I used to own a little blue paperback of this book. I believe it was an Ace edition. I just remember it had an exploding Berserker Death Star kind of ship on the cover, and some sleek fighter ships blasting away at it. While images like that come to mind when you read about the Berserkers, these stories offer so much more. Unlike most series, it's not really necessary to read the Berserker series in any particular order. You have recurring characters, but you don't lose anything by jumping in just anywhere. Berserker is a collection of stories that serves as a great introduction to Saberhagen's series. I read my copy to tatters and decided to buy the kindle edition so I can read and re-read it without worrying about the binding. Read Berserker, you wont be disappointed. I've enjoyed every book I've ever read by Saberhagen, from Berserkers, to Swords, to his Dracula series. He was one of the most creative writers in the field.

From the previous reviews, it appeared this was a collection of short stories related to an overall plot, with some stories having ongoing characters.

That is pretty accurate. The first half of th3 book are diverse stories, all set in the universe Saberhagen built. Starting around the middle, there is a series of stories that are more attached by recurring characters.

I enjoyed the writing style of Saberhagen; technical enough to feel like real science, but toned down to a manageable level. His real gift in this collection of stories is the variety of situations, and the various ways his humans act. Everyone is different, and there are moments of warrior ethos, and moments of intellectual interaction, as well as fear, cowardice, and betrayal. While Saberhagen has created a universe with an intesting premise and science, its all a backdrop for his exploration of humanity.

It was an enjoyable read. I will probably follow up with the rest of the collections of his Beserker short stories.

This is a great start to the venerable Berserker series. It consists of eleven short stories, several of which are connected by persistent characters. The series as a whole portrays the hope inherent in life, even when confronted by an implacable, seemingly irresistible enemy. The protagonists are mostly ordinary people, not supermen, and the author portrays them as imperfect and vulnerable, yet with humor and respect for what makes them (and us) human.

This series opener was a big disappointment for me. The story is disjointed and often forgets details from previous chapters and invents new ones only to forget them again in the next chapter. I had high hopes for this series based on other reviews, and I have enjoyed other novels that were originally a collection of short stories such as the incredible Worthing Saga by Orson Scott Card. However, this collection fails to have any glue between it's chapters, and instead really feels like a collection of lose stories with just a general theme in common. In the Worthing Saga, Card creates an entire story within the story to use as a framing device for putting the shorts together and it works beautifully. This novel is just one short after another with nothing linking them. The universe within the novel is not at all consistent and I found that endlessly frustrating.

Why three stars? Because it IS a good concept, and at times some of the stories were interesting, but it's just not enough to earn more than a 'meh' review from me.

I started reading Berserker stories in collections and in magazines that I got second hand at a local store - and I was immediately assimilated. Seriously, the quality of the writing, the implacable hostility of the big killing machines and the characterisations just sucked me in - and that was 40-50 years ago.

Now I came back - and bought the collection I never had, and it was just as captivating as it was the first time around. Read it. It’s wonderful.

I have read this book about a dozen times, its not the best writing but the story is compelling, this book was the first story of cold logical machines and a mission to exterminate life that I read, many movies , books, tv shows come after it.

Way back when I was in high school, someone tossed me a well used copy of Saberhagen's "Berserker", and I tore through it in a day. Recently, I was reminded of the Berserker stories, so I bought the first book.

This is a collection of short stories all relating to the Human/Berserker wars. Berserkers were machines that an earlier civilization created to help them eradicate their mortal foes. Unfortunately, they created the ultimate killing machines, that soon eradicated all life in their known universe. Fast forward eons of time, and the Humans in their exploration of the universe run across the berserkers, who are still bent on eliminating life.

These stories are short, interesting, and in typical Fred Saberhagen fashion, well written. Very enjoyable, and worthy of the purchase. Off to book 2 now.

These are sci fi classics and incredibly influential. It's amazing to me how many friends of mine who read science fiction have not read these. Read these stories and you will see so many of the ideas threaded through an amazing array of current Science Fiction. And if you like the Terminator, well this is where that whole idea came from.

I had never read about the Berserkers before, but had read a lot about them as examples of Golden Age SF.

I picked this one up by chance, so I had no expectations. Exlloration of themes in the concept were superb, and I did not expect the Human villainy so that was a bonus!

Very good stories

Colección de los once primeros relatos cortos sobre los berserker, máquinas inteligentes construidas por una civilización alienígena para destruir toda vida biológica. La primera historia ("Without a Thought") es muy buena y describe un modo de realizar con éxito la prueba de Turing sin inteligencia. El hecho de que esta hazaña sea realizada por un animal, en vez de una computadora, hace que la situación sea más fácil de entender. Otra historia muy buena es "Stone Place", transposición directa de la batalla de Lepanto a la guerra interestelar, con los venusianos interpretando el papel de los venecianos (:-)

So many later works refer back to the Beserker series. Malign machine intelligence is the new nightmare of many of our finest human minds. Read this first book of the series and find out why.

Through a sequence of encounters between humanity and the life-exterminating Beserkers with just a few key characters providing a thread of human continuity this collection explores how a seemingly simple directive of "destroy all life" can be complicated and thwarted. Enjoyable and still very readable, though a lot of the characters are thin and underdeveloped; this is very much focused on what and how, less so on who and why.