Tag: william_h_keith_jr

Bolo Strike

There is a planet populated by humans which has been isolated for many years. In that time, aliens have come to rule the planet and treat the humans as slaves. Its pretty clear that they need liberating, right? What if you trash the planet in the process? What if they actually have the ability to defend themselves (something you didn’t adequately prepare for)? Pretty standard bolo fare, and fun for all the same reasons as the others. I enjoyed this book, even if I am not a better person for having read it.

[isbn: 0743435664]

Bolo Brigade

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.

[isbn: 067187781x]

Bolos 5: Old Guard

This book is similar to the previous Bolo anthologies in that it is written by a number of different authors, but utilizes Laumer’s Concordiat universe. Contrary to another LibraryThing review, all of the stories on this book don’t occur on one planet. All but one of them occurs on Delas, and the final one is on another nearby Concordiat planet. However, all of these stories do revolve around engagements with one enemy, and follow on from each other. This is something which hasn’t occurred in other Bolo anthologies. I enjoyed this book, although it took longer to read than I would like because of other things happen in my life.

Old Guard Book Cover Old Guard
Keith Laumer, Bill Fawcett,
Fiction
Baen Books
2001
352

The human civilizations of Earth and its colonies confront a new threat--the warlike alien Kezdai--and send out the Bolos, self-aware robotic tanks, to deal with the danger. Original.