Keith Laumer – författare

Unrivaled in the history of artillery and unsurpassed in its ability to reason, Bolo replaced man in that most human of endeavors: war.In these scintillating tales of the ever-advancing Dinochrome Brigade, the most effective weapons ever devised ell their own story in action-packed chronicles of extra-terrestrial adventure. Bolo: fighting in proud combat as monster saviors of their human creators.

From "An Abbreviated History of the Bolo": The first completely automated Bolo, designed to operate normally without a man on board, was the landmark XV Model M. This model, first commissioned in the twenty-fifty century, was widely used throughout the Eastern Arm during the Era of Expansion and remained in service on remote worlds for over two centuries, acquiring many improvements in detail while remaining basically unchanged, through increasing sophistication of circuitry and weapons vastly upgraded its effectiveness.The always-present, through perhaps unlikely, possibility of capture and use of a Bolo by an enemy was a constant source of anxiety to military leaders and, in time, gave rise to the next and final major advance in Bolo technology: the self-directing (and, quite incidentally, self-aware) Mark XX Model B Bolo Tremendous.The Mark XX was greeted with little enthusiasm by the High Command, who now professed to believe that an unguided-by-operator Bolo would potentially be capable of running amok...

THE COMING OF THE BLIGHTIt seemed as though the world was eroding right under everyone''s feet. Stories disappeared from magazines; the baron''s silver coat of arms, polished in the morning, was pitted with corrosion by afternoon; toadstools were springing up from every corner. And these were but the first signs of the coming plague, a cancerous orgy of patternless vitality seeking to engulf the world...TO STEM THE TIDECarefree Johnny Curlon, indelicately plucked from his fishing boat one evening, is bluntly informed by high powers that he is a man destined for a role in great affairs: only his unique powers can prevent the coming probability crisis that threatens to turn the world into bubbling chaos...

BLINDING LIGHT, NOISE BEYOND SOUND - A JOURNEY INTO NOTHINGNESS...Imperial Intelligence Agent Brion Bayard was catapulted into nothingness by an unknown force and woke to find himself in a universe not his own. Surrounded by hulking, cannibalistic ape men who called themselves Hagroon, Bayard was soon entrapped in a web of time lines. He found himself running from the Hagroon into the arms of Dzok, the educated monkey man of Xonijeel; transported by Dzok to a universe where Napoleon the Fifth was in power and left there to the tender powers of the beautiful witch Olivia; struggling with the bonds of a fictitious past, always striving to regain his lost universe of Zero-zero Stockholm so he could bring the warning which might save his world from sudden, violent death...

An American diplomat, trapped in a world he never made...At first Brion Bayard was relieved to discover that his kidnappers were very apologetic and very British. Then he learned that they were not from Earth...

The world, as Lafayette O''Leary knew it, disappeared in a flash. Perhaps it was his own doing - after all, he had the uncanny gift of creating alternate realities by sheer mental power.But the result was a nightmare gone out of control. All O''Leary wanted was to find his wife and return to the familiar world of Artesia. Yet no sooner did he manage to extricate himself from one bizarre situation than he was thrust into another, equally threatening...There was only one thing to do: he had to penetrate the very center of power from which his destiny was being controlled and - take it into his own hands!

Lafayette O''Leary, to his acute discomfiture, has an exhilarating and terrifying tendency to slip continua. And what might that mean?It might mean finding oneself a gypsy with a ring in his ear at one moment, and then suddenly a crippled birdman unable to leave his nest because of the awkward loss of teleporting talent.It might mean battling one''s way back to the time stream where he started - only to find himself already there, lording it over the populace like a tyrant.

Draftsmen can''t fight dragons.Then again, that''s usually no problem - they generally don''t have to. But Lafayette O''Leary does. When an accidental overdose of self-hypnosis wrenches him out of the dull (but safe) Mrs. MacGlint''s Clean Rooms and Board and deposits him in the feudal, bedragoned world of Artesia, it takes him a little while to catch on, even with the attentions of the beautiful Princess Adoranne. Then he decides that he likes this new life of his - except for the part where he''s supposed to get killed...

''TWAS BORING IN ARTESIA...or so thought Sir Lafayette O''Leary, ex-craftsman from Earth, and now seemingly ex-interdimensional swashbuckler extraordinaire as well. His battles were all won, his dragons all slain and life was just the same boring round of riches, royal hunts and regatas. Boring, boring, boring; until he walked past the azalia...Suddenly Artesia was gone, and O''Leary was trapped in Melange, a world of giants and pirates, karate-chopping hags and electronic flying carpets, a world where goons and harlots are the spitting images (literally!) of his own aristocratic Artesian associates. And because they think he''s his double, lots of his new friends want O''Leary dead.Unless he can get through the interdimensional gate and find the continuum path back home, O''Leary''s life will never be boring again. Just short.