Berserker - Deathwomb

About this book

A lone courier drops out of flightspace and broadcasts a single word across the void: "Parley." Its audience is a berserker, one of the ancient, unliving war machines programmed to burn all life out of the universe. The courier's human masters are offering a bargain, and the price is an entire world. On the distant planet Ilya, xenologist Sally Jennison returns from months of fieldwork among the planet's gentle, feathered natives. She finds the university station silent, her calls unanswered. Then a harsh, unfamiliar voice cuts in with a command to cut all transmissions at once, because the berserkers are coming and they must not find a trace of humanity. Deathwomb is a tense novella from Poul Anderson, set in the Berserker universe made famous by Fred Saberhagen's saga of killer machines and continued here by a grand master of science fiction. Expect cold strategy, moral dilemmas, vivid alien landscapes and the dread of an enemy that cannot be reasoned with or bribed. For readers who love space opera, first-contact tales and hard-edged military science fiction, this is a compact, gripping read. Open it in your browser and start reading online instantly.

Author

Poul Anderson

Length

~51 pages

Reading time

1 h 1 min

Chapters

1

Released

November 11, 2026

Languages

🇬🇧 EN · 🇵🇱 PL · 🇩🇪 DE · 🇫🇷 FR · 🇪🇸 ES · 🇮🇹 IT · 🇧🇷 PT-BR · 🇲🇽 ES-MX · 🇵🇹 PT · 🇺🇦 UK · 🇨🇿 CS · 🇸🇰 SK · 🇬🇷 EL · 🇭🇺 HU · 🇹🇷 TR · 🇳🇱 NL · 🇷🇴 RO · 🇧🇬 BG · 🇭🇷 HR · 🇷🇸 SR · 🇸🇮 SL · 🇱🇹 LT · 🇱🇻 LV · 🇪🇪 ET · 🇸🇪 SV · 🇩🇰 DA · 🇳🇴 NB · 🇫🇮 FI · 🇯🇵 JA · 🇰🇷 KO · 🇨🇳 ZH · 🇹🇼 ZH-TW · 🇮🇩 ID · 🇻🇳 VI · 🇹🇭 TH · 🇮🇳 HI · 🇸🇦 AR · 🇮🇱 HE

Formats

eBook

Print format

Paperback, 13.5 × 21 cm, 60 pages

Age rating

Teen 13+