This classic interview with Fred Saberhagen originally appeared in the Summer, 1979 issue of Thrust magazine. In it, Saberhagen discusses his Berserker series, publishing science fiction for a mainstream audience, and the need for editors to love what they acquire for publication, among other things.
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Yes, you can access Speaking with Fred Saberhagan by Darrell Schweitzer in PDF and/or ePUB format, as well as other popular books in Literature & Literary Collections. We have over one million books available in our catalogue for you to explore.
SPEAKING WITH FRED SABERHAGEN, an Interview by Darrell Schweitzer
This interview originally appeared in Thrust, Summer 1979.
Q: What was the origin of the Berserker series?
Saberhagen: Well, it began when I had an idea for a short story where the hero would solve a problem by a sort of elementary game theory, information theory solution, and I was about halfway through the story and I realized that I still didnāt have any suitable menace for him to overcome. And I thought, what sort of a menace shall I use, this being out in interstellar space? And my subconscious said: You will use a huge, automated space-going warship that has been roving between the stars for generations destroying planets as it goes. So, without any real conscious effort the Berserkers were born.
Q: It seems to me that what you have here, above and beyond a suitable menace for a problem story, is one the more dramatic manifestations of the idea of runaway technology. Do you have such fears of machines getting away from us?
Saberhagen: I donāt know if I fear runaway technology especially. I donāt think the Berserkers really represent technology. They are technological and maybe this makes them seem more real to us than they would be if they were living beings or demons or whatnot, but no, I donāt think itās a fear of technology. With four billion people now on the planet we need a lot of technology to survive.
Q: Was modern demons the idea?
Saberhagen: Yeah, demons might be closer to the idea. Fred Pohl bought the first story for IF which he was then the editing, and he suggested that I write more Berserker stories. He liked the Berserker machine much better than he liked the story as a whole. Well the story has been pretty successful. Itās been reprinted about four times, but it was his suggestion that I write more of them than I would have otherwise. He said that if I wrote a series of stories, it would make me better known than if I had written the same number of equally good individual stories. That turned out to be correct.
Q: Are you generally pleased with the way the series went?
Saberhagen: Yes. I havenāt written a Berserker story for a while now, maybe a year, and I expect Iāll write more eventually.
Q: Do you ever worry about the series exhausting itself?
Saberhagen: I guess itāll probably exhaust itself when I get tired of writing this kind of story. It seems to be open ended. Itās probabl...
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SPEAKING WITH FRED SABERHAGEN, an Interview by Darrell Schweitzer
