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I expect we commented on a certain Star Trek episode back then; not as direct a copy as "Arena" was of Fredric Brown's classic tale, so that they had to hurriedly buy the rights to the story!



The Doomsday Machine

A giant robot ship wandering through the galaxy destroying everything in its path cripples the starship Constellation and then turns on the Enterprise.

Written by science fiction author Norman Spinrad, this episode focuses on Commodore Matthew Decker, captain of the Constellation. Decker has made a horrific error of judgement, which caused the deaths of his entire crew. In the despair and blind obsession of the character, we see James T. Kirk as he might be in a similar situation. Fans of Fred Saberhagen's Berserker series will see a certain conceptual resemblance between the Doomsday Machine and Berserkers. Think of what this episode might have been like with one of them as an opponent...

This is one episode that uses the infamous recalcitrance of the transporter to good, and believable, dramatic effect.



Using that emoticon reminds me that Star Trek's Borg might have been influenced by Fred Saberhagen's original idea too.

Of course, Saberhagen is more than just Berserkers, he has given us a wide range of sf and fantasy, and even allowed a certain Count Dracula, a much misunderstood chap, to give his account of certain unfortunate events...

With the Berserkers and the Star Trek connection, one would expect some more publicity. He certainly wrote some good books, and was a mainstay of magazine sf for decades, before going on to the Dracula series, the Swords and Lost Swords series, and more, Fantastic Fiction shows a pretty impressive list there... they do have him now as 1930-2007, I see.

No doubt Joan Saberhagen has other things on her mind beyond updating berserker.com at the moment...

Nothing from The Times yet... I'm not sure what their criteria are for inclusion, but assuming they do get around to it, I would expect it to be a bit more long-winded than the New York Times managed.

Fred Saberhagen was certainly one of the "big names" of science fiction and fantasy for three decades... He was not just the "Berserker man", though that would be enough to secure him a place in sf history, he wrote strong novels like Octagon, Coils (with Roger Zelazny), The Veils of Azlaroc, the epic fantasy Empire of the East (The Broken Lands, The Black Mountains, Changeling Earth), the "Swords" and "Lost Swords" fantasy novels, and more, and was one of the names who'd always be strongly featured on a magazine cover if one of his stories was inside.

As Lester del Rey said, "Saberhagen has... proved he is one of the best."

Quote:

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He was writing about ruthless, relentless killing machines more than 20 years before the first "Terminator" movie appeared, and he was telling stories from the vampire's point of view before Anne Rice's "Interview With a Vampire" was published.

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That was a good point, from the Albuquerque obituary; I see Robert E. Vardeman also is quoted. "The thing that always struck me about Fred's writing was its incredible breadth. His novel 'The Veils of Azlaroc' (1978), is one of my favorite science fiction books. It's one of the strangest time-travel books you'll ever see. It ranges from hard science to the pre-Raphaelite poets, all mixed into the same story."