FRIDAY’S FORGOTTEN BOOKS #823: BEGINNINGS and ENDS By Gordon R. Dickson

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For part of the 1960s, Gordon R. Dickson was my Favorite Science Fiction writer. That role changed frequently from Asimov to Heinlein to Simak to Laumer…you get the idea. But for a few months, I was a Dickson guy. I read everything by Dickson I could get my hands on.

Some writers are born storytellers and Gordon R. Dickson falls into that category. Back in the late 1980s, BAEN Books published two fat collections of Dickson’s short stories: Beginnings (1988) and Ends (1988) which pretty much sum up his writing career.

These two collections provide examples of Dickson’s best work and his various interests, especially in War. Gordon R. Dickson is best known for his Childe Cycle:

If you have an interest in one of the key SF writers of the 1960s and 1970s, Beginnings and Ends encapsulate Gordon R. Dickson in two great collections. Are you a fan of Gordon R. Dickson? GRADE: A (for both)

TABLE OF CONTENTS:

TABLE OF CONTENTS:

  • Foreword — 1
  • “A Outrance” –4
  • “Computers Don’t Argue” — 6
  • “By New Hearth Fires” — 25
  • “Ancient, My Enemy” — 45
  • “Turnabout” — 89
  • “An Honorable Death” — 119
  • “Lost Dorsai” — 142
  • “Last Voyage” — 227
  • “Call Him Lord” — 249
  • “And Then There Was Peace” — 276
  • “Whatever Gods There Be” — 281
  • “Minotaur” — 300
  • “Enter a Pilgrim” — 321
  • “Armageddon” — 342

9 thoughts on “FRIDAY’S FORGOTTEN BOOKS #823: BEGINNINGS and ENDS By Gordon R. Dickson”

  1. Todd Mason

    Certainly when I was about 8yo, such Dickson YA novels as SECRET UNDER THE SEA were among my favorite sf, and I continued to find work I admired as my focus turned to adult sf (too bad Scholastic and their competitors didn’t keep the subsequent volumes of that series in print in the ’70s for me to find them). I would definitely pick these up to see how I felt about his retrospective choices (always thought “Computers Don’t Argue” effective but notional), but, damn, Baen sure slapped some ugly (and presumably selling) covers on their books, didn’t they?

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    2. george Post author

      Todd, you probably won’t be surprised to learn that I have a copy of SECRET UNDER THE SEA. BAEN Books was infamous for their cover artwork in the 1980s and 1990s.

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  2. Jerry+House

    Dickson was always a highly readable and accessible author. You’re not alone in having him as one of your favorite authors, George.

    What I remember most about him comes from the long-ago days when I was attending SF conventions. He and his good friend Ben Bova would have a late-night program in which they would drink…anything. Bottles of any and all liquor you could imagine would line the table, and they would mix the liquor in all sorts of horrible (and previously unthinkable) combinations to create very strange cocktails. And then drink them. I shiver just to think about it.

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    1. george Post author

      Jerry, I’ve heard about drinking bouts at SF conventions, but your story adds a new wrinkle to the canon. I became a Ben Bova fan when I read THE STAR CONQUERERS in 1959. It was part of the Winston SF series with a great Mel Hunter cover.

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  3. Fred Blosser

    I read and enjoyed the first four Dorsal books around 1981-82. Before that, I’d read “Call Him Lord” in its original ANALOG appearance. Thanks to Ace and Baen, you could find plenty of Dickson on the shelves at B. Dalton back in the day.

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  4. Jeff+Meyerson

    I think you’ve written about him before, and I definitely picked up a copy of Beginnings and read some of it. By coincidence, I was looking at several unread collections of sf stories on the shelf last week, and his was one of them.

    Maybe it was a sign.

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