Unlike other serials that were made into books, such as the Foundation Series and I, Robot, Berserker does not flow between the chapters as smoothly as it could have. In fact many chapters have nothing to do with the story arc that was growing and served only as distracting, but interesting, intermissions.
The basic story is that mankind had rose to the stars and made contact with the Berserkers, a left over doomsday weapon from a long dead race and war. The Berserkers only goal is to kill all life in the universe, deeming it as "bad life". In their battle, the Berserkers have found ways to brain wash some humans into being puppets for their assaults (these being called "Goodlife") and traitors of humanity who wish to serve their own goals by helping the machines. Berserkers are a giant city sized spaceship-robots that uses smaller drones as "arms" and "eyes" for their attacks and show no mercy to humans, often deceiving and lying to them with false promises of mercy.
In the battle against the machines, Humans also face their own power struggles as they position themselves into hopeful empires, the strongest being the Esteelers lead by Lord Felipe Nogara. His half brother Johann Karlsen becomes the head of the humans resistance against the machines, and the one man the robots learn to fear. Along the way he gathers both Hemphill and Spain to lead the battle against the machines and temporary victory.
Saberhagen does not fear bringing religion and politics into the story, not as deep as Frank Herbert did with Dune, but just as effective by using it in a everyday style and not as an overall driving force in the storytelling. The most interesting factor in the religion arc are the humans who start a doomsday cult centered around the Berserkers and calling them gods.
The thing that stood out to me in the book is how the Berserkers may have influenced, partially or in full, some "enemies" we have in today's television science fiction. The first being the Borg from Star Trek: The Next Generation and Star Trek: Voyager. The Berserkers speak in an eerie multi voice, much like the Borg did in their communications, and did their assaults in giant city sized starships. The Berserkers even turned a person into a cyborg to use as a weapon against the humans much like the Borg did with Captain Picard. Yes, much of the Borg in my feelings was ripped off from the Cyberman in Doctor Who, but this aspect cannot be left out in the evolution of the Borg. Also, the Doomsday Weapon from the original Star Trek may have found influence from Saberagen's work. J. Michael Stracznsky also did a tip of the hat to Saberhagen by using a "Berserker Probe" to assault Babylon 5 in the episode 'A Day in the Strife' in its search to destroy all intelligent life.
In closing, Berserker is a fun romp into a universe of survival of the human race, and is very much a book that readers of science fiction should make room for on their lists. And if they like the first trip into this universe, there are many more books that follow in this series.
Eirik Faranderer
8 December, 2009 Anno Domini
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