Today, I conclude with the last book which I think overlapped into the school year. Even then I was a slow reader! I had numerous distractions over the Summer of 1983, namely the arcade and I did have people to play D&D with during July! Well, just Eric Terry who was allowed to come back to Bloomington with us for a couple days.
Dorsai! was my introduction to a more obscure writer named Gordon R. Dickson and his series called the Childe Cycle. The only connection to Traveller here would be the ongoing wars between all the human-inhabited worlds using mercenaries and auxiliaries. It’s also the only series I know of in which guns use magnets to propel the bullets; if you watched the newer Battlestar Galactica, it’s similar to what the Galactica used against Cylon ships and in Traveller they’re called Gauss guns. On to the broad strokes…
In the late 23rd Century, the human race occupies 16 worlds orbiting seven nearby stars but has splintered politically and in a general sense, culturally. Earth remains as diverse and divided as ever yet is a has-been in the constant wars happening between its former colonies. If I remember, many conflicts are waged on planets with civil wars or they’re balkanized with rival governments fighting for dominance. The powerhouses are unified and sometimes govern two planets:
- The Exotics: Experts in philosophy, psychiatry, spirituality and a tad mystical. Often hired as companions, shrinks or doctors. They’re futuristic New Age types but aren’t full of crap since they get results.
- The Friendlies: Religious types who vary from dedicated to fanatical. Their two homeworlds suck so many are conscripted to serve as shock troops in the wars to keep their economies afloat. Think of Cromwell’s Roundheads.
- The Dorsai: Professional soldiers more akin to the Swiss and Prussians in skill but culturally more like the Scots, Irish and English due to their seafood diets and love of (ugh!) bagpipes.
- The Scientists: Mostly residents of Newton with Cassida in tow for Engineering. They excel at all science yet the fund some R&D by conscripting Cassidans to die like the Friendlies. I can’t think of a parallel in human history.
- The Cetans: Predominantly merchants and the novel’s primary villain, William, comes from this world. I believe he instigates much of the discord for profit. I’d say they’re clearly Western corporations and American defense contractors.
Enter Donal Graeme. A recent graduate from the Dorsai’s military academy. He has some major expectations to live up to. His twin uncles are well-respected mercenary leaders, he is descended from Cletus Graheme, the person responsible for the Dorsai’s prowess and instigating colonial independence from Earth. Does Donal live up to the hype? Quite. Each chapter’s title is his new rank for every campaign he participates in, demonstrating how cunning and innovative he is until defeating William of Ceta. With this particular victory, the infighting ends and the splintering can shift back toward unification, a brighter future with humanity forming a federation with Donal as its first leader until he disappears in an interstellar-travel “accident.”
Dickson’s storytelling is more on par with Foster than Pournelle. Dorsai is a more akin to a Space Opera with its lack of explanations on the technology; it was written around 1960. The larger arc is about Donal becoming important enough in order to lead the healing by ending all the “silos” humanity has established. Sure the Exotics and Dorsai are bitchin’, even bordering on superhuman but they ‘lack something’ their less-important Earth-based cousins have. Thus this book’s legacy is it led me to read what I think Dickson’s best novel of the Childe Cycle was…Soldier, Ask Not which takes place around the same time via its protagonist, Tam Olyn. He’s a journalist from Earth who covers these wars and when his borther-in-law is killed in a war crime by Friendly mercenaries, he sets out to destroy their entire culture.
Again, I really liked how Dickson was more upbeat on how humanity could get it together after experiencing another period of horrible violence similar to Europe during the Middle Ages and Renaissance.