These are the first stories of humanities fight against the life destroying Berserker machines. Programmed to destroy all life, the Berserkers threaten the very universe. Only one form of life, humanity, is uniquely qualified to take on the machines. Meet Berserker hunter extraordinaire Johann Karlsen and his evil brother Felipe Nogara and other gallant fighters of the killer machines. Not satisfied with efforts to destroy all life in present time, the Berserkers devise a way to penetrate human history. The death dealing machines pinpoint key personalities in human history for destruction. When and if they succeed human progress is set back perhaps thousands of years. Humanity has an answer. On the planet Sirgol, the only planet in the galaxy where time travel is possible, an elite corps of Berserker hunters struggle to derail the Berserkers' efforts. Lieutenant Derron Odegard of Time Ops faces death dealing, time-traveling Berserkers in three exciting adventures: Stone Man, Winged Helmet, and Brother Berserker. A collection of fifteen of Saberhagen's Berserker short stories previously published as Berserker and Berserker Brother Assassin plus and introductory essay by Saberhagen "Berserkers for Fun and Profit:

Across galactic timelines and landscapes, earth-descended humanity continues the fight against non-living, life hating Berserkers. Along with powerful allies of plants, sea creatures, computerized personalities, mythic men and a fictional detective, life struggles against its unliving foe. In cleaver hands, even the foibles of human personalities can be used against the unliving Berserker foe. Berserkers are automated warships, made by an unknown race to fight in an interstellar war that had been over ages since; they have outlasted their original enemies and their makers as well, having been programmed and equipped to rebuild and reproduce themselves. Still trying to carry out their originally programmed task, they made age-long progress across the spiral arms, leaving nothing living in their wake. This volume of fourteen tales, together with the Berserkers The Early tales, constitute a complete collection of Saberhagen authored Berserker stories. The stories The Bad Machines and Servant Of Death have not appeared previously in any Saberhagen collection.

A wide range of ideas are explored and worlds created in this collection of thirteen of Fred Saberhagen’s early short works of science fiction and fantasy. All the stories were written between 1960 and 1976. Included are two works set in Fred’s world of veils and startling landscapes known as Azlaroc. A story co-authored with Alexei Panshin takes us back in time, sort-of. Several stories are set in Chicago where alien visitations are recorded, one at the Art Institute another somewhere under Lake Michigan. And at what might be Chicago’s Museum of Science and Industry, Fred takes a look into the mind of an early computer named Martha. An alternate history tale with psychic overtones, Life Force, has never appeared in any earlier collections of Fred’s work. So if you missed the July 1974 Galaxy printing, now is your chance to discover one fascinating possibility in a post-nuclear-war world. No Berserker stories appear in this volume. Fred’s Berserker short stories are collected separately in two volumes Berserkers The Early Tales and Berserkers The Later Tales. Entertaining, thought provoking stories from an accomplished science fiction and fantasy author await you.

Saberhagen The Later Tales contains fifteen short stories none of which is set in Saberhagen’s berserker world. There are three vampire stories, From the Tree of Time, Box Number Fifty, and A Drop of Something Special in the Blood, and one story, Blind Man’s Blade from the world of swords. The White Bull, belongs with Saberhagen’s five book series based on world myths. The remaining stories are not connected to any of the Saberhagen series. The stories in this collection were original published between 1977 and 2003. For Saberhagen stories published from 1960 to 1976 see the collection SABERHAGEN THE EARLY TALES. All of Saberhagen’s short stories are collected in four volumes: Berserkers The Early Tales, Berserkers The Later Tales, Saberhagen The Early Tales and now Saberhagen The Later Tales.

Presents a series of short science-fiction stories that tells of encounters between humans and the intelligent, self-aware death machines known as the Berserkers.

Complete at last in one volume--the beginning of the war against the berserkers! The death machines are programmed to destroy all life in the Galaxy. But one branch of Galactic humanity, descended from a world called Earth, stands in the way.

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 battle craft 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. This is Saberhagen’s classic book length collection of the first eleven Berserker stories. Meet Berserker hunter extraordinaire Johann Karlsen, his evil brother Felipe Nogara, The Third Historian of the Carmpan Race, gallant fighters of the killer machines and the deranged killer machine, Mr. Jester.