BERSERKER BASE

VGSF / Victor Gollancz Science Fiction paperback, 1990.
Cover illustration by Terry Pastor.

"A collaborative novel by seven of the greatest stars writing science fiction today, set in Fred Saberhagen's Berserker universe. 

Created in an ancient war, implacable machines programmed to destroy all organic life, the Berserkers seemed invincible. But at last humans have come upon a Berserker base and they must strive to root out the mechanical killers at their very source."

Contents:

Prisoner's Base by Fred Saberhagen

What Makes Us Human by Stephen Donaldson

Friends Together by Fred Saberhagen

With Friends Like These by Connie Willis

The Founts Of Sorrow by Fred Saberhagen

Itself Surprised by Roger Zelazny

The Great Secret by Fred Saberhagen

Deathwomb Poul Anderson

Dangerous Dreams by Fred Saberhagen

Pilots Of The Twilight by Ed Bryant

Crossing The Bar by Fred Saberhagen

A Teardrop Falls by Larry Niven

Berserker Base Fred Saberhagen

Not really a short story collection...but kind of. Saberhagen weaves the story through those of the guest authors. Many of the stories previously featured in sf magazines throughout the mid 1980s; such as Niven's A Teardrop Falls (Omni), Poul Anderson's Deathwomb (Analog), etc.

THE BROKEN LANDS

Ace paperback, 1968. Cover by Richard M. Powers.

"The passing of thousands of years left the planet Earth a series of broken lands ... a mutated world of distant alien empires and near-at-hand rapacious satraps. 

The hunted common people were sustained by one last legend - that some day one would come who would "ride the Elephant" and thereby bring back the Golden Age. 

This is the gripping novel of the young rebel who found out what the legend really signified, and of how he sought to use that banned knowledge in the very heart of the satrap's stronghold of alien magics and well-guarded scientific mysteries. 

THE BROKEN LANDS combines the best elements of sword-and-sorcery and top-notch science-fiction."

THE BLACK MOUNTAINS

Ace paperback, 1971. Cover by John Schoenherr.

"When Chup's castle fell to the forces of the West, the ex-lord was reduced to beggary at its gates. Each day he faced the Black Mountains of the East to which he had sworn fealty - and where he hoped his unclaimed bride still waited. 

Behind, the west plotted to assault the Black Mountains with their new weapons from the forbidden lore of the Old Technology. Ahead, lay the three most powerful lords in all creation. One was good, one was evil, one was immortal. 

Chup knew the east could not help him unless they could profit by it. Nor could he refuse anything asked of him and still survive. If they reached him in any way, he might be both blessed and cursed. And then, one howling, windy night, came the deformed luminescence of a demon..."

THE ULTIMATE ENEMY

Ace SF paperback, first printing, September 1979. Cover art
by Michael Whelan.

"LIFE AGAINST DEATH 

For countless millennia the dreadful Berserker fleets have ranged across the galaxy in a relentless war against all things living. Great irony is it indeed in this war of life against mechanism that while the purposes of Death are carried out by ultimately sophisticated devices, the cause of life is represented by one of the least evolved of intelligent species. For all of the starfaring races, only Man has brought with him untamed the heritage and instinct of battle; only man can face 

THE ULTIMATE ENEMY."

BERSERKER MAN

VGSF / Victor Gollancz Science Fiction paperback,
first VGSF edition, 1988. Cover illustration by Terry Pastor.

"Rampaging through space, bent on an orgy of random destruction, the killing machines pound all life forms to steam and dust. Humankind, fighting for its life, has devised a terrifying new weapon. But will Michel Geulincx - humanity's new champion - have the psychic strength to wield it? For he is one against many, a precarious synthesis of man and machine, and Michel Geulincx is only eleven years old..."