Customer Reviews

Spirit of Dorsai (Childe/Dorsai Cycle, Vol. 6) (Illustrated)

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

 

 

This book explains how did the old men, women and children defended the Dorsai world by themselves without Cletus Graeme in 'Tactics of Mistake', then fast forwards to the details of Kensie Graeme's Death and Ian Graeme's revenge of his brother in 'Dorsai!'.

It also introduces us, by way of conversation, to Amanda ap Morgan, Hal Mayne, and the Final Encyclopedia.

This book should be read after Dorsai!, and Tactics of Mistake for best enjoyment.

Mr. Dickson is well known in science fiction circles as a good writer, so I bought this book. It is interesting. The Dorsai are the inhabitants of a planet humans have colonized in their expansion across the galaxy. There is little to survive on, so the wherewithal to survive has to be imported and what is exported are mercenaries.
The book starts with a introduction to a female of a certain family, Amanda, and an off world questioner. He is curious about the history of the planet and she is the one with the answers. Her ancestors helped save and create the legacy the planet lives on.
The first story is how the planet retained its independence. They were to be brought under the rule of Earth because the actions of one of the mercenaries was to be arrested as an excuse. The planet was inhabited by old, infirm, young, etc. (the healthy young were off fighting other's battles), yet they defeated the invaders.
The second story is of the death of one of the more famous mercenary and how his twin brother exacted justice for him. The crux of the story is that some things need doing by certain people to further the ends of some esoteric group that hires the mercenaries for client planets. It is all for the betterment of mankind, but some bad things do need to happen to facilitate the path to greater good.

This book has to do with the struggle on Dorsaii prior to the time of Dorsaii (the book with that name). The heroine of this tale is good background information for Final Encyclopedia. I thought the book was a little dry, sexist, and primative. It is not one of the better books in the series. You could read this book at any point in the series since it is out of the timeline of the main storyline

In "Tactics of Mistake" Cletus brings down the powerful Dow deCastries by more or less trapping Earth's forces into invading the Dorsai homeworld, where they are defeated by the women, children, and old folks still on the world while Cletus has the full armed force of the planet fighting fires on most of the settled worlds.

This is the story of how that happened. There are interesting conversations and clever decisions made, but in the end I found the major method by which the Earth forces were defeated to be somewhat disappointing. It certainly made sense, and seemed quite workable, but it wasn't the story I thought I had been led to believe was coming. LOL

The main character here is a 97 year old lady with a solid history of taking care of business. In Dickson's earlier books in the series, he did an absolutely wretched job with the female characters, so I give him a lot of credit for taking on writing an entire book featuring one. He worked hard at developing her history and motivations, but in the end I still didn't feel I knew as much about the lady as some other authors of the day might have delivered.

Part Two of the book is the story of the aftermath of the assassination of Kensie. It is primarily a character study, and as such hangs together pretty well.

The book is certainly worth a read, and I think is a step up from earlier entries in the series, save the aforementioned "Tactics of Mistake", which I feel is the strongest of the series to this point. Where "Soldier Ask Not" virtually brought my reading to a stand still with its erratic plot and immensely unlikeable hero, "Spirit of Dorsai" did keep me turning the pages, even if I felt a bit empty when informed of the solution to the invasion.

Mr. Dickson is well known in science fiction circles as a good writer, so I bought this book. It is interesting. The Dorsai are the inhabitants of a planet humans have colonized in their expansion across the galaxy. There is little to survive on, so the wherewithal to survive has to be imported and what is exported are mercenaries.
The book starts with a introduction to a female of a certain family, Amanda, and an off world questioner. He is curious about the history of the planet and she is the one with the answers. Her ancestors helped save and create the legacy the planet lives on.
The first story is how the planet retained its independence. They were to be brought under the rule of Earth because the actions of one of the mercenaries was to be arrested as an excuse. The planet was inhabited by old, infirm, young, etc. (the healthy young were off fighting other's battles), yet they defeated the invaders.
The second story is of the death of one of the more famous mercenary and how his twin brother exacted justice for him. The crux of the story is that some things need doing by certain people to further the ends of some esoteric group that hires the mercenaries for client planets. It is all for the betterment of mankind, but some bad things do need to happen to facilitate the path to greater good.

Mr. Dickson is well known in science fiction circles as a good writer, so I bought this book. It is interesting. The Dorsai are the inhabitants of a planet humans have colonized in their expansion across the galaxy. There is little to survive on, so the wherewithal to survive has to be imported and what is exported are mercenaries.
The book starts with a introduction to a female of a certain family, Amanda, and an off world questioner. He is curious about the history of the planet and she is the one with the answers. Her ancestors helped save and create the legacy the planet lives on.
The first story is how the planet retained its independence. They were to be brought under the rule of Earth because the actions of one of the mercenaries was to be arrested as an excuse. The planet was inhabited by old, infirm, young, etc. (the healthy young were off fighting other's battles), yet they defeated the invaders.
The second story is of the death of one of the more famous mercenary and how his twin brother exacted justice for him. The crux of the story is that some things need doing by certain people to further the ends of some esoteric group that hires the mercenaries for client planets. It is all for the betterment of mankind, but some bad things do need to happen to facilitate the path to greater good.

The chronology I have places this book right after Dorsai proper but it really doesn't matter all that much. The best reason to read it after Dorsai is because this might spoil some of the events that happened in that novel but at the same time once you know what happened, it takes something away from the stories in this book. This is essentially two short stories with a framing sequence to give them context and they really aren't even that related. The third Amanda Morgan first tells the story of the first Amanda Morgan and this is significant because it's probably the first time Dickson has written a female character in this series who does more than serve as window dressing for the male characters. Amanda Morgan is old and stubborn and somewhat cranky but she's memorable either way. The events of the story aren't as interesting as she is, since they deal with stuff that happened in Tactics of Mistake (how a planet full of old and crippled people beat all the soldiers who were invading while Cletus was otherwise occupied) and so you know already how it ends, although Dickson does tend to take his sweet time getting there and in the end I still feel like I missed something. But Amanda Morgan stands out and Cletus was one of the better early characters so it was nice to revist that time in the series. The second story reads fairly quickly and once again involves the Graeme twins Ian and Kelsie and how Ian deals with Kelsie's death. This one I thought was well done but this is about the third time the series has dealt with Kelsie's murder and what Ian did in its wake (Soldier, Ask Not, Dorsai and now this book, for those keeping score) and since we never really got a good glimpse of Kelsie anyway . . . I would have liked to see more of the twins while both were still alive, since Dickson tells us all the time how much they complemented each other but Kelsie dies very early in every telling, or the twins are only seen from a distance. But it was a nice distraction and not terrible. The framing sequence probably could use more explanation as well, I assume it will make more sense when I read the Final Encyclopedia one of these days. The illustrations are really nice, though, and many are very striking, not just showing the scenes that Dickson is describing but taking an abstract stance and really standing out. I'm not sure if this is in print or not, but it can be bought used for like a dollar just about anywhere and if you're working your way through the Childe Cycle it makes an interesting, though not essential supplement to the whole thing.

Unlike other Dorsai novels, this novel contains some real good short stories, and has much more in the way of character development to offer. This novel centers around the third Amanda Morgan, and what she basically does, is tell two stories. Now, the first story is about the original Amanda Morgan, and is quite interesting. It goes into great detail about how an elderly woman stopped a whole army of soldiers. Does it have a real puropse in the Dorsai universe? Not necessarily. But it is a pretty good short story.

The second short story deals with Ian and Kensie Graehme. Now this is a unique story, because it details how the one brother dies, and what happens in the aftermath. You get to take a look at how efficient the Dorsai soldiers are, and how they place duty and honor above all else. This short story was neat, because it showed another example of the superior mental and physical ability the Dorsai possess.

Overall, this book does not have a lot of importance to the Dorsai series, but it does shed some light on prior history to the Dorsai world. The two stories are interesting, and there is enough character development to make the story more interesting. Perhaps the best part in this book happens to take place if you own an old trade paper version of the book. The book is filled with some outstanding artwork that needs to be seen to be appreciated. If by some odd chance you come across one of these old books, pick it up and enjoy from a literary sense and an artistic sense.