Dorsai!

Dorsai! is the first published book of the incomplete Childe Cycle series of science fiction novels by Gordon R. Dickson. While it is the first book published in the series, later books are set both before and after the events in Dorsai!.

The novel was originally published in serialized form in Astounding Science Fiction, starting in May, 1959. A shorter, revised version was published in paperback by Ace in 1960 under the title The Genetic General. A re-edited and expanded version of the novel was published under its original serialized title, Dorsai!, by DAW in 1976. This version of the novel was reissued as one half of an omnibus edition, Dorsai Spirit by Tor in 2002, The other novel contained in Dorsai Spirit is The Spirit of Dorsai (originally published 1979).

Plot

The book is about Donal Graeme, warrior extraordinaire. In the Childe Cycle universe, the human race has split into a number of splinter cultures. Donal is a member of the Dorsai, a splinter culture based on the planet of the same name, which has specialized in producing the very best soldiers. Since each splinter culture specializes in a specific area of expertise, a system of trade labour contracts between the cultures allows each planet to hire the expertise they need. The Dorsai, inhabiting a resource-poor world, hire themselves out as mercenaries to other planetary governments. Donal has great ambitions, and the book follows his rise in an episodic manner. The book begins as a straightforward tale of his career and then becomes something else, as it becomes clear there is something different about Donal Graeme himself.

Childe Cycle

The Childe Cycle is an unfinished series of science fiction novels by Gordon R. Dickson. The name Childe Cycle is an allusion to Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came, a poem by Robert Browning, which provided considerable inspiration for elements in Dickson's magnum opus.

The series is sometimes referred to as the Dorsai series, as the Dorsai people are central to the series. The related short stories and novellas all center on the Dorsai, primarily members of the Graeme and Morgan families. The first story published, Dorsai! was originally to have been titled The Swissman, a reference to the Swiss pikemen of centuries past. It was published as a novel in Astounding Science Fiction.

While, on the face of it, the Childe Cycle is a science fiction series, it is also an allegory. In addition to the six science fiction novels of the Cycle, Dickson had also planned three historical novels and three novels taking place in the present day. It is known that one of the three historical novels would have dealt with John Milton, the author of Paradise Lost. Judging from the frequent mentions of him in the published science fiction portion of the Cycle, Sir John Hawkwood, a 14th-century mercenary, would probably have been the subject of another. At least one of the contemporary novels was expected to deal with issues of space colonization, beginning a thread continuing through Necromancer and concluding with the full formation of the Splinter Cultures.