History Creator / GordonRDickson

American SF and fantasy writer, best known for his ''Literature/ChildeCycle[=/=]Dorsai'' future history.

[[index]]

* AllAnimalsAreDogs: Averted in the novel ''Wolf and Iron''. In the foreword, the author relates that the original short story had the titular wolf acting like a dog. A reviewer gave him grief about it, so when he expanded it to a novel he made the wolf more, uh, wolflike.
** In the original story "In Iron Years", the dog really ''was'' a dog -- a huge cattle dog that had been owned and brutalized by sheepmen. The hero was wearing a jacket that had belonged to a cattle rancher and the dog instinctively trusted him.
* BearsAreBadNews:
** A set of three novellas was collected into ''The Right to Arm Bears''. The Dilbians, bear-like natives of the planet Dilbia, have ThePlan as their hat.
** Ruml from ''The Alien Way'' are marsupial, but look and behave much like Earth bears. In case you didn't know, most bears in nature are killed by other bears.
* BlueAndOrangeMorality: Dickson loved this trope. If there are humans and aliens in the story, there's definitely ValuesDissonance and misunderstanding, often very deep. [[HumansThroughAlienEyes For both sides.]] It even happens between humans from different planets. How successful, convincing or realistic those systems of values were, is... ''very'' debatable.

** In ''The Right to Arm Bears'' humans spend all their time figuring their way around the intricate Dilbian thinking. With their happy-go-lucky attitude and strict adherence to the letter of law with audacious violation of its spirit.
*** ''Spacepaw'' starts with Tin Ear and a gang of outlaws happily celebrating the gang robbing Tin Ear. Nobody finds it strange.
** [[Literature/ChildeCycle Dorsai]] think differently from the rest of the mankind.

* CapturedSuperEntity: In ''Danger--Human!'', alien scientists are study a captured human like an exceptionally dangerous lab specimen, and treat him like one. [[HumanityIsSuperior Their fears prove justified.]]
* CityOnTheWater: ''Home From the Shore''.

** In ''Danger--Human!'' the human breaks out of maximum security cell using a very time-consuming and rather unpleasant method. Fortunately, he has nothing else to do, and the captors made him immortal. Then he simply walks through an impassable force field.
** [[Literature/ChildeCycle Dorsai soldier]] Donal Graeme can walk on walls and ceiling if he wishes strongly enough.

* GreatEscape: In ''Danger--Human!'', aliens abduct a human space traveler and place him in an inescapable prison so they can study him and learn about his species. By the end of the story, he has found a way to escape the inescapable prison.

** ''[[https://www.baen.com/Chapters/9781476782171/9781476782171___7.htm Danger -- Human!]]''. The various alien species of the galaxy have records reaching back to a particular point in history, where a terrible catastrophe whose nature is now lost to the ages wiped out nearly everything. The only surviving records include a map indicating Earth with the note indicating extreme danger. A research group eventually decides to capture a lone ordinary human, under the tightest possible security that they can muster, to study and perhaps figure out why. [[spoiler:As one can probably guess when exposed to this treatment the human in question snaps. He manages to overcome all of their security measures through human ingenuity. He steals a starship and is last seen on a course back to Earth. The head researcher realizes what's going to happen next and despairs.]]
** ''The Monster and the Maiden''. The "monster" is a scuba diver. The "maiden's" home is beneath the surface of [[StockNessMonster Loch Ness]].

** ''Danger--Human!'', the story that opens the collection, featured aliens who have captured a human for study. During previous eons, humans have been found to be responsible for the destruction of galactic civilization, multiple times, and the aliens wanted to find out what trait or stimulus caused this change, in order to prevent it. Multiple security precautions are used including a sealed chamber, constant surveillance, and a single exit guarded by a 20-foot-high force field that only turns off for a short period of time during certain parts of the day. In the end, the human character, who has been repeatedly vivisected, psychoanalyzed, and generally given a rough time, snaps. He manages to escape his chamber, evade all surveillance, and somehow pass through or above the force field, completely unaffected by it. He then hijacks a nearby interstellar cargo vessel and heads back to Earth. The aliens are all suddenly feeling an existential dread as they realize that they have just provided humanity with the reason and the means to destroy galactic civilization once again.
* HumansThroughAlienEyes: In ''The Odd Ones'' short story, aliens ascribe different disgusting ideas to humans, up to and beyond HumanResources, but in the end humans prove quite nice from their point of view, and all visible oddities stem from humans having two sexes.
* LaserBlade: In ''Wolfling'' the preferred weapon of High-Born (haughty, but highly advanced HumanAliens ruling an interstellar empire) are hand-sized "rods" that project an energy beam, length of which can be varied during fight.
** It is interesting that according to Creator/GeorgeLucas an illustration of these "rods" back when ''Wolfling'' was serialized on ''Magazine/{{Analog}}'' are explicitly described by him as a major inspiration for the more popular lightsaber in ''Franchise/StarWars''.

* RedBaron: In ''Spacial Delivery'', the Dilbians are a culture of bear-like aliens who give everyone epithets. The most badass member of the race is known as "One Man"...as in "one man army."
* ScaramangaSpecial: From ''Hilifter'' (1963):
-->''Whistling a little mournfully, he began to make the next best use of his pile of property. He unscrewed the nib and cap of his long, gold fountain pen, took out the ink cartridge, and laid the tube remaining aside. He removed his belt, and the buckle from the belt. The buckle, it appeared, clipped on to the fountain pen tube in somewhat the manner of a pistol grip. He reached in his mouth, removed a bridge covering from the second premolar to the second molar, and combined this with a small metal throwaway dispenser of the sort designed to contain antacid tablets. The two together had a remarkable resemblance to the magazine and miniaturized trigger assembly of a small handgun; and when he attached them to the buckle-fountain-pen-tube combination the resemblance became so marked as to be practically inarguable.''

* TailorMadePrison: In ''Danger--Human!'', the aliens construct an escape-proof cell, consisting of metal physical enclosures, an impenetrable force field, constant armed surveillance, and access only for carefully monitored brief periods to provide food and water, to study a human they abduct to try and find out why humans kept conquering the galaxy. He escapes.

* VichyEarth: ''The Way of the Pilgrim'' tells a pretty straightforward interpretation of this trope, with the protagonist, a translator/pet for the occupying Aalaag, organizing a revolution with the power of the indomitable human spirit. They have to, since militarily LaResistance is futile--if he had to, one fully armored Aalaag could defeat every human army in an afternoon.

* ''[[Literature/DangerHuman Danger-- Human!]]''

** It is interesting that according to Creator/GeorgeLucas an illustration of these "rods" back when ''Wolfling'' was serialized on Magazine/{{Analog}} are explicitly described by him as a major inspiration for the more popular lightsaber in ''Franchise/StarWars''.

** ''[[http://www.baen.com/Chapters/0743471741/0743471741___1.htm Danger -- Human!]]''. The various alien species of the galaxy have records reaching back to a particular point in history, where a terrible catastrophe whose nature is now lost to the ages wiped out nearly everything. The only surviving records include a map indicating Earth with the note indicating extreme danger. A research group eventually decides to capture a lone ordinary human, under the tightest possible security that they can muster, to study and perhaps figure out why. [[spoiler:As one can probably guess when exposed to this treatment the human in question snaps. He manages to overcome all of their security measures through human ingenuity. He steals a starship and is last seen on a course back to Earth. The head researcher realizes what's going to happen next and despairs.]]

* TheDividual: In ''None But Man'' by the Moldaug society and mentality is based on three Moldaug working in sync with one another to form a single individual. While many trios are composed of siblings, making them more of twindividuals, their equivalent of Antichrist is expected to team up with a "hermit" (whose profession is unfit for trios) and a madman (whom nobody wants in their trio). This is what the heroes imitate.

* UrsineAliens: In the stories collected in ''The Right to Arm Bears'', the Dilbians are described as intelligent grizzly bears. They're noted for being good-humored and good-natured {{Gentle Giant}}s.

StoneSoup: In the appropriately titled short story "Soupstone", a remote colony requests a highly competent advisor to solve their problems. Since such people are always at a shortage, Earth decides to instead send the rather BookDumb protagonist. He manages to solve everything within a day, simply by making people dig out the talents and resources they have already.

* CapturedSuperEntity: In ''Danger--Human!'', alien scientists are studying a captured human and treating him just like that. [[HumanityIsSuperior Their fears prove justified.]]

* PostApocalypticDog: The hero of ''Wolf and Iron'' makes friends with an actual wolf. After being scolded by a wolf biologist who read the original short story, Dickson worked hard to make the wolf wolf-like and ''not'' dog-like, so it's not a perfect fit for the trope. Unusually, the apocalypse is an economic collapse rather than a physical or military disaster.

** In ''Wolfilng'' everything the protagonist does has the ultimate goal of [[spoiler:keeping Empire from Earth]]. Even when it looks the other way around. And it's hinted from the start he is not your typical Earthling.

** In ''Wolfilng'' everything the protagonist does has the ultimate goal of keeping Empire from Earth. Even when it looks the other way around.
** In ''The Outposter'' Meda V'Dan aliens are a nomad culture, probably transplanted to space by more advanced aliens. Their life is regulated by rules and traditions that would fit an Iron Age nomadic tribe, but not a spacefaring civilization as humans imagine it. They live by trade, but prefer to steal. When victims fight back, they leave. Earth is isolationist, founding colonies only because of overpopulation, xenophobic even toward colonists. Colonists, on the contrary, represent all the good qualities of mankind.
** In ''None but Man'' Moldaug aliens don't care much about "right" and "wrong", but measure everything with concepts of "Respectability" and "not-Respectability". The end result is deceptively close to human society, and misunderstanding almost causes a war. Moldaug threatened Humans with war to test human Respectability; humans started to stall for time instead of declaring war, thus proving themselves non-Respectabile. Plus, there's antagonism between Earth and colonies as above.
** In ''The Right to Arm Bears'' humans spend all their time figuring their way around the intricate ways of Dilbian thinking. With their happy-go-lucky attitude and strict adherence to the letter of law with audacious violation of its spirit.

** In ''The Alien Way'' Ruml have an odd way of social Darwinism that is supposed to ensure that all of them become Kingdom Founders. It's perfectly OK to kill all your ship's crew to claim the newfound planet for yourself. Parallels are drawn between them and Earth bears. The protagonists maintains, that a functioning society can be built by such anti-social creatures as he describes, and that they can be reasoned with.

* AIIsACrapshoot: In "And Then There Was Peace", a robot has been made that is programmed to destroy all implements of war. [[spoiler:This turns out to include the people who fight.]]
* AllAnimalsAreDogs: Averted in the novel ''Wolf and Iron''. In the forward, the author relates that the original short story had the titular wolf acting like a dog. A reviewer gave him grief about it, so when he expanded it to a novel he made the wolf more, uh, wolflike.
* BearsAreBadNews: A set of three novellas was collected into ''The Right to Arm Bears''. The Dilbians, bear-like natives of the planet Dilbia, have ThePlan as their hat.
* CapturedSuperEntity: Inverted in "Danger--Human!", where alien scientists are studying a captured human.

* ComputerizedJudicialSystem: Played for black comedy in "Computers Don't Argue", set in a society where all record-keeping is computerized. A filing error transforms a minor civil dispute over a book into a major criminal prosecution over the alleged [[{{Literature/Kidnapped}} kidnapping of Robert Louis Stevenson]].

* GreatEscape: In "Danger--Human!", aliens abduct a human space traveler and place him in an inescapable prison so they can study him and learn about his species. By the end of the story, he has found a way to escape the inescapable prison.

* TheHiddenHour: "Zeepsday" is about an alien race that shows humanity that there is an eighth day in the week.

** "[[http://www.baen.com/Chapters/0743471741/0743471741___1.htm Danger -- Human!]]". The various alien species of the galaxy have records reaching back to a particular point in history, where a terrible catastrophe whose nature is now lost to the ages wiped out nearly everything. The only surviving records include a map indicating Earth with the note indicating extreme danger. A research group eventually decides to capture a lone ordinary human, under the tightest possible security that they can muster, to study and perhaps figure out why. [[spoiler:As one can probably guess when exposed to this treatment the human in question snaps. He manages to overcome all of their security measures through human ingenuity. He steals a starship and is last seen on a course back to Earth. The head researcher realizes what's going to happen next and despairs.]]
** "The Monster and the Maiden". The "monster" is a scuba diver. The "maiden's" home is beneath the surface of [[StockNessMonster Loch Ness]].

** "Danger--Human!", the story that opens the collection, featured aliens who have captured a human for study. During previous eons, humans have been found to be responsible for the destruction of galactic civilization, multiple times, and the aliens wanted to find out what trait or stimulus caused this change, in order to prevent it. Multiple security precautions are used including a sealed chamber, constant surveillance, and a single exit guarded by a 20-foot-high force field that only turns off for a short period of time during certain parts of the day. In the end, the human character, who has been repeatedly vivisected, psychoanalyzed, and generally given a rough time, snaps. He manages to escape his chamber, evade all surveillance, and somehow pass through or above the force field, completely unaffected by it. He then hijacks a nearby interstellar cargo vessel and heads back to Earth. The aliens are all suddenly feeling an existential dread as they realize that they have just provided humanity with the reason and the means to destroy galactic civilization once again.
* HumansThroughAlienEyes: In "The Odd Ones" short story, aliens ascribe different disgusting ideas to humans, up to and beyond HumanResources, but in the end humans prove quite nice from their point of view, and all visible oddities stem from having two sexes.
* LaserBlade: In ''Wolfling'' the preferred weapon of High-Born (haughty, but highly advanced Human Aliens ruling an interstellar empire) are hand-sized "pipes" that project an energy beam, length of which can be varied during fight.
* LogicBomb: In "The Monkey Wrench", a man attempts to shut down a meteorologic arctic station just for bragging rights. He is able to do so by prompting a paradox to the machine, making it incapable of doing anything than computing the paradox. Ironically, this condemns him and his partner to freeze to death, as all the vital controls of the station were provided by the machine.

* TailorMadePrison: In "Danger--Human!", the aliens construct an escape-proof cell, consisting of metal physical enclosures, an impenetrable force field, constant armed surveillance, and access only for carefully monitored brief periods to provide food and water, to study a human they abduct to try and find out why humans kept conquering the galaxy. He escapes.

* {{Unishment}}: In "Zeepsday", a human is placed on trial in a galactic court for insulting an alien. He is found guilty and sentenced to be "confined" by his fiancée for a year, with all expenses paid by the insulted alien. The judge recommends they spend the year at a very expensive vacation spot.

* YouAreNotAlone: "Steel Brother". A young man is alone running a robotic outpost in space to guard against the alien enemy. He can't face the fear until [[spoiler:after he fails in battle and finally surrenders his mind to the computer memory banks where he discovers that the past (deceased) commander of the post left him a message, the same one every member of the corps leaves for his successor, "You are not alone, all along the frontier there is one of us standing guard, even if you die, another will take your place"]].

* UrsineAliens: The Dilbians.

* BlueAndOrangeMorality: Dickson loved this trope. If there are humans and aliens in the story, there's definitely ValuesDissonance and misunderstanding, often very deep. [[HumansThroughAlienEyes For both sides.]] It even happens between humans from different planets. How successful, convincing or realistic those systems of values were, is... ''very'' debatable.

* HumansAreSpecial / HumanityIsSuperior: If the setting has humans against aliens, humans always win. Often just because they are oh so awesome. In more reasonable works they win by being [[{{Determinator}} very persistent]].

** Occasionally subverted, like in ''The Odd Ones'' short story. Aliens ascribe different disgusting ideas to humans, up to and beyond HumanResources, but in the end humans prove quite nice from their point of view, and all visible oddities stem from having two sexes.

* {{Heavyworlder}}: In a short story, which adds an uncommon corollary: things fall faster (or rather, accelerate at a higher rate) on a high-gravity world. One alien from such a world is somewhat stronger, but much faster, because falling over on such a planet is a ''bad'' idea and being able to catch falling things is usually helpful too.

* SuperweaponSurprise: In a short story, an aggressive alien race discovers Earth by analysis of floating space debris and launches a covert surveillance mission as a prelude to invasion. Sadly for the aliens, they discover that the humans not only know about them, they used the alien mission as a tool to psychologically profile the would-be conquerors and find out all about ''their'' civilization and military capabilities.

American SF and fantasy writer, best known for his ''ChildeCycle/Dorsai'' future history.

His other works include the ''DragonKnight'' series, in which a couple of 20th-century graduate students find themselves in an alternate world that resembles Medieval England but with magic, dragons, and fairies; and the comedy ''Literature/{{Hoka}}'' series, co-written with Creator/PoulAnderson, about a planet whose inhabitants spend all their time pretending to be characters from Earth fiction.

* ''ChildeCycle''
* ''TheDragonKnight'' series