Soldier, Ask Not (Childe Cycle, book 3) by Gordon R. Dickson

[james_davis_nicoll]

Soldier, Ask Not (Childe Cycle, book 3) by Gordon R. Dickson

Comments

[dsrtao]

"Nor does Dickson ever explain why, in a setting where there are two main sources of mercenaries (the Dorsai, who never lose, and the Friendlies, who never win), anyone would ever hire the grating, inflexible Friendlies. Sure, they’re cheap but they’re not really friendly and they are incompetent soldiers."

If I recall correctly, Friendlies are competent grunts. If you think your opponent can't hire Dorsai, Friendlies are fine.

Also IIRC, the Dorsai world is extremely underpopulated. No significant industrial base, mediocre agriculture, and everyone is an antisocial curmudgeon by the standards of other worlds. The two Friendly worlds are agriculturally competent but lack money. So you can get a few battalions of Friendlies for occupation, and as long as the author doesn't decide against you, it's a reasonable call.

[(Anonymous)]

It's also possible that the Friendlies won plenty of times, but the author has not bothered to record those wars.

--
Nathan H.

[graydon]

I think it's pretty clear that if you're faced with a prospect of armed conflict, should your opponents hire Friendlies you have to hire Dorsai or lose, and it's quite possible you can't afford Dorsai. So you wind up with a situation where being the first to hire Friendlies is very important, so of course people do.

(the complete lack of terrorism suggests the whole thing has a lot more rules than are made overt in the text.)

I think Dickson did a remarkable job of portraying the Friendlies as sincere believers without going into detail about what they believed. I found it surprisingly effective when I read these books.

[mikeda]

dsrtao "Friendlies are competent grunts"

That's my impression as well. Competent soldiers with solid morale. A bit unimaginative tactically, but unless they're up against someone who can exploit that, they'll do fine.

Basically kind of like hiring a unit of Spartans. :-)

[jreynolds197]

Don't let Myke Cole hear you say that!

[ba_munronoe]

I wonder what other specialized planets we don't get to see! No doubt there is a Science Planet, but what of the Planet of Comedians? The Planet of Critics? The Planet of Crooks? Other things that start with C?

[james_davis_nicoll]

Off hand: Newton and Venus are the Science Planets, and Ceta is the Greedy Bastard Planet.

[jreynolds197]

So they're all planets of hats.

[jbwoodford]

Deliberately so--that was part of the ontological/racial unconscious background, that in order for Mankind[1] to progress, we had to split up along hat preference lines, so that each group could refine its particular hat unencumbered by the sartorial concerns of others. Once each hat had been refined, though, it would be time for Mankind to pull a Captain Planet and recombine into its next evolutionary stage.

[1]Noun chosen deliberately, per Our Host's phrasing in the review.

[mindstalk]

Despite being philosophically alien, the darkness of the eponymous song within the text appealed to me as a teen, and I often sing it in filk circles to my own tune.

At the time, Tam Olyn, estranged man against history, appealed to me too. Probably less so now.

The Exotics often sound pretty mystical, but I think their Thing is supposed to be psychology, honed to a degree to have almost mystical or telepathic-like effects.

[jbwoodford]

Members of the Chantry Guild, the group the Exotics came out of, per _Necromancer_, could teleport using some sort of ritual magic. That suggests a bit more than just psychology at work.

[mindstalk]

So it does! _Soldier_ was the main book I read, plus a couple Dorsai stories and the beginining of _Encyclopedia_. Clearly I missed something.

[dsrtao]

The rest of Encyclopedia goes into it at length; it's really the main book of the series.

[(Anonymous)]

It's not clear if you read part of The Final Encyclopedia or some other work.

Due to the lockdown, I started reading The Final Encyclopedia, in a hardcover edition. The font is quite readable; the book less so. I got as far as the final section where our superior hero goes back to the Final Encyclopedia, and gave up.

I did come across some of the other Dorsai books in a search for things to read, including the DAW edition reviewed here. Maybe I won't try reading them: suck fairy has enchanted them, apparently.

[(Anonymous)]

The impression I get is that most troops in most wars are locals. And not all soldiers-for-hire are Dorsai or Friendlies. Wasn't Dave sent to fight when he failed a test of some sort?

Supporting your local forces with Friendly mercenaries is probably a winning strategy, but if your opponents hire Dorsai, it may be best to negotiate.

As I recall the Science planets were Venus, Newton and Cassida (Dave's world and a poor relation). The Friendlies were religious fanatics, the Exotics mystics/espers/psychologists and the Dorsai of course warriors. Ceta was a newly settled planet, and whether it was ultra-capitalist or William was taking it that way I don't know. A number of worlds don't seem to have had any specialization.

William Hyde