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Gordon R Dickson


(Gordon Rupert Dickson)
Canada (1923 - 2001)

Gordon Dickson was as influential as Robert A. Heinlein in the creation of the sub-genre of military space opera--his Dorsai! is a significantly more considered work than Heinlein's Starship Troopers. It inaugurated a sequence of Future History novels in which the isolation of colonies has produced specialized sub-species of humanity--dominated by the warrior, the religious, the mystic and the acquisitive temperaments, for example--which produce fertile chaos when brought back into close contact and are the key to humanity's future transcendence; Dickson projected a sequence of historical novels linked to the Dorsai books which through representative figures would clarify his argument--his sympathies and the readers tend to be mostly with the ethical mercenaries of the Dorsai, but Dickson's portrayal and perception of the military virtues is sufficiently complex constantly to wrongfoot our expectations. Dickson's best non-sequence novel is probably Time Storm in which a motley group of adventurers cope with a landscape drawn from all of Earth's history; its charismatic flawed hero has an attractive unhappiness to balance his omnicompetence. A fantasy sequence, which started with The Dragon and the George, sets a contemporary adventurer loose in a magic world at once comic and ethically complex where human beings and dragons share a common culture.
 

Genres: Science Fiction, Fantasy, Children's Fiction
 
Series
Hoka (with Poul Anderson)
   1. Earthman's Burden (1957)
   2. Star Prince Charlie (1975)
   Hoka! Hoka! Hoka! (1983)
   3. Hoka! (1983)
   4. Hokas Pokas (2000)
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Childe Cycle
   1. Dorsai! (1959)
     aka The Genetic General
   2. Necromancer (1962)
     aka No Room for Man
   3. Soldier, Ask Not (1967)
   4. The Tactics of Mistake (1972)
   5. The Spirit of Dorsai (1979)
   6. Lost Dorsai (1980)
   7. The Final Encyclopedia (1984)
   8. The Chantry Guild (1988)
   9. Young Bleys (1991)
   10. Other (1994)
   11. Antagonist (2007) (with David W Wixon)
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Dilbia
   1. Spacial Delivery (1961)
   2. Spacepaw (1969)
   3. The Right to Arm Bears (2000)
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Sea People
   1. The Space Swimmers (1967)
   2. Home from the Shore (1978)
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Novels
   Alien from Arcturus (1956)
     aka Arcturus Landing
   On the Run (1956)
     aka Mankind on the Run
   Time to Teleport (1960)
   Delusion World (1961)
   Naked to the Stars (1961)
   The Alien Way (1965)
   Mission to Universe (1965)
   Space Winners (1965)
   None But Man (1969)
   Wolfling (1969)
   Hour of the Horde (1970)
   Sleepwalker's World (1972)
   The Outposter (1972)
   The Pritcher Mass (1972)
   The R-Master (1973)
   Alien Art (1973)
   Gremlins, Go Home! (1974) (with Ben Bova)
   The Lifeship (1976) (with Harry Harrison)
     aka Lifeboat
   Time Storm (1977)
   The Far Call (1978)
   Pro (1978)
   Masters of Everon (1980)
   The Man from Earth (1983)
   The Last Master (1984)
   Jamie the Red (1984) (with Roland Green Eckert)
   Beyond the Dar al-Harb (1985)
   Steel Brother (1985)
   Secrets of the Deep (1985)
   The Dorsai Companion (1986)
   The Forever Man (1986)
   Way of the Pilgrim (1987)
   The Earth Lords (1988)
   Wolf and Iron (1990)
   The Magnificent Wilf (1995)
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Collections
   Planet Run (1967) (with Keith Laumer)
   The Book of Gordon R. Dickson (1970)
     aka Danger - Human
   The Day the Sun Stood Still (1972) (with Poul Anderson and Robert Silverberg)
   The Star Road (1973)
   Mutants (1974)
   Ancient, My Enemy (1974)
   In the Bone (1978)
   Gordon R. Dickson's SF Best (1978)
   In Iron Years (1980)
   Love Not Human (1981)
   Dickson! (1984)
   Survival! (1984)
   Forward! (1985) (with Sandra Miesel)
   Invaders! (1985)
   The Last Dream (1986)
   Mindspan (1986) (with Sandra Miesel)
   The Man the Worlds Rejected (1986)
   Stranger (1987)
   Guided Tour (1988)
   Beginnings (1988)
   Ends (1988)
   The Human Edge (2003)
   Time Grabber (2009)
   The Best of Gordon R. Dickson, Volume 1 (2017)
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Novellas and Short Stories
   It Hardly Seems Fair (2011)
   No Shield from the Dead (2011)
   Idiot Solvant (2013)
   The Question (2015)
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Anthologies edited
   Combat SF (1975)
   Futurelove (1978) (with Roger Elwood)
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Series contributed to
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Combat Command
   8. Dorsai's Command (1989) (with Troy Denning and Cory Glaberson)
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Harriers
   1. Of War and Honor (1991) (with others)
   2. Blood and War (1993) (with others)
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Omnibus editions show
 
Gordon R Dickson recommends
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All One Universe (1996)
Poul Anderson
"The great canvas of interstellar space comes alive under his hand as it does under no other."
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Dinosaur Beach (1971)
Keith Laumer
"Unrivalled not only in its class, but in a class by itself."

Anthologies containing stories by Gordon R Dickson
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Sense of Wonder (2023)
A Century of Science Fiction
edited by
Leigh Ronald Grossman
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Moonrise (2018)
The Golden Age of Lunar Exploration
(British Library Science Fiction Classics)
edited by
Mike Ashley

More anthologies 


Awards
Hugo Best Novel nominee (1960) : Dorsai!
Hugo Best Short Story winner (1965) : Soldier, Ask Not [short story]
Nebula Awards Best Short Story nominee (1966) : Computers Don't Argue
Hugo Best Novellette nominee (1967) : Call Him Lord
Nebula Awards Best Novellette winner (1967) : Call Him Lord
Hugo Best Short Story nominee (1971) : Jean Dupres
British Fantasy Society Best Novel winner (1977) : The Dragon and the George
World Fantasy Best Novel nominee (1977) : The Dragon and the George
Hugo Best Novel nominee (1978) : Time Storm
Hugo Best Novellette winner (1981) : The Cloak and the Staff
Hugo Best Novella winner (1981) : Lost Dorsai [short story]
Prometheus Award Best Novel nominee (1985) : The Final Encyclopedia
Prometheus Award Best Novel nominee (1988) : Way of the Pilgrim


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