Today, November 1, is the birthday of Gordon R. Dickson (1923-2001). Dickson wrote both science fiction and fantasy. Sadly, his star, which was once prominent, has faded into near obscurity.

Dickson wrote adventure science ficetion, usually with military overtones. His best-known series was the Dorsai series. From what I can remember about them, these novels featured a future where humanity fractured into different groups. the Dorsai were the soldiers.

Back when I was in high school, the Science eFicteion Book Club offered an omnibus entitiiled Three to Dorsai!. It featured the novels Necromancer, Tactics of Mistake, and Dorsai!, along with some bridging material. The omnibus had been out for nearly a decade when I bought and read it. (I still have it.)

That would have been in the mid-eigthies. I don’t remember much about the books other than I liked them. I’ve since gotten copies in paperback from the Friends of the Library sale, along with some other titles later int he series.

The only other one I’ve read was The Final Encyclopedia. I read it while we were in Kazakhstan. That was twenty years ago. I remember it was something of a slog, but that might have been because of going through an international adoption at the time.

The Dorsai series was quite the thing in the sixties and seventies. The field was much smaller then. There were fan gropus that would dress up like Drosai at conventions. The trend had pretty much run its course by the time I started attending conventions.

But as I said, I’ve got a number of the books from the Friends of the Library sale. At fifty cents a paperback, it was too good an offer to pass up.

But the Dorsai series wasn’t the only science fiction Dickson wrote. He started out in the pulps and digest magazines of the early fifties. He roomed in the same boarding house as Poul Anderson did, and the two of them were lifelong friends. Back in the eighties and nineties, Baen published a number of his short stories in various collections. One of the results of their friendship was the collaborations about the Hoka, who look like teddy bears.

No less than three Best of collections were published. One from Dell (1978), one from Ace (1987), and one from Baen (2017). The Baen collection in entitled The Best of Gordon R. Dickson, Volume 1. For reasons unknown to me, there haven’t been any other volumes. That’s a shame, because it’s a solid collection, with more stories than the two previous mass market Best of collections held.

Dickson also wrote fantasy. He expanded his 1957 novellette,” St. Dragon and the George” in to a series of nine novels. I’ve not read any of them. If you have, please drop a line in the comments.

He also wrote two novels featuring a character named Jaime the Red which take place in the Thieves’ World universe.

Much of Dickson’s short fantasy can be found in The Last Dream. This book includes “St. Dragon and the George”. Most of the stories in this volume are older works.

Dickson’s works used to be everywhere. I read a number of stand alone titles when I was in high school and college. From time to time, I’ve managed to work another in. His collaboration with Keith Laumer, Planet Run, was one of the better ones. with two of the major authors of adventure science fiction collaborating, it was hard to go wrong.

One of the themes I’ve tackled this year on the blog is major authors fading into obscurity. Dickson is a prime example. I think some of his work is still available from Baen, at least in electronic form. I hope Baen or someone brings him back into  print.