Dogpatch Press

Submitted by Fred Patten, Furry’s favorite historian and reviewer

The Right to Arm Bears, by Gordon R. Dickson
Riverdale, NY, Baen Books, November 2016, trade paperback $16.00 (384 pages).

Several years ago I had a review published on Flayrah of The Right to Arm Bears, by Gordon R. Dickson. It wasn’t a new book then, being published by Baen Books in December 2000. It’s gone through several printings so it’s remained available (with a slightly modified cover), but I don’t know how many furry fans have sought it out.

Guess what! Baen Books has reprinted it again this November, as a large trade paperback with a new cover by Kurt Miller. My old review will become pertinent again. Here it is.

The Right to Arm Bears, by Gordon R. Dickson
Riverdale, NY, Baen Books, December 2000, paperback $6.99 (431 pages).

This “novel” collects Dickson’s three light space-opera adventures about humans, the bearlike Dilbians, and the jovial-but-sinister Hemnoids: Spatial Delivery, first published as a novel by Ace Books, November 1961, 123 pages; Spacepaw, first published as a novel by G. P. Putnam’s Sons, February 1969, 222 pages; and “The Law-Twister Shorty”, a novelette in The Many Worlds of Science Fiction, edited by Ben Bova (E. P. Dutton, November 1971, pages 51-105).

Back-cover blurb: “Planet Dilbia is in a crucial location for both humans and their adversaries, the Hemnoids. Therefore making friends with the Dilbians and establishing a human presence there is of the utmost importance, which may be a problem, since the bearlike Dilbians stand some nine feet tall, and have a high regard for physical prowess. They’re not impressed by human technology, either. A real man, er, bear doesn’t need machines to do his work for him. But Dilbians are impressed by sharp thinking, and some have expressed a grudging admiration for the logical (and usually sneaky) mental maneuvers that the human “shorties” have used to get themselves out of desperate jams. Just maybe that old human craftiness will win over the Dilbians to the human side. If not, we lose a nexus, and the Dilbians will learn just how unbearable Hemnoids can be….”

These three adventures betray their Cold War time-period. The Humans (Americans) and the totalitarian Hemnoids (Soviets) are both expanding through the galaxy, trying to win over the unaligned planets like Dilbia to their spheres of influence. “‘We must influence Dilbians like that chap or the Hemnoids are going to get the inside track on this planet. And the Dilbian system, as I’m sure your hypno training didn’t omit to inform you, is absolutely necessary as a supply and reequipment stage for further expansion on any large scale beyond the Belt Stars. If the Hemnoids beat us out here, they’ve got the thin end of a wedge started that could eventually chop our heads off.’” (pgs. 6-7) The problem is that the Dilbians resemble nine-foot-tall lanky Kodiak bears, and while they prefer to stay neutral in the rivalry between those whom they call the Shorties and the Fatties, they naturally feel more akin to the eight-foot-tall Hemnoids:

“… John saw, a sort of enormous robed, Buddha-like parody of a human being. The Hemnoid was a good eight feet in height, enormously boned, and while not as tall as the Dilbians themselves, fantastically padded with heavy-gravity muscles.” (p. 5) Compared to the Dilbians and the Hemnoids, the humans look like puny weaklings. Also, humans smell bad to Dilbians. The Dilbians’ attitude to the humans is one of friendly but condescending superiority.

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