Dorsai!: Dorsai Series, Book 1

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

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

unobtrusive

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

Sure. It's the first in a series, though when it was written I don't think a series was planned. And the story is sometimes a bit thin. But the reading by Stefan Rudnicki is excellent, and overall well worth the credit.

I've listened to many of Mr. Rudnicki's readings, and enjoy them all. He has become the voice I want to hear when listening to science fiction/fantasy.

No, not particularly. That's generally not an option for me regardless.

Will be trying later books in the series.

I read the book when it first came out. At that time it was cutting edge SF. Super-ior fighters, mental powers, great stuff. The listen was as good as I remember the read was.
Ive been wanting to re-visit some old time memories, this was and now IS a good one.
However, not as much action as I remembered.

When I first read it I WAS the lonely misunderstood hero . . . maybe I still am.

The narration didn't intrude on the story. I wasn't aware of the characters more than the story.

I thought the part about the hero

I'm looking forward to the rest of the 'Dorsai' series.

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....

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

Obviously Donal Graeme

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

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

Great, conventional Science fiction.

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.

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

No

Mercenaries across the universe!

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.

Share's review pretty much tells it. I believe this is the kind of Sci Fi that John W. Campbell pushed back when he ruled the Sci Fi world. Our hero never ever makes a mistake. He makes all the right decisions and predicts what everyone else is always going to do before they know they are going to do it. Not once but twice the higher command is all killed off and our hero takes immediate charge. Unlike some other books of this time, he has no interest in woman. Woman fall for him, but he seems to have no hormones. The moral of the story seems to be that we all need to make the right decisions.

I listen while working, and kept imagining that I'd zoned out and missed some key detail of the book. But when I rewound the audio, there wasn't anything I'd missed. There are HUGE leaps of faith in the tale, and the reader is expected to just accept. In the end, I wasn't sure what had happened. I don't think I'll be continuing the series.