I decided to listen to a book this week. I put Fred Saberhagen’s Berserker Blue Death on my iPod Nano and I am enjoying it. Saberhagen has written a ton of these stories about a robot threat that destroys all life. He never seems to run out of ideas for Berserker stories.

This one is full of action, has characters that are deeply portrayed and a setting that is wonderfully described. Berserker: Blue Death is a better book than most of the last few weeks reading. It is a space opera and perhaps a bit too violent, but I like my phasers set on kill. I can’t stand the wimpy why can’t we all just get along stories that I see in some of the zines where teenagers work out issues with their mothers.

There is only one thing that I dislike about the book. It is a tracing of Moby Dick. The story’s protagonist is like Ahab. The Blue Berserker is like the Great White Whale. There is even a Queequeg character. There has not been an Ishmael, though. This is distracting a little. The book is nothing like Moby Dick, but Saberhagen insists on including Moby Dick elements as though to remind you that he is using a classic as a partial template. This would only work if Moby Dick was a swashbuckling sea adventure with a brooding captain who’s wife and family were eaten by a white whale. I like that part that the Captain has his amputated leg replaced with a berserker limb (mentioned briefly and then forgotten).

I will finish this one on the way home tonight, so I don’t know how it comes out, but I am suspicious that the captain get’s entangled with the Blue Berserker as it wanders off into space vainly trying to stab it to death with a screwdriver:

"to the last I grapple with thee; from hell’s heart I stab at thee; for hate’s sake I spit my last breath at thee."

I have a few gigs of Saberhagen Berserker novels, so I may try another one soon. These are great fun.