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These posts mostly relate to books I am reading or series I am collecting to read in order (I tend to collect the series and then read it in one block). You can see a see a list of the books I am currently seeking, as well as a list of all the books I've bothered to catalog if you're interested.
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Sat, 26 Sep 2009
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ISBN: 067187781x
LibraryThing
| There seems to be a formula for bolo books -- an obsolete bolo or two, and alien invader, a solitary bolo commander, and preferably a management chain which either doesn't trust bolos, the officer, or preferably both. Its even better if the chain of command is also grossly incompetent. This book has all of those, and I am left feeling that it didn't really add much to the overall bolo universe. Other books have explored some new aspect of the bolo psyche, or expanded on the history of the concordiat universe in some way, whereas this book didn't feel like it did any of that.
However, this was an entertaining book, and is reasonably well written. It just wasn't as ambitious as I'd hoped it would be.
Tags for this post: book( ) Keith_Laumer( ) |
posted at: 03:02 | path: /book/Keith_Laumer | permanent link to this entry
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Tue, 22 Sep 2009
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ISBN: 0671698591
Baen (1990), Paperback, 283 pages
LibraryThing
| This book is a novelization of "Night of the Trolls", which I have already read as part of The Compleat Bolo and Battlefields Beyond Tomorrow. I'm pretty fond of the short story, and this book version didn't start out strongly -- there is a prelude to explain some background, and then the book launches into what feels like the exact text of the short story. You can tell it hasn't been edited much, because there are minor continuity errors between this first chapter and the prelude. There are other continuity errors as well -- the blurb on the back says that the main character goes into stasis in 2002, but his wife dies in 1992 which is meant to be after the main character goes into stasis, and the map that he uses once out of stasis is copyright 2011 (even though the main character claims to have bought it just before going into stasis). Note that these dates are different to those used in the short story. These errors are distracting although the underlying story is still a good one.
However, the good bits of the story are all contained in the short story. This feels like a poorly edited and heavily padded version of that short story, and I think we would have been better off without it. There is in fact a whole heap of seemingly pointless dialogue in the center of the book, where I think what we're meant to be learning is that post-apocalyptic life isn't much fun. I think we could have worked that out, and perhaps saved 50 or so pages. Worst of all, Laumer has changed the ending to a much less satisfying one.
I recommend just sticking with the short story.
Tags for this post: book( ) Keith_Laumer( ) |
posted at: 00:19 | path: /book/Keith_Laumer | permanent link to this entry
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Fri, 28 Aug 2009
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Tue, 14 Jul 2009
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Sun, 28 Jun 2009
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Tue, 23 Jun 2009
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Thu, 04 Jun 2009
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Sat, 30 May 2009
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Tue, 13 Jan 2009
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ISBN: 0671698796
Baen (1990), Mass Market Paperback, 320 pages
LibraryThing
| I read this book on flights. This book is a collection of several Bolo short stories, as well as two longer stories. This was a pretty common technique it seems with early science fiction, and it works ok here as long as you remember that the chapters are unlinked short stories. In fact, several of them are inconsistent with others in the collection, but I think that's a minor annoyance.
| Year | Title | Notes |
| 1963 | Night of the Trolls | This story appears in Battlefields Beyond Tomorrow as well |
| 1961 | Courier | This is a Retief (Laumer's other major series) story which includes a Bolo. This is my first encounter with Reteif, and it felt a little like a Stainless Steel Rat story, but where the hero isn't a criminal, and without the requirement to suspend disbelief as much as you need to for the Rat. |
| 1966 | The Last Command | |
| 1969 | A Relic of War | |
| 1960 | Combat Unit | |
| 1986 | Rogue Bolo Book 1 | |
| 1986 | Rogue Bolo Book 2 | No relation to the Rogue Bolo Book 1, despite |
Tags for this post: book( ) Keith_Laumer( ) |
posted at: 22:49 | path: /book/Keith_Laumer | permanent link to this entry
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