'A Time to Kill' is straightforward, high-intensity combat sf set on a planet of the alien Melchorians it's undoubtedly the hardest piece to get into and the most exhausting to finish. And everyone is determined to control the universe known as Hell's Gate. 'The Traitor' is a Bolo who dies defending some refugee children, though they urge their protector to save himself. Readers will find everything from imperial courts and military dictatorships, to religion-based tyrannies, democratic republics, independent city-states, clan-based nomads, and just about everything in between. David's genius for political intrigue gives both major civilizations their own interior governments and factions, until the story's politics make the Gordian knot look simple. Controlled by their tireless electronic brains which were programmed to admit no possibility of defeat, the gigantic robot tanks known. The struggle just to figure out how the opponent's technology functions leads to all sorts of complications.ĭavid and I spent more than a year developing the created worlds for Hell's Gate.

The stakes are drastic, the confrontation is quickly out of control, and the characters are caught in a struggle to remain honorable and civilized in the face of unimaginable horrors each side can unleash. When two men from profoundly different human civilizations inhabiting different parallel universes unexpectedly meet in a primeval forest, two shots are fired, both men are hit, and both sides are abruptly faced with a war that threatens to spread through dozens of inhabited universes. It does so in a wildly plausible mishmash that was both demanding and delightful to write. The result is a story that blends high wizardry, fire-breathing dragons (and their riders), telepathy and other psionics, turn-of-the-20th-century Newtonian physics, military science fiction and military fantasy, parallel universes with portals between them, and far-ranging adventure. Old Soldiers (January 2007) ISBN 1-4165-0898-8, a Bolo tank story Collaborations With Steve White Starfire series (based on the Starfire games). Stories of Bolo tanks with artificial intelligence. Hell's Gate gathers up the elements of at least four major sub-genres of science fiction and fantasy, twists them diabolically, then disintegrates the borders between them. Works set in the Bolo fictional universe created by Keith Laumer.

Bolo david weber