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BOLO! is a series of four short stories and a history of the BOLO tanks along with charts of their armament and sentience. This volume is written by David Weber about Keith Laumer's infamous self-aware tanks. The appendix in itself is a good reason for any BOLO fan to buy this book, but the stories are great as well. The first, Miles To Go, is about an experimental BOLO that got forgotten about for a little while . . . like 50 years! Evidently there was some sort of attack on the central planet and it wiped out a lot of records and the existence of this particular BOLO was one of those records. Someone discovers where it is and decides it's a great place to send a driver that had a bit of a discipline problem. Any military frowns on striking a superior officer, no matter how much the guy deserves it. Nike, the BOLO has an advanced personality center, allowing her much more independent thought than most BOLOs have been allowed. There are worries of war and a 'business' group thinks that they can take over the agrarian world which also happens to be well-placed strategically. Nike and Merrit have different ideas. The second, The Traitor, is about a squadron of BOLOs that use the 'new' advanced personality center and what happens when that center is damaged. It shows the lengths to which a BOLO will go to complete its mission as it sees fit. The BOLO Arthur must chase down his squadron mate Lance and this story follows Arthur's thoughts as he hunts his friend. The third story, With Your Shield, takes place at the base from the first story. It's now much enlarged and home to an entire squadron rather than the single aged BOLO. We meet a brand-new BOLO officer who expects to be posted to a training billet but arrives to find she's the pilot of a BOLO of her own. They are now deep into a war and in dire need of people to keep the BOLOs company. At this point the BOLOs are completely self-aware, building on the research and experiences of Nike, so the pilot is there mostly as an emergency override -- computers think faster, but humans are much more intuitive and can think 'outside the box' in situations where the BOLO can't. The final story takes place on a planet long after the end of the war. The universe has been bombed back to the stone age, just about every habitable planet destroyed technologically, agriculturally, any way you can think of. A small band of humans has limped from galaxy to galaxy looking for a place they can try to rebuild and end up on a planet they call Ararat. Ararat had been Ishark during the war and some BOLOs thought to be long dead are off in a deserted part of the continent. This story explores the recuperative nanites of the BOLOs. The appendix consists of a chart of the years of introduction of each mark of BOLO along with the name of the class, an overview of the history of the series from the professor who holds the Laumer Chair of Military History, a short history of each mark of BOLO, including propulsion, weapons, weight and crew, and an easy-to-view chart including the same information. Each story builds on the last and provides a great introduction to the worlds of BOLO or a way to revisit familiar territory if you are a fan of the series.
Reviewed by Regina Franchi, January 2005
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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)
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