Books in series
#1
Berserker
1967
Long ago, in a distant part of the galaxy, two alien races met—and fought a war of mutual extinction. The sole legacy of that war was the weapon that ended it: the death machines, the BERSERKERS. Guided by self-aware computers more intelligent than any human, these world-sized battlecraft carved a swath of death through the galaxy—until they arrived at the outskirts of the fledgling Empire of Man.
These are the stories of the frail creatures who must meet this monstrous and implacable enemy—and who, by fighting it to a standstill, become the saviors of all living things.
#2
Brother Assassin
1969
When the planet Sirgol is targeted for destruction by the Berserker war machines, who plan to travel through time to kill a pivotal scientist in history, Time Operative Derron Odegard becomes the world's only hope. Reprint.
#3
Berserker's Planet
1975
A Nebula Award-winning Author Five hundred years have passed since humanity vanquished the Berserker armada. Yet in that struggle a lone Berserker survived. Now single human sacrifices will no longer satisfy this Berserker-god. It is time to offer up the whole human race.
#4
Berserker Man
1979
Berserker Man: Over a century after the Beserkers had suffered an overwhelming defeat, humans have become complacent. But the killer machines have repaired and rebuilt themselves, and this time may succeed in eradicating humanity from the galaxy-unless they can be stopped by a child who is half man and half machine.
#5
The Ultimate Enemy
1979
BERSERKERS
The death machines are capable of any treachery, able to assume any disguise, motivated only by their prime directive: to seek out and destroy life wherever it may hide.
MAN
The fragile life-form that hides within its puny frame a curiously unquenchable something ... call it 'spirit'. This odd facet of an otherwise undistinguished example of the disease of life has been a source of deep annoyance to the berserkers since first the two forms met: no wonder then that for each the other is THE ULTIMATE ENEMY
Contents:
The Smile
Pressure
The Annihilation of Angkor Apeiron
Inhuman Error
Some Events at the Templar Radiant
Starsong
Smasher
The Game
Wings Out of Shadow
#7
The Berserker Throne
1985
The Empress of the Eight Worlds has been assassinated. Prince Harivarman, exiled on the Templar Radiant, suspects that he will be the next victim. Help is scarce: Anne Blenheim, the fortress' clear-eyed, fair Commander, is favorably disposed toward the Prince, but her first responsibility is to the Templar High Command. And Chen Shizuoka, a Templar recruit sympathetic to Harivarman's cause, is being stalked by planetary security forces. When Prince Harivarman discovers an operable Berserker–one of the asteroid-sized, spacefaring war machines that once destroyed their makers and all other life in their path–his first instinct is to turn it in. But then he finds an ancient code that will either allow him to control the dreaded machine or lead him–and everyone else on the Templar Radiant–to certain death.
#8
Berserker
Blue Death
1985
The great blue berserker's destruction of the human colony Shubra was swift and merciless.
Niles Domingo's daughter lies among the dead.
Niles Domingo is a man with a mission: Vengeance at any cost. With one small ship, he sets out against the great berserker called Leviathan, tracking it through the interstellar mists of the Milkpail Nebula. He is sure he is ready for anything. But nothing can prepare him for the astonishing discoveries that lie between him and Leviathan.
#9
Berserker Kill
1993
A renegade Berserker destroyer steals an entire orbiting biological laboratory filled with human zygotes, while a computer falls in love with a woman and must figure out how to acquire a physical body. Reprint.
#10
Berserker Fury
1997
Intelligent, space-faring killing machines whose sole purpose is to destroy all biological life, the Berserkers have developed units that can pass for human-created androids to be used to for an all-out attack on humankind, but the humans are one step ahead. Reprint.
#11
Shiva in Steel
1998
In a continuation of the series about a race of intelligent machines dedicated to destroying all organic life, a Berserker computer, nicknamed Shiva for the Hindu god of destruction, sets out to annihilate entire human colonies with the help of its evil subordinates
#12
Berserker's Star
2003
Acclaimed author Fred Saberhagen continues his widely popular and influential Berserker(r) Series, a chronicle of a war between humanity and the terrifying race of sentient machines bent on death and destruction.
Pilot Harry Silver's name is known throughout the galaxy-and that notoriety does not always work in his favor. While he has defeated his share of Berserkers, he has also stolen a powerful weapon from the Space Force, making him a fugitive from the life he once knew. Looking for an adventure, and not one to turn down a lot of cash, Harry agrees to bring a passenger aboard his ship, Lily, a woman who is on a quest to retrieve her husband.
It won't be easy, as Lily's husband has joined a secretive religious cult on Maracanda, an almost-planet lodged between a shifting black hole and a neutron star. While the landscape of Maracanda is treacherous, so, too, may be the people around Harry Silver.
As the search for Lily's husband deepens, Harry finds himself investigating a larger mystery and looking for missing person, almost ending up one himself. And as always, there is the threat of death from above, in the path of a machine whose only intent is to kill...
#13
Berserker Prime
2003
Master storyteller Fred Saberhagen continues his Berserker series, detailing humanity's war with the dreaded Juggernaut-like machines programmed to destroy all life in the galaxy.
In the Twin World planets, Prairie and Timber, Plenipotentiary Gregor is determined to serve his government. Even if it means executing innocent Huvean hostages, invaders from another planet. And even though Gregor's granddaughter, Luon, is in love with Reggie, a Huvean.
But now the Berserkers are threatening the Twin Worlds, crashing a scoutship, capturing the planets' president, and reprogramming his brain to suit their violent agenda. And only the Huveans, in a desperate reprieve, can save the Twin Worlds' populace from annihilation.
#14
Rogue Berserker
2005
Harry Silver has already had a lifetime of trouble from ordinary Berserkers, the automated killing machines programmed an age ago to denude the galaxy of life. Now when his own family is kidnapped, he faces a deviant machine, a good fit for some or all of the Galactic Dictionary's definitions of
(1) A deceitful, double-dealing evildoer .. . (4) A fierce elephant or stamodont that has been banished from the herd . . . (10) Having a peculiarly malevolent or unstable nature . . . (11) No longer loyal, affiliated, or recognized, and hence not governable or accountable . . . erring, apostate. - Galactic Dictionary of the Common Tongue
Ordinary Berserkers armed with weapons powerful enough to kill an entire planet were enough of a nightmare. What worse deviltry will a killing machine gone rogue attempt-and even if Silver can stop it, will he ever see his family alive again?
Author
Fred Saberhagen
Author · 68 books
Fred Saberhagen was an American science fiction and fantasy author most famous for his ''Beserker'' and Dracula stories. Saberhagen also wrote a series of a series of post-apocalyptic mytho-magical novels beginning with his popular ''Empire of the East'' and continuing through a long series of ''Swords'' and ''Lost Swords'' novels. Saberhagen died of cancer, in Albuquerque, New Mexico Saberhagen was born in and grew up in the area of Chicago, Illinois. Saberhagen served in the [[U.S. Air Force]] during the Korean War while he was in his early twenties. Back in civilian life, Saberhagen worked as an It was while he was working for Motorola (after his military service) that Saberhagen started writing fiction seriously at the age of about 30. "Fortress Ship", his first "Berserker" short shory, was published in 1963. Then, in 1964, Saberhagen saw the publication of his first novel, ''The Golden People''. From 1967 to 1973, he worked as an editor for the Chemistry articles in the ''Encyclopædia Britannica'' as well as writing its article on science fiction. He then quit and took up writing full-time. In 1975, he moved to Albuquerque, New Mexico. He married fellow writer Joan Spicci in 1968. They had two sons and a daughter.
