Just Finished Reading: Berserker Man by Fred Saberhagen

Millennia ago in a distant part of the Galaxy a war was waged by implacable enemies. One of the alien races produced what it saw as the ultimate weapon that would finally ensure them total victory. They created advanced machines capable of independent thought and fitted with awesome capabilities for destruction. Long after the death of both adversaries the remaining sentient races who fight them call them Berserkers.

Mankind has been at war with the Berserkers for centuries and are slowly losing the fight. In an act of desperation they devise a super weapon of their own – the ultimate human/machine hybrid. But the person capable of assuming this mantel as mankind’s saviour is a rare creature indeed. Searching among the teeming billions a perfect match is finally found…. in the form of an 11 year old boy. Unfortunately for him the Berserkers know of his existence too.

The Berserkers are great enemies. Evil machines bent on the destruction of all life wherever it is found. They are clever opponents as well as powerful ones and provide a impressive foil for human capabilities – and not just in the military dimension. Like my other favourite ‘bad guys’ the Borg and the Replicators they can be resisted but not (generally) defeated. They test us against the basic forces of death itself.

Berserker Man was apparently the final chapter in the Berserker series and was, maybe because of that, slightly disappointing. Concentrating on the development of the ultimate human warrior rather than the anticipated space combat its slant was more metaphysical than military. Competently written I certainly enjoyed it enough to race through it in three short days. Reasonable.