especially aboard ship and in the lofty tech areas of Hyperborea?are convincing. When the moondust and starship debris settle, Commander Normandy's good guys have won some breathing room, but odds are Shiva's out there lurking for episode #9?and so is the durable Harry Silver.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Audio CD
• Publisher: Blackstone Audiobooks; Unabridged edition (February 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0786197811
• ISBN-13: 978-0786197811
• Product Dimensions: 6.5 x 6.8 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 1.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #10,320,992 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:

2.0 out of 5 stars I'm fond of Saberhagen, but what a mess!, November 30, 1999

By 

Peter Basch "pbasch" (Los Angeles) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Shiva in Steel (Berserker Series) (Hardcover)

The editor needs a good talking to. While this book has a number of suspenseful moments, and I don't feel completely cheated, I think Fred needed to do another draft of his outline. Tension is built up on elements that prove to be completely irrelevant, like the mysterious box of contraband. Turns out, it's just a device to get the main character into the book. The McGuffin of the title, Shiva, inexplicably fizzles toward the end, and a whole new Big Ending Battle ensues that is totally unrelated to Shiva's fate. Hints are raised (Berserker's being "lucky" for the sociopath) that end up nowhere. I love the Berserkers, but this one was a disappointing mess. I wish other writers would write Berserker books.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars the horror, the horror..., November 28, 1999

By 

mitch van der leest (Moscow, Russia) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Shiva In Steel (Berserker Series) (Mass Market Paperback)

When Saberhagen is not repeating himself in every other paragraph, heis contradicting himself. The reader is left scratching his head as characters will often describe something (for example), that's wonderfully complex, then two pages later refer to the same thing as "barebone".

It can't be both Fred...

Topping off the grade-school level of consistency in the presentation of facts in this book is the plot with gaping holes in it.

Let's see... the Solarians establish a base out in the middle of nowhere with their most prized secrets in it. Except that there's no defenses to speak of.

The most important task force ever consists of six ships, which are shot up completely by some Berzerkers in passing.

A very prudent commander is specifically told to be careful of enemy agents, then simply solicits volounteer help from what's essentially a planet of outcasts, allowing the agent to waltz in.

Of course, this agent actually doesn't want to hurt the base or want anything in it... so the warning of course should never have come.

The most tactically superior thinking machine to ever grace the Berzerker cause runs a pretty damn stupid campaign against a sitting-duck base. My Atari 2600 would be a more formidable opponent....

I will never touch another book by "Saberhagen" again. This book is an incomplete work and the publisher should be ashamed for printing it and taking people's money.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars A half-finished novel . . . ., March 15, 2005

By 

Patrick J. Callahan (La Crosse, WI USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Shiva In Steel (Berserker Series) (Mass Market Paperback)

In the last couple of months I reviewed two other Saberhagen novels on Amazon: Berserker Star and Rogue Berserker. Both showed more craftsmanship than Shiva in Steel.

The other reviews printed here carry the main idea. The book seems carelessly or hastily done.

For example-- the first two-thirds of the book are focused toward preparing and arming a sortie against the berserkers. The ships are prepared, the crews are trained, the strategy is planned. Then we find out, there's going to be no expedition. A kind of ad hoc battle flares up as the berserkers somehow locate the Solarian base. A reader has the feeling that Saberhagen started out to write a big novel, say 500 pages, and then for whatever reason needed to bring it to a very rapid close.

As for the characters . . . again, a work half finished. Harry's great love, Becky, shows up in the novel. Given the build-up to her appearance, we are expecting some engagement between Harry and the girl. However, she is little more than a cardboard cutout. There's no characterization, really, and the total exchange between Harry and Becky amounts to just a few paragraphs.

Several times, Harry begins to develop sub-plots. Marut is a commander with whom Harry has lots of conflict. He's a pretty central figure in the first half of the book. Then he just disappears. We finally get a sentence or two at the very end informing us that his ship was lost in the battle. Other characters are brought on stage, given some scenes, and assume some reality in the story, to include the Emperor Julius and Christopher Havot. Both of them peter out. It is as though Saberhagen decided to write them into the story, then loses track of them.

I formerly had given Saberhagen's Rogue Berserker a very strong rating. I thought it was really well done. This novel is really a patched-together mess. I wonder if the publishers were pressuring him and he was over-deadline. He had a rough draft . . . well, "it would just have to do!"

Not for me it didn't. Didn't do, I mean. And one of the other reviewer's comments, that we never find out what happens to the title villain Shiva . . . that's ridiculous. You have a title villain, and you somehow lose track of him?

This is a problem with today's equivalent of the pulp market. Novels are pumped out fast, sometimes one or more a year. Publishers keep badgering their few authors who have something of a name for more and more productivity. If the book is ready it comes out. If it is half-finished and desperately needs work, it comes out anyway. At least some of this criticism should go to the editor at the publishing house.

Saberhagen has other much better novels in print. Buy those.