Dorsai!

Dorsai Series, Book 1

By: Gordon R. Dickson

Narrated by: Stefan Rudnicki

Length: 6 hrs and 40 mins

Publisher's summary

Throughout the Fourteen Worlds of humanity, no race is as feared and respected as the Dorsai. The ultimate warriors, they are known for their deadly rages, unbreakable honor, and fierce independence. No man rules the Dorsai, but their mastery of the art of war has made them the most valuable mercenaries in the known universe. Donal Graeme is Dorsai, taller and harder than any ordinary man. But he is different as well, with talents that maze even his fellow Dorsai. And once he ventures out into the stars, the future will never be the same....

©1988 George R. Dickson (P)2010 Audible, Inc.

old fav, new format

Would you consider the audio edition of Dorsai! to be better than the print version?

only better in terms of storage, we're downsizing!

Who was your favorite character and why?

Donal Graeme was a strong believable character throughout his growth as a person

What about Stefan Rudnicki’s performance did you like?

unobtrusive

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

All Gordon R. Dickson books are books you want to inhale

Hard S-F military adventure

Would you consider the audio edition of Dorsai! to be better than the print version?

No. Not worse, either. Both audio and print have strength and weaknesses. The main thing I miss with audio is being able to go back and check something I may have not paid enough attention to the first time through. Yes, you *can* go back, but not as easily aas leafing through pages.

Who was your favorite character and why?

Donal, of course. He is the hero. somewhat enigmatic and shallow, but this is sci-fi and we don't often get character development. :-)

Have you listened to any of Stefan Rudnicki???s other performances before? How does this one compare?

No

If you were to make a film of this book, what would be the tag line be?

Mercenaries across the universe!

Any additional comments?

Good book but not Dickson's best. He improved as a writer as his career progressed. But you need to read this book to fully undeerstand some of the later books in the Dorsai series.

Classic military Sci Fi

What did you love best about Dorsai!?

It has interesting characters and a good story that develops. Although written as Science fiction it reads like a contemporary military/war/politics novel.

Who was your favorite character and why?

Obviously Donal Graeme

What about Stefan Rudnicki’s performance did you like?

His usual polished performance. Easy to tell which character he was voicing.

Was there a moment in the book that particularly moved you?

The "shai dorsai" moment when an older Dorsai commander congratulated Donal

Any additional comments?

Great, conventional Science fiction.

Pleased to remeet an old friend

Excellent story line by superb author read long ago now in audio with rather flat narrative.

It's me, I think

I'll have to revisit this book in the future. On this pass, I found myself only intermittently interested in the story and characters. The world building was interesting, but I never really got a good handle on the greater setting. That said, I think this may be more a function of where I'm at rather than any flaw of the book.

complicated and not understandable

Again, I wanted to like this book but it didn't catch my interest. Many characters with odd names and I found I lost track. I got in about half an hour, then lost it. Sometimes it's just my mood. Love the narrator - Mr. Rudniki could read the phone book and I'd listen - hmmmmm, just not this book.

Awful Story, Good Narration

If Dorsai is meant to be a "classic masterpiece of military science fiction," then this really does not bode well for the rest of the sub-genre. Because this was terrible. Another reviewer on the second book, Necromancer, said Dickson is an amazing wordsmith able to craft beautiful prose that says absolutely nothing. I couldn't agree more! It's a bunch of pretty nothing!

The nothing is mainly Donal. If there was ever a bigger Mary Sue/Gary Stu, a more precious Precious Meow Meow than Donal I can't think of one. This guy can do no wrong. He is literally space jesus. From day one he is infallible.

When Dickson switched narrative perspective to that other space commander who thought he had the better of him, I actually sighed. I said, out loud, "I'll bet you a hundred space bucks you don't."

And hey wow. Guess who's on the space phone. Oh is it Donal? Oh did he anticipate your response all along? Wow and he's got you surrounded? Looks like I just won a hundred space bucks, mister space commander. :/

And the women. I know the book was written by a male author in the 60s so I shouldn't be that surprised the female characters are few are foul between. But wow. The "it is the most ancient of female instincts to find and secure the strongest mate in a man" bit. That's uh. Neat.

One consolation is the narrator, Stefan Rudnicki, seems just as unimpressed with Donal and the rest. Rudnicki's narration is excellent. I'm definitely adding him to my list of good voices.

For me, I foolishly pre-purchased six Dorsai books here on audible. I went into this series hearing it was a must-read masterpiece classic of scifi. I wish I could return the rest but alas, I'm well past the return window. Lesson learned. :(

35 years ago I loved this. Now it seems very thin

In 1957, two years before the first version of “Dorsai!” was serialized in in “Astounding Science Fiction”, Peter Graham coined the phrase: “The Golden Age of Science Fiction is twelve.”

I started reading science fiction in the sixties when I was ten but I didn’t get to “Dorsai!” until my early twenties. I was still a twelve-year-old at heart and most science fiction excited me. I loved the puzzle-solving, the removal of constraints, the triumph of optimism. I was already being lured towards a different, more socially-based sensibility by writers like Ursula K Le Guin and her “Left Hand of Darkness” but I was still up for hard-core space opera when I read “Dorsai!”

At the time, I found it literally astonishing: the idea of a military race, bred to fight and lead and win, producing a genius who would shape the fate of many world’s by fighting as little as possible was new and fresh. The pace was brisk, The plot turned on its heals at lightning speed and the ending caught me completely by surprise. It was a celebration of what I was looking for in Science Fiction at the time.

So, when I saw the audio version on audible.com, I thought it would be fun to relive all of that.

It turns out, I’m not twelve any more. I was not thrilled. The plot is still clever and the pace is still brisk but how had I not seen how shallow the characters were, how ridiculously male-dominated the book was, how morally bankrupt the politics was and how dishonestly bloodless the fighting was?

“Dorsai!” is well read by Stefan Rudnicki and offers a pleasant way to while away the hours. It is a book of its time but that time is no longer mine.

Ok This is the outline, where is the book?

I enjoy Scifi and books in series so I was hoping for a good one here. I wound up frustrated and shaking my head. It is like an outline with no details. Very little is explained enough so you can swallow it. WARNING-Spoilers ahead...So this 18 year old leaves home by himself for space for the first time, meets a prince on board the ship he is on, who puts him in charge of a force of seasoned ground fighting mercenaries who he then saves because he knows more than they do and then he has the commander of the group shot. Huh? The prince is mad, but that's ok cause the kid already has another job where where he takes 5 ships and does something that everyone said couldn't be done, so they put him in charge of a planetary force. Makes sense, right? He wins one battle on the ground and commands five ships that pretend to attack to scare a planet, so that qualifies him in to be in charge of a whole planet's army. He wins one battle, so then the make him Commander and Chief of All of the planetary armies! At that point I gave up and moved on to a much better book. oh well...I wish I had that credit back....

average military Sci-Fi

Any additional comments?

This book is just OK. It's average military Sci-Fi fare. I will not be reading another book in the series.