Short Story Collections

DAW Books, 1975. Mass market paperback original. 1st edition. Collection of stories, with introduction by the author. Includes: The Long Way Home (1961); Planeteer (1961); Volume PAA-PYX (1961); Seven Doors to Education (1961); Deep Space (1975); Pressure [Berserker] (1967); Starsong [Berserker] (1968); Calendars (1974); Young Girl at an Open Half-Door (1968); WHAT DO YOU WANT ME TO DO TO PROVE IM HUMAN STOP [Berserker] (1974).

These are the first stories of humanities fight against the life destroying Berserker machines. Programmed to destroy all life, the Berserkers threaten the very universe. Only one form of life, humanity, is uniquely qualified to take on the machines. Meet Berserker hunter extraordinaire Johann Karlsen and his evil brother Felipe Nogara and other gallant fighters of the killer machines. Not satisfied with efforts to destroy all life in present time, the Berserkers devise a way to penetrate human history. The death dealing machines pinpoint key personalities in human history for destruction. When and if they succeed human progress is set back perhaps thousands of years. Humanity has an answer. On the planet Sirgol, the only planet in the galaxy where time travel is possible, an elite corps of Berserker hunters struggle to derail the Berserkers’ efforts. Lieutenant Derron Odegard of Time Ops faces the death dealing, time-traveling Berserkers in three exciting adventures: Stone Man, Winged Helmet, and Brother Berserker. A collection of fifteen of Saberhagen’s Berserker short stories previously published as Berserker and Berserker Brother Assassin plus an introductory essay by Saberhagen “Berserkers for Fun and Profit”.

Across galactic timelines and landscapes, earth-descended humanity continues the fight against non-living, life hating Berserkers. Along with powerful allies of plants, sea creatures, computerized personalities, mythic men and a fictional detective, life struggles against its unliving foe. In cleaver hands, even the foibles of human personalities can be used against the unliving Berserker foe. Berserkers are automated warships, made by an unknown race to fight in an interstellar war that had been over ages since; they have outlasted their original enemies and their makers as well, having been programmed and equipped to rebuild and reproduce themselves. Still trying to carry out their originally programmed task, they made age-long progress across the spiral arms, leaving nothing living in their wake. This volume, together with the Berserkers The Early tales, constitute a complete collection of Saberhagen authored Berserker stories. The stories The Bad Machines and Servant Of Death have not appeared previously in any Saberhagen collection.

Saberhagen The Early Tales: Stories apart from Berserkers A wide range of ideas are explored and worlds created in this collection of thirteen of Fred Saberhagen’s early short works of science fiction and fantasy. All the stories were written between 1960 and 1976. Included are two works set in Fred’s world of veils and startling landscapes known as Azlaroc. A story co-authored with Alexei Panshin takes us back in time, sort-of. Several stories are set in Chicago where alien visitations are recorded, one at the Art Institute another somewhere under Lake Michigan. And at what might be Chicago’s Museum of Science and Industry, Fred takes a look into the mind of an early computer named Martha. An alternate history tale with psychic overtones, Life Force, has never appeared in any earlier collections of Fred’s work. So if you missed the July 1974 Galaxy printing, now is your chance to discover one fascinating possibility in a post-nuclear-war world. No Berserker stories appear in this volume. Fred’s Berserker short stories are collected separately in two volumes Berserkers The Early Tales and Berserkers The Later Tales. Entertaining, thought provoking stories from an accomplished science fiction and fantasy author await you.

Fred Saberhagen is known for his series of ten Dracula novels. Less well known are his three short stories featuring vampires and Dracula. The stories have appeared in various anthologies and collections. Here they are gathered in one place for your enjoyment. “A Drop Of Something Special In The Blood” tells the possible story of how Bram Stoker came to write his classic tale of Dracula. Of course there are vampires. “Box Number Fifty” refers to one of the boxes owned by a mysterious immigrant arriving in Victorian England from Transylvania. “From The Tree Of Time” pairs Dracula with the world’s greatest detective SHolmes in an effort to save a Victorian woman’s honor.