Background
The Berserker stories (published as novels and short stories) describe humanity's fight against the Berserkers. The term "humanity" refers to all sentient life in the Milky Way Galaxy, emphasizing the common threat the Berserkers pose toward all forms of life. Homo sapiens, referred to as "Earth-descended" or "ED" humans, or as "Solarians", are the only sentient species aggressive enough to put up a good fight. (Human beings are called "Earth-descended" because billions of them live on Mars, Venus, and hundreds of other planets across the Galaxy.)
Allies of the Earth-descended humans include the telepathic "Carmpans", a subtle and mysterious species incapable of direct aggression. The first stories in the series are related by an individual Carmpan, the "3rd Historian", who seeks to chronicle life in the Galaxy and the struggle against the Berserkers.
The first story, "Without a Thought" (1963), was basically a puzzle story, in which the protagonist faces a problem of simulating intelligence to fool an enemy trying to determine whether there was any conscious being present on a spaceship.
Saberhagen came up with the Berserker as the rationale for the story on the spur of the moment, but the basic concept was so fruitful, with so many possible ramifications, that he used it as the basis of many stories. A common theme in the stories is of how the apparent weaknesses and inconsistencies of living beings are actually the strengths that bring about the killer machines' eventual defeat.
The second story introduces "goodlife": human traitors or collaborators who cooperate with the Berserker machines to stay alive for a while. Later stories involve the qwib-qwib, an anti-Berserker berserker.
Read more about this topic: Berserker (Saberhagen)
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