Need help remembering a Sci-Fi book/short story series

[red-beard]

This was a series about robot space ships that were intent on destroying the human race. I remember it more as a series of short stories. The book was a collection of shorts and only half of it was dedicated to the killer space war ships.

One Story had a guy hit by some weird ray that turned him stupid. He taught his pet "monkey" to play something like Chinese checkers to outwit the killer ships, while other ships arrived to help.

Another story involved prisoners inside one of the ships, with a guy wearing an eye patch.

Another was with a guy with a sense of humor, who was exiled to the most outer defense station. The robot ship captured him, but didn't know what killing was. He convinces the robot-ship that comedy was killing and send it to the main planet where the final scene it hits the planet with a giant custard pie.

Anyone read any of these and remember the author or series?

[gwood]

Berserkers by Fred Saberhagen.

[foxpaws]

Great series -

Also - I know vampire books are sort of de rigour these days - but he wrote two of my favs - An Old Friend of the Family and The Holmes-Dracula File

He lived in Albuquerque - and would come up to Denver for Cons- he was a great guy, had many drinks and a few dinners with him... The Sci Fi community misses him...

[BlueSkyJaunte]

Sounds right. Not my favorite SF author by any stretch but certainly better than a lot of the dreck that gets published nowadays (a back-handed compliment if there ever was one).

One of the series is available for free from baen.com: Berserker Throne by Fred Saberhagen - WebScription Ebook

[red-beard]

Thanks Mr. Wood. That is the correct series.

I used to have a bunch more books around here and I don't know what happened to them. I lost a foot locker in college and there were a bunch in there...