Product Description
A new entity is being born. Its cells are microprocessors, its soul lives in data banks from Wall Street to Red Square. It is neither good nor evil. But it is very dangerous. The Angra Oil Corporation thinks it is just another resource to be used up....

Coils: The story of a man and a woman trapped in the battle between a soulless corporation and the soul of a new machine.
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Customer Reviews (6)

Good but not great Zelazny, with a dash of Saberhagen
This thoughtfully illustrated little book will provide anyone with a fine day's entertainment. For Zelazny fans, it is something more - even a mediocre Zelazny is better than most writers' best. Fred Saberhagen's contribution was not so obvious to me, although no doubt it had to do with the "conscious computer" aspect of the plot.

The action moves right along from the start, in a version of the "Wait a minute - I don't know who I am!" scenario that appears in Edward Dmytryk's movie "Mirage", Heinlein's short story "The Strange Profession of Jonathan Hoag", A.E. van Vogt's "The World of Null-A" and Desmond Bagley's fine thriller "The Tightrope Men".

Challenged by his new girlfriend Cora, Don BelPatri begins to wonder about his idyllic existence. Living in Florida, comfortably well off, enjoying life day to day, he has only vague recollections of his earlier life. But when he takes Cora to see his parents, he finds that he has never before seen the town he thought of as home. When he has himself examined by a psychologist, the man is found dead the very next morning. Then Don discovers that his mind can reach out and "see" the internal states of computers - and even change them.

The tension is built up skilfully as more and more of the truth is revealed, and Don finds himself up against formidable and ruthless enemies. Although his growing ability to control all kinds of electronic equipment gives him a huge advantage, in the end he needs all the help he can get from his friends - and even some of his enemies.

Don's ability to exercise direct mental control over computer circuitry remotely is a mixture of inspiration and naivete that only a handful of authors could pull off. "Coils" was published four years before William Gibson's first novel, "Neuromancer" appeared in 1986, but Alfred Bester had explored similar ideas in "The Computer Connection" (1973) and subsequent work. Bester's thinking seems to have paralleled Zelazny's, as can be seen from their later collaboration on "Psychoshop".

Zelazny was to take the theme much further, for instance in "24 Views of Mt Fuji, by Hokusai" (in "The Last Defender of Camelot") and his last, unfinished, novel, the magisterial "Donnerjack"...

Excellent S-F intrigue
Having met a new love, Don decides, on an impulse, to return home and have her meet his family.Imagine his surprise when he realizes that he has never been to his hometown!Apparently his entire past has been implanted, and he is determined to discover the truth of his life.

What follows is a VERY well-written tale in a very classic style.He meets up with former associates who were happy with his amnesiac state.They of course object most strenuously to his recovering memory, and they try to arrest his progress in increasingly lethal degrees.Eventually they resort to kidnapping the only loved one Don has, and that is beyond tolerance.

This novel is not very long, taking just a couple hours to read, but there are moany things that the authors foresaw (in 1982) that have more or less come to be, like universal access to facilities like banking from any computer outlet (one of the minor such cases).He is aided by a very unique ability, the reason his associates fear him, that of a sort of machine telepathy.He is able to send his consciousness into any electronic device.This you can bet comes in very handy in such a technological (1994!) setting.

I have only recently begun tracking down all of Zelazny's books, this being the third I have read, and I consider this to be a great novel.There is good character advancement, well-written first-person perspective, and action without excessive gratuitous violence.

It's..... ?? about MY Company!!!
Klackerdikonk!

No, not really but if you translate the Company nameAngra with M$ it makes the reading more interessting...:)

Klickerdiklack!

Clicclacclonc!

Dated or not it's just fun to read.
O.k so the stuff about the computers is funny. Still the spirit of Zelazny hovers around and make you forget thet your'e just reading a book as it tells you of a psichic-battle or soars in descriptions of the hero feelingswhen he's precticing his weird psi power.

The plot gives a promise ofaction ( it does'nt fail )and a great cast of charecters with fun-to-readpowers.

Soul of a 386 Machine
Yes, it is a little dated, especially from MY viewpoint. But Zelazny & Saberhagen do a great job of anticipating the rise of the machine civilization which is even now poised to sweep you pitiful humans away.What does it matter that one notebook computer today has about 3 times thepower of their whole network? It's the thought that counts. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

A little boring
I read this quite quickly.The story is rather weak and his characterization of the wife is annoying.The story takes too long to get going and then it's half-over.It is not extremely satisfying or interesting, and doesn't really make too much sense.I recommend Saberhagen's Empire of the East or perhaps some of his other (many) books. ... Read more

Product Description
On the brink of the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution, an American hunter is chased across Russia by a nobleman with the preternatural ability to turn into a bear--a metaphor of Russia's own transformation. Reprint. K. PW. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

For Saberhagen fans only
Saberhagen seems to have trouble whenever he strays too far from his more familiar and popular works (Berserkers and Dracula). This story starts well, drags on in the middle and ends rather poorly.The so-called stinger at the end is no surprise to anyone even remotely familiar with Russian history.Saberhagen's transliteration from Russian to English is often faulty.The story also has very many obvious inconsistancies, reads more like a draft.Shine it on ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

To Ride the Elephant
The Broken Lands is the first novel in the Empire of the East series,which follows the adventures of Rolf, a sixteen year old peasant boy born in the lands of the Satrap Ekuman.

In this novel, Rolf is plowing the fields when the soldiers come to his farm.His first awareness that something is wrong is the sight of a winged reptile swooping down to the farm yard.Running home as fast as possible, Rolf finds the flimsy house kicked apart and bodies that look something like his parents sprawled amid all the other ruined things in the yard.Though he searches everywhere, he cannot find his sister Lisa, so he goes looking for her.After a while, he finds himself sitting beside the road, quivering with exhaustion.A man is standing near him.At first, he thinks that the man is a soldier and wonders if he might get out his knife and kill him, but he looks more closely and sees that the man is not a soldier. The man asks if anything is wrong, but it is too hard to understand the question.He just gives up and slips into unconsciousness.

Rolf awakes as the man pours water into his mouth.When the man again asks him if anything is wrong, Rolf manages to force out words to tell his story.When Rolf is done, the man introduces himself as the peddler Mewick.The peddler return to the farm with Rolf and helps bury his parents.After the burial, Rolf accompanies Mewick south, carrying the pack when Mewick tires.However, the peddler takes the knife from Rolf and then throws it away, saying that it is against Castle law.As they are walking, three mounted Castle soldiers overtake them and insist on searching Mewick's pack.While one of the soldiers is searching the pack, he comes upon a love charm and casually asks why they never catch a young girl out there.The other soldiers ignore him, but Rolf goes berserk, reaching for a rock and throwing it at the trooper.Although he misses, Mewick doesn't, and they kill all three soldiers.However, their actions are seen and they immediately have to run from other soldiers.

They flee into the swamp and the Castle soldiers soon give up the pursuit.Rolf and Mewick wade through the bogs for hours.Around midnight, a very large bird swoops down on them and converses with Mewick.Soon they find a camp on a strip of dry land and are able to sit down and eat warm food.When Rolf awakens, he recalls that his parents are dead and Lisa is missing.Next, he confirms that he still has the short sword taken from the dead trooper.Then, arising, he goes to meet the others in the camp, the woman Manka and her husband Loford.After he has washed, he finds the large bird, Strijeef, perched deep within a tree and asleep.He learns that the birds fly at night, acting as scouts and killing the winged reptiles used by the Castle soldiers.Rolf has found the Western Resistance and soon becomes a full member when the reptiles find their camp and attack Strijeef.The Resistance group flees further into the swamp to avoid the soldiers who follow the reptiles.

While they flee, Loford raises a water elemental to overwhelm the Castle soldiers and cover their escape.Still, the reptiles follow them and attack once more.Mewick shoots arrows at them and Rolf swings his sword, but doesn't hit anything.Disgusted at his performance, Rolf asks Mewick to teach him how to use the sword and, after one wild swing almost skewers him, Mewick agrees out of sheer self-defense.Soon they come to a larger camp in the swamp and Rolf is introduced to Thomas, a local leader.He also learns of Ardneh, who rides the Elephant and is armed with thunderbolts.Then, as Strijeef is preparing to go out on his nightly patrol, another bird, Feathertip, returns with word of the Elephant.The Resistance group decides to investigate the find and Rolf goes with them.

The Castle soldiers, however, have not given up their search for Rolf and his new friends.Moreover, they know something of the Elephant and Ardneh, so they are also searching for these relics of the old times.

This series is one of the most enthralling tales of magical adventure that I have ever encountered.All of the Swords and the Gods books are based on this series, but, while quite enjoyable in themselves, the sequels have never really achieved the same level of fascination.

Recommended for Saberhagen fans and anyone who enjoys well crafted tales of sword, sorcery, and high adventure.

-Arthur W. Jordin

An epic beginning
This is an exceptoinal book, just barely falling short of five stars.It is agreat beginning to the Empire of the East trilogy, which is the almost unheard beginning to the epic Swords series.A good read foranyone, and for those fans of the Swords series, its a must read. ... Read more

Product Description
Who is Pilgrim? Tom Scheffler and Jerry Flint are going to find out the hard way, because the mysterious Pilgrim is going to have them fighting for their lives centuries, millennia before they were born. Pilgrim is the rogue time traveler trying to change the course of history for his own ends. And even if the two hapless adventurers survive Pilgrim's deadly game, they have no assurance that they will ever see their own timeline again. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

A barely-adequate time-waster
This book is a re-issue of two related books which were originally published separately in the late 80s. I can't speak for the value of this entire collection, but I read one half of it (The one entitled "After the Fact") when it was new around '87 on a long, cross-country car trip. It was merely adequate at best. Without spoiling any of the plot, we find out in the first couple of pages that a mysterious time traveler calling himself "A. Pilgrim" needs to rescue Abraham Lincoln from a certain death in the expensive seats of the Ford Theater in the past because...well, we're never really told why. We're just told that it's massively important. Pilgrim kidnaps a grad student, sending him back in time alone to Washington, 1865. The overwhelming bulk of the book follows the grad student around through various dull misadventures until the final confrontation involving Lincoln.
Does Lincoln survive? Will history be changed? I won't spoil those only-moderately-interesting questions for you, but I will say that "After the fact" was adequate reading for a lengthy car trip with my parents - well, maybe on the low edge of adequate - but I caution you that the ending of the book is *Extremely* frustrating for a number of reasons. Explaining these reasons would include plot spoilers, so I won't do that here.
I will mention that the book is essentially little more than a great big setup for a sequel which, as far as I can tell, was never written. I will also mention that a couple of the central questions of the book are never resolved, and we're left not knowing any more about A. Pilgrim than we did when we came in.
This is really only suited for the absolute Saberhagen completist, but it's far below his usual interesting level, and holds little interest for the rest of us.

Previously published as two volumes
This books was previously published as two volumes with the tiles "Pyramids" and "After the Fact", both now out of print. ... Read more

Product Description
When Wayfinder, the Sword of Wisdom, turns up in the hut of Valdemar, a simple grower of grapes, it leads Valdemar on his quest to find a wife. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Another Sword gets destroyed in this one
Saberhagen again weaves his magic inthe continuing tale of the Swordsand the people involved with them. This story includes Wayfinder,Shieldbreaker, Woundhealer andSightblinder.One of these Swordsdoes get destroyed by Shieldbreaker,but read the book to find out which. Also the Ancient One, or Wood, isthe enemy in this one.He hasappeared in some of the other Swordbooks as well.The story alsointroduces some new characters thatwill stick in your memory. A huge man, who is a grape grower,is mysteriously given Wayfinder byan unknown stranger.The huge manuses the Sword to find his futurebride and the adventures andtroubles he encounters on the way.Not the best of the Sword books butstill fits very nicely in with theseries. It is the next to last bookin the series.Recommended! ... Read more

Product Description
In the past, a young traveling player named Amby discovers the recently laid bones of the sorcerer, Merlin, while in the near future, Dr. Elaine Brusen is attacked by the enemies of the legendary King Arthur for control of a new technology. Reprint. LJ. PW. K. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (10)

a disappointing adventure in the land of confusion
This book started out slow, but picked up in speed after the first 100 pages. By that point, it became a whirling confusion with different narrators and time lines. Saberhagen seems to enjoy these time paradoxes and overlaps employed in the book, but they lacked believability. All the jumps made it difficult to give time for proper character development. If given some more time and a few hundred additional pages, this book could work. As it is now, it was a bit contrived.

Could have been better, too many loose ends
The writer, who I was previously never heard of must have been hoping to write a sequel because there were so many loose ends!Someone typed in the reviews that Saberhagen has had "trouble" writing endings - I see that as not a problem because he didn't really write an ending!I like the others found the jump from the future to Amby to Bran and Hakon not so much confusing, but distracting without having much to pull them together expept at the very end.Who, by the way is the Fisher King?I never figured that one out either but I did not spend long reading this book because it was not as interesting as I hoped that it would be.Pick it up if you have the time - the basic plot of the story is fine, the characters (for the most part) interesting, and the twists worth reading - if you prepare yourself not to be thoroughly pleased with the "un"ending.

Solid but not magical
I agree with the reviewer who praised Saberhagen's ability to juggle plots and multiple storylines but criticized the author's ability to end his books satisfactorily. That's the case here. FS sets the stage and introduces the characters quite skillfully (though he has a medieval character referring to a 'sandwich') and stage-manages the action with aplomb.

But but but. FS really loves time-warps and time-bends, having characters disappear and reappear in other guises, and this story is lousy with them. To the point that he seems to be indulging himself with unhknotting these little puzzles he's created. As with his Dracula books, when Merlin's not around, you find yourself waiting for him to arrive.

The triple-climax in the last 50 pages kind of goes all over the place and the Northman who narrates part of the story in the book's latter half disappears completely--did he die? Wha' happened?

Sturdily constructed but not magical.

Extremely disappointing
I've always felt Saberhagen's weakness was in writing endings.He almost always does a great job of shifting points of view and keeping multiple plot lines suspended simultaneously, but his conclusions often feel abrupt to me (Empire of the East was a notable exception).

The first half of Merlin's Bones is perfectly entertaining, a well-constructed set-up and development.But suddenly it's as though Saberhagen forgot how to tell a story and is reduced to summarizing the action.It's quite bizarre.I finished the book, but I'm not sure why.

Slow Starter, but Steam Trains till the End.
An Interesting concept, and welcome addition to the Arthurian Camelot Mythos. I've been a fan of Saberhagen's since I read Empire of the East in High School in the early 1980's. I usually find his style very enjoyable and well flowing, however, I found that Merlin's Bones took some getting used to the flow and style. It started out slow for me but somewhere just before halfway it picked up speed until it smashed into a brick wall at the end.

In medieval times, sometime after the Days of King Arthur and the Round Table, a group of traveling entertainers seek refuge in an abandoned and run down stronghold with a wall that protects several buildings including a house that has some apparent magical properties. This band of actors, jugglers, and jesters are running from a king they displeased by heckling him in their act. Little do they know that the one place they seek shelter from both the nights storm and the angry king is the final resting place of the mythical magician Merlin from King Arthur's Kingdom of Camelot.The little band of entertainers soon discover that they are indeed protecting the place where the great magician was entombed alive many years earlier, and must pose as the servants to the great oracle of Merlin's Bones.

Meanwhile in the late twentieth, early twenty-first century, a research scientist, who works for an organization that has devoted itself to the study of Reality and Time/Space is experiencing strange events in and around her lab and the surrounding facilities. Strange guests arrive who claim to be associated with the legendary King Arthur and the Knights of The Round Table. These "Guests" prove to be very demanding and forceful and mysterious as well as cunning. They want to use her scientific equipment to help in there search for Merlin's final resting place and more importantly the magical powers that his bones are said to possess.

What made this a slow starter for me was the initial exposition of the band of travelers, who are after all the most important characters of the book. That coupled with jumping to the modern times future, the "Interlude" as many of the chapters and subchapters were titled. Until I got fully involved with and excited about the story. It took major character development for this to happen, at least for me.

This book crosses the Science-Fiction/Fantasy fine line it isn't totally Fantasy, yet it can't be called Science Fiction on it's own. It's primarily a fantasy set as I said earlier sometime after the Days of King Arthur and Camelot. I would recommend this book first to Saberhagen fans, then to Fantasy enthusiasts, and possibly to that small portion of Sci-Fi fans that like Sci-Fi/Fantasy crossover stories.

Personally I enjoyed reading this book, once I got into it. It was one of those reads where I would start off by reading most if not all of one chapter. Then put it down for a few days then read only a few pages, then pick it up a week or two later read a little and put it back down, until about halfway. I then began to read it more often and as much as possible until I finished it.

On a scale of one to five, with one being forget it and five being read this book and tell everybody about it. I would rate this book a three and half. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Nice
This is am amateurish book that has a variety of good qualities to it.Most notable actually are the illustrations by Janet Aulisio (of FASA/Shadowrun fame), which make it worth picking up.One can empathize well with planeteer Boris Brazil, though one also becomes tired of the variety of `natives' on the planet.This novel is, principally, about conflict in a lack of resources.

An Interesting Early Work
Originally published in 1965 as half of an Ace Double, this novel was reprinted in slightly longer form, with illustrations, in a Tor Books edition in 1980.

Old-fashioned space adventure features"Planeteer" Boris Brazil (!), visiting backwater colony planetwith intelligent natives whose rituals center around a liquid withunpredictable effects on the "earth-descended."After anotherplaneteer drinks the Water of Thought and goes berserk, Boris follows himinto the wilderness, and ultimately learns what the water is and how itworks on the native species.

Short on characterization, long on actionand ideas, this is a fairly entertaining early 60's potboiler; notparticularly well-written but readable. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (7)

Captain Ahab in the 25th Century
BERSERKER BLUE DEATH (1985)(**1/2 stars) is a novella-size tale, based on the classic THE WHALE (MOBY "D"). The main character Niles Domingo, like Captain Ahab, is obsessed with the destruction of the Blue-tinted Berserker ship (instead of the White Whale) that was reponsible for the death of his wife and children, and indirectly responsible for the loss of his left leg.In this story, the Captain is fitted with a leg made from "the bone" of a captured berserker android, rather than the bone of a whale.

Many Berserker stories include nebula-based situations, and this story takes place mostly in the Milkpail Nebula.

Computer technology plays a big part in this story written in 1985; the author describes "3-D hologram plots" which the ship's computer takes a great amount of time to "assemble"... this technology is dated, given the ability of any modern PC with a decent graphics card to render 3-D images instantaneously... while it can take a good amount of time to build graphics databases - but not to build the image from the completed database (as described in the book).

By the end of this story, we have a faily good idea of the personalities of the main characters, but we don't have a really good idea of what they look like physically.

This early Berserker story is now available in the Berserker Omnibus BERSERKER DEATH (2005), published by Baen Books - which is probably the best place to start reading stories from the Berserker series.

I love Saberhagen, but this is not his best...
Fred Saberhagen is a terrific writer, but this book is not a good example of his capabilities.Though there is some character and plot development, it is often agonizingly slow.Toward the last third of the book, it does pick up the pace a bit.Worth a read if you like the Berserker series, but don't set your expectations up very high.

Berserker: A strong entry in a classic SF series
Well worth reading, but I must admit, I really like Saberhagen (except the last of the Sword series which went on far too long).

Ahab finally wins one...
If you haven't read any of the Berserker books, I'd recommend starting at the beginning and working your way through them. The series is different in that the books can be read in any order, as long as you have the backplot established. Read "Berserker", a collection of short stories that sets up the plot, then pick any other Berserker book and go.

Berserker: Blue Death can be compartmentalized as a science fiction equivalent to Moby Dick. Captain Ahab is protrayed by Nils Domingo, an enigmatic man who has lost a family instead of a leg to what he thinks is the ultimate enemy. Ishmael, Queequeg and the others are more than adequately picked up in the form of Spence Benkovic, Branwen Galway, etc. as members of Domingo's crew who have their own reasons for being there, but are struggling with their captain's reasons as well. Throw in Fourth Adventurer, a Carmpan, (you have to know the backplot of the universe this story is written in to understand how amazing this is) and the berserker, the unfeeling bringer of death, Leviathan (a.k.a. Moby Dick) and you've got a story ready to explode.

Simply put, this book is about a father's misplaced quest for revenge against the murderer of his daughter. The same things that made Moby Dick such a good read apply here as well. Characters who are developed to the point that you can relate to them on a personal level, strong intermediate story about the quest for revenge, and a titanic ending, with a very interesting twist. In this one, Ahab wins, twice in fact, but at the cost of his soul. Fantastic read.

Character and plot development is very strong
A fairly decent Berserker book.Not a lot of action, but the character and plot development is very strong for a SciFi novel.In Blue Death we watch the breakdown of Captain Domingo who believes the Berserker "Old Blue" has killed his entire family.Domingo is so single focused on Blue, he doesn't notice everything else going on around him, some of it extraordinary.One note however, the last few pages (actually the conclusion) were really stupid.That is just a testament to the strength of the rest of the story though, that it overcame the silly ending. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

One of Saberhagen's best
When Mike Gabrieli's neer'do'well brother Tom disappears shortly afterdiscovering a fabulously valuable Aztec relic, Mike rightly suspects thatthis time the family's black sheep has got himself into the kind of troublefrom which even Mike won't be able to extricate him. But still, Tom is-orwas-his brother, and Mike must do what he can. For Mike this is thebeginning of an adventure beyond imagining, an adventure that will put himin constant peril of his life as he shuttles. between past, present andfuture of an alternate reality, fighting beside the descendants of theIncas as they battle to erase Pizarro's bloody footprints from the NewWorld, and secure the reality of their own existence. But is the"alternate reality" really an alternate, or is Mike actuallystruggling to erase the very future that gave him birth? The answer lies inthe source of all his troubles and his only hope of survival. ... Read more