Soldier, Ask Not, Gordon R. Dickson

I previously mentioned I ought to read more of Gordon R. Dickson’s work. This is probably his best-known novel, and I hadn’t read it before.

The story centers on Tam Olyn, an exceptionally talented young man who’s blessed (or cursed?) to be one of the exceptional individuals who makes his own way through history, rather than being pushed around by forces bigger than himself. He knows this explicitly because he’s told it by Padma, an Exotic from a human colony planet that has devoted itself to the study of the mind. Other colony planets are devoted to science, militarism (Dorsai, which gives its name to Dickson’s series of stories), and to religion. The religious planets of Harmony and Association, collectively known as the Friendlies, are in opposition to the Exotics, or at least Tam thinks they are, and for that and for their fanaticism (early in his career as a Newsman, he witnesses a battlefield atrocity perpetrated by Friendly soldiers against prisoners they regard as unbelievers) he sets himself to use his special place in history to destroy them.

Tam is an arrogant and self-centered person, and unlikable himself, even as the narrator of his story. For me, that made the first two thirds of the book somewhat hard going. In addition to an unsympathetic narrator, the book presents an unsubtle view of the role of individuals in history, and in a somewhat ponderous tone.

The saving grace of the book is the final third, where Tam Olyn comes to realize (at least partly) the limits of his powers, and the negative effects of his selfish actions; and even more so because of the final revelation about the Friendlies’ place in the human universe, and the value of their contribution to the human race. Unfortunately I was somewhat primed for these revelations by reading a much later short story set contemporaneously to this one (“Brother”?), and I’m not sure they’d come through clearly for someone reading this novel first.

Overall, the book is worth the read, but the first portion is definitely a price to be paid for the payoff of the final chapters.

Gordon R. Dickson, Naked to the Stars

I haven’t previously been a huge fan of Gordon Dickson. I found what I’ve read of his stuff to carry an atmosphere of 1970′s space opera that is entertaining but not something I would read continually, or even once every year. The main appeal was a kind of nostalgia for the time, roughly in junior high school, when I used to play the Traveller tabletop RPG, which cribbed most of its setting and backstory from Asimov’s Foundation, but got its atmosphere, as I imagine, from Dickson’s Dorsai sequence.

I found Naked to the Stars at a library fundraiser sale and decided to give it a go, and it turned out to be a great choice. This is much more thoughtful novel than I remember of other Dickson.

The story follows Cal Truant, a footsoldier in the Combat Services of an expansionist human interstellar government. During one engagement, Cal blacks out, and this event leads to his discharge from the Services. Not comfortable as a civilian, Cal joins the Contact Services, an unarmed service arm responsible for making up with conquered peoples after the fighting is over. This confronts him with his father’s pacifist beliefs, in rebellion against which he joined the Services to begin with.

The book does show its age. The hyper-competent protagonist, the relatively unimaginative alien species, and the only female character appearing as a love interest all date the novel. A very straightforward, unembellished style also date the writing, but allows a whole lot of story to be fit into a 160-page book. Despite all this, there is str0ng character development in the protagonist at least, in fact Cal’s coming to terms with his father’s pacifism is the central story, so that its hard to remember that this book predates, say, The Forever War, by 10 years.

Overall, this was an excellent book, and its convinced me I ought to be reading much more Gordon Dickson than I have been.