Pentapod reviewed Bolo by Keith Laumer
Review of 'Bolo' on 'Goodreads'
4 stars
Laumer's first short story collection about the Bolos - heavily armored fighting machines that initially had a human operator but eventually became fully AI . The first chapter is a "history" of the Bolos, and then a collection of short stories follows, each of which features a Bolo but with no connection between the stories apart from that. They're set in various different time periods with various different Bolo models; the collection also includes one Retief story (Retief is Laumer's sort of Bond-like space agent) with only a very minor Bolo appearance. The rest of the stories are all about the Bolos though, some told from the point of view of the humans and some told from the Bolo perspective. Perhaps it's partly the very dated 70s style of writing, but I find Laumer's Bolo characters are much more engaging than the human ones, who are generally superficial and full …
Laumer's first short story collection about the Bolos - heavily armored fighting machines that initially had a human operator but eventually became fully AI . The first chapter is a "history" of the Bolos, and then a collection of short stories follows, each of which features a Bolo but with no connection between the stories apart from that. They're set in various different time periods with various different Bolo models; the collection also includes one Retief story (Retief is Laumer's sort of Bond-like space agent) with only a very minor Bolo appearance. The rest of the stories are all about the Bolos though, some told from the point of view of the humans and some told from the Bolo perspective. Perhaps it's partly the very dated 70s style of writing, but I find Laumer's Bolo characters are much more engaging than the human ones, who are generally superficial and full of macho bluster. As you'd expect, the Bolo stories tend towards the military fiction end of Sci Fi, but some are still very touching. This collection, although dated, is a great slice of 70s SF which still has a few interesting ideas.
