The Right to Arm Bears [Mass Market Paperback]

Gordon R. Dickson (Author)

Book Description

Release date: November 28, 2000 | Series: Dorsai Series

HUMANS OR HEMNOIDS:

AN UNBEARABLE CHOICE!

Planet Dilbia is in a crucial location for both humans and their adversaries, the Hemnoids. Therefore making friends with the Dilbians and establishing a human presence there is of the utmost importance, which may be a problem, since the bearlike Dilbians stand some nine feet tall, and have a high regard for physical prowess. They're not impressed by human technology, either. A real man, er, bear doesn't need machines to do his work for him.

But Dilbians are impressed by sharp thinking, and some have expressed a grudging admiration for the logical (and usually sneaky) mental maneuvers that the human "shorties" have used to get themselves out of desperate jams. Just maybe that old human craftiness will win over the Dilbians to the human side. If not, we lose a nexus, and the Dilbians will learn just how unbearable Hemnoids can be....

Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 448 pages
• Publisher: Baen (November 28, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0671319590
• ISBN-13: 978-0671319595
• Product Dimensions: 6.7 x 4 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 2.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,218,477 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

19 of 19 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars A bearable read February 5, 2001

By Joseph McCauley

First, ignore the title and the cover art, however clever and amusing they may be. None of the three stories in this volume has much to do with providing weapons to the ursinoid Dilbians, whose culture shuns the use of weapons (for that matter, they're not so hot with tools either). Second, fans of Dickson should be advised this book is an omnibus edition of three previously released works, "Spacial Delivery", "Spacepaw", and "The Law-Twister Shorty".

I found these stories to be rather entertaining as something of a guilty pleasure, but overall I wasn't terribly impressed with the storytelling or the world-building. The Dilbians were amusing in their backward-thinking, but at times they tended to be a bit too, how should I say it?, "folksey". The manner in which the human characters were identified and thrust into the situations in these stories was too counterintuitive and far-fetched to be believable; nevertheless it did provide for some interesting problems for the human characters to puzzle over as they interacted with the Dilbians. Overall, not a great read but not too bad either.

8 of 10 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars Worth a laugh or two December 13, 2000

By Colin Croft

If you liked Dickson's earlier novel "Hoka" then you'll probably also like this one. Written in a similar style, it's lighthearted and amusing in all the right places but probably not the sort of book that you'll put away on the shelf to read over and over again.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars Reprint from a Master of SF March 4, 2001

By A Customer

For those of you who have yet to collect all you can of Gordon R. Dickson, this volume will make it possible to collect three of his light SF tales inexpensively.

I'm sorry to say I've heard that Gordon R. Dickson died 31 Jan 2001 from asthma complications. He was one of my favorite authors. While his Dorsai SF and Dragon Knight fantasy series were my favorites of his works, pretty much everything he published was worth reading. I hope SF publishers will find some good editors and republish more collected editions of his works.