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Hoka
Hoka! Hoka! Hoka!
THE HOKAS ARE BACK IN THIS CLASSIC OF HUMOROUS SF FROM POUL ANDERSON AND GORDON R. DICKSON.
The Interbeing League had been formed to make contact with new intelligent races in the galaxy and offer them membership. But when the League encountered the Hokas, furry creatures strongly resembling the teddy bears of Earth, the League’s agent, Alexander Jones, could have been excused for wishing he had a simpler assignment than making sense out of the Hokas—such as singlehandedly stopping an interstellar war.
Not that the fuzzy aliens were unfriendly. In fact, they loved everything about humans, and adopted various Terram cultures wholesale and in every little detail—but with a bit of confusion about the differences between fact and fiction. So, if the Hokas suddenly started outing out the parts in a rip-roaring, shoot-em-up western, or brought to life the London of Sherlock Holmes, complete with a pip-puffing, deerstalker-wearing Hoka, or suddenly decided to fly the Jolly Roger and lead a life of adventure and piracy on the high seas, mate—well, that was to be expected. And as the Hokas threw themselves wholeheartedly into progressively wilder worlds from Terran history and fiction, Jones could be excused for feeling that his grip on reality was hanging by a single, thin, increasingly frayed thread.
Praise for the Hokas stories:
“You aren’t apt to find a more gleeful book of S.F.”—The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction
“. . . the funniest s-f ever written.”—A Reader’s Guide to Science Fiction
About Poul Anderson:
"One of science fiction's authentic geniuses."–Chicago Sun-Times
“Anderson fuses elegiac prose and a sweeping vision of man’s technological future…”–Booklist
“One of science fiction’s giants.”–Arthur C. Clarke
About Gordon R. Dickson:
"Dickson is one of SF's standard-bearers."—Publishers Weekly
"Dickson has a true mastery of pacing and fine understanding of human beings."—Seattle Post Intelligencer
"A masterful science fiction writer."—Milwaukee Journal
The Interbeing League had been formed to make contact with new intelligent races in the galaxy and offer them membership. But when the League encountered the Hokas, furry creatures strongly resembling the teddy bears of Earth, the League’s agent, Alexander Jones, could have been excused for wishing he had a simpler assignment than making sense out of the Hokas—such as singlehandedly stopping an interstellar war.
Not that the fuzzy aliens were unfriendly. In fact, they loved everything about humans, and adopted various Terram cultures wholesale and in every little detail—but with a bit of confusion about the differences between fact and fiction. So, if the Hokas suddenly started outing out the parts in a rip-roaring, shoot-em-up western, or brought to life the London of Sherlock Holmes, complete with a pip-puffing, deerstalker-wearing Hoka, or suddenly decided to fly the Jolly Roger and lead a life of adventure and piracy on the high seas, mate—well, that was to be expected. And as the Hokas threw themselves wholeheartedly into progressively wilder worlds from Terran history and fiction, Jones could be excused for feeling that his grip on reality was hanging by a single, thin, increasingly frayed thread.
Praise for the Hokas stories:
“You aren’t apt to find a more gleeful book of S.F.”—The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction
“. . . the funniest s-f ever written.”—A Reader’s Guide to Science Fiction
About Poul Anderson:
"One of science fiction's authentic geniuses."–Chicago Sun-Times
“Anderson fuses elegiac prose and a sweeping vision of man’s technological future…”–Booklist
“One of science fiction’s giants.”–Arthur C. Clarke
About Gordon R. Dickson:
"Dickson is one of SF's standard-bearers."—Publishers Weekly
"Dickson has a true mastery of pacing and fine understanding of human beings."—Seattle Post Intelligencer
"A masterful science fiction writer."—Milwaukee Journal
240 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1983
26 people are currently reading
254 people want to read
About the author
Poul Anderson
1,628 books1,118 followersPseudonym A. A. Craig, Michael Karageorge, Winston P. Sanders, P. A. Kingsley.
Poul William Anderson was an American science fiction author who began his career during one of the Golden Ages of the genre and continued to write and remain popular into the 21st century. Anderson also authored several works of fantasy, historical novels, and a prodigious number of short stories. He received numerous awards for his writing, including seven Hugo Awards and three Nebula Awards.
Anderson received a degree in physics from the University of Minnesota in 1948. He married Karen Kruse in 1953. They had one daughter, Astrid, who is married to science fiction author Greg Bear. Anderson was the sixth President of Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, taking office in 1972. He was a member of the Swordsmen and Sorcerers' Guild of America, a loose-knit group of Heroic Fantasy authors founded in the 1960s, some of whose works were anthologized in Lin Carter's Flashing Swords! anthologies. He was a founding member of the Society for Creative Anachronism. Robert A. Heinlein dedicated his 1985 novel The Cat Who Walks Through Walls to Anderson and eight of the other members of the Citizens' Advisory Council on National Space Policy.[2][3]
Poul Anderson died of cancer on July 31, 2001, after a month in the hospital. Several of his novels were published posthumously.
Series:
* Time Patrol
* Psychotechnic League
* Trygve Yamamura
* Harvest of Stars
* King of Ys
* Last Viking
* Hoka
* Future history of the Polesotechnic League
* Flandry
Poul William Anderson was an American science fiction author who began his career during one of the Golden Ages of the genre and continued to write and remain popular into the 21st century. Anderson also authored several works of fantasy, historical novels, and a prodigious number of short stories. He received numerous awards for his writing, including seven Hugo Awards and three Nebula Awards.
Anderson received a degree in physics from the University of Minnesota in 1948. He married Karen Kruse in 1953. They had one daughter, Astrid, who is married to science fiction author Greg Bear. Anderson was the sixth President of Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, taking office in 1972. He was a member of the Swordsmen and Sorcerers' Guild of America, a loose-knit group of Heroic Fantasy authors founded in the 1960s, some of whose works were anthologized in Lin Carter's Flashing Swords! anthologies. He was a founding member of the Society for Creative Anachronism. Robert A. Heinlein dedicated his 1985 novel The Cat Who Walks Through Walls to Anderson and eight of the other members of the Citizens' Advisory Council on National Space Policy.[2][3]
Poul Anderson died of cancer on July 31, 2001, after a month in the hospital. Several of his novels were published posthumously.
Series:
* Time Patrol
* Psychotechnic League
* Trygve Yamamura
* Harvest of Stars
* King of Ys
* Last Viking
* Hoka
* Future history of the Polesotechnic League
* Flandry
Ratings & Reviews
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Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews
March 12, 2021
This book as by far the cutest most awesomely alien creatures I have ever read about!! Alien teddy bears with a very active imagination who loves human stuff and reacts things in a crazy maner. Cowboys, pirates and so on. It might not be the best written book but it was so much fun and I badly want to see a movie based on this!
May 25, 2018
As with the first book, I really enjoyed the world the authors have built. It's been a couple of years since I read Earthman's Burden, so while I thought a story or two seemed familiar, I didn't really pick up on the fact that most of the stories were the same until later in the book. That was a little disappointing. But I still loved the stories and found the teddy bears totally adorable and entertaining.
There appear to be 3 books in the series. Looking at the contents of each, it seems you could skip this one as the stories in it are contained in both of the other books.
That said - creative, intelligent teddy bear aliens. I mean... TEDDY BEARS.
There appear to be 3 books in the series. Looking at the contents of each, it seems you could skip this one as the stories in it are contained in both of the other books.
That said - creative, intelligent teddy bear aliens. I mean... TEDDY BEARS.
November 8, 2024
Favorite Quote = “‘You un-tentacled mammal!”raged Ush Carusa. ‘You slime-less confirmation of bone flesh.’ Alex had long ago discovered that mankind rarely rests to insult couched in non human terms. It did not offend him at all to be told that he was ‘slime-less.’”
April 9, 2020
Premise: Alexander Jones serves as the Interbeing League's ambassador to the Hokas, a race of aliens that look like teddy bears and have highly overactive imaginations. Whatever role strikes their fancy—cowboys, pirates, Sherlock Holmes, the French Foreign Legion—they play up to eleven. Wacky hijinks ensue!!
Wow, buying this book from the sci-fi paperback section at Half-Price Books about a year ago was the best $2 I ever spent. A book I judged by its awesome cover—a teddy bear driving a spaceship—and was not disappointed. It’s not a novel so much as a collection of short stories, interspersed with brief interludes (letters, orders, etc.). Most of the stories were previously published in magazines, but a few are original.
I gotta say, aside from anything written by Chesterton (who no one can beat), this is the funniest book I’ve ever read. I usually avoid humor fiction, not because I don’t like to laugh, but because I find the sense of humor is often cynical and flippant. Whereas here’s a book that’s hilarious and absurd and even when it’s not making you laugh out loud, just plain fun. There’s even a dash of satire, if you like that. And best of all, it’s not above goofiness (using poisoned tiddlywinks in battle, or keeping a pirate flag in every British galleon “just in case,” or the line “Bit of a brute, that Sergeant LeBrute.”). Favorite stories: probably The Sheriff of Canyon Gulch, In Hoka Signo Vinces, and Yo Ho Yoka!
The Hokas themselves are definitely the best thing this collection has going for it. They’re adorable, sweet, slightly emotionally unstable, but also ridiculously brave and have a really high alcohol tolerance. All of the roles the Hokas take on are from human history or fiction, which creates some interesting themes. Humans feel shock, and perhaps horror, when they see what they don’t take seriously (or no longer take seriously) absolutely and fully adopted without a grain of irony. That’s what great about the Hokas—they may be vaguely aware of the distinction between fantasy and reality, but it hardly matters, because they have no concept of detachment. They live with the incongruity, and love it. As a somewhat compulsive daydreamer who also takes life very seriously, it’s something I relate to and like to see in fiction. Reminds me of a quote from The Napoleon of Notting Hill (a Chesterton novel): “If we have taken the child’s games, and given them the seriousness of a Crusade … we have turned the nursery into a temple.”
There’s other great points, too: Alexander Jones has the potential to be a bland protagonist, but the author works a few twists and turns into his character that make him more than just the ‘straight man.’ My favorite character, featured in Yo Ho Hoka!, is Olaf, a Hoka Viking in search of the great city Constantinople. But … Constantinople doesn’t exist on the planet Hoka … yet. Olaf brings a strange melancholy into the Hoka gleefulness, with his search for an unreachable city. And this is the one place where the author takes the Hokas with as much gravity as they take themselves— “The Hoka Viking turned slowly to regard the human. In the sunset, above the droop of his long blond mustaches, his face seemed to hold a certain Varangian indomitability.”
But with all that, Hoka! Hoka! Hoka! isn’t perfect. The weakest thing is probably the writing itself, which is sometimes clunky. The female humans aren’t great either; Alexander’s wife, Tanni, is okay, but with the other two the author succumbs to the “sexy girl throwing herself on the protagonist” trap (blech). The interludes can probably be skipped without much loss to the story, although you would miss the gentle satire of colonialism, which is mostly embedded in those segments.
As a whole, though, any book that makes me laugh as often as this can’t go wrong too often. It’s up there in my favorite sci-fi fiction. Great stuff.
Wow, buying this book from the sci-fi paperback section at Half-Price Books about a year ago was the best $2 I ever spent. A book I judged by its awesome cover—a teddy bear driving a spaceship—and was not disappointed. It’s not a novel so much as a collection of short stories, interspersed with brief interludes (letters, orders, etc.). Most of the stories were previously published in magazines, but a few are original.
I gotta say, aside from anything written by Chesterton (who no one can beat), this is the funniest book I’ve ever read. I usually avoid humor fiction, not because I don’t like to laugh, but because I find the sense of humor is often cynical and flippant. Whereas here’s a book that’s hilarious and absurd and even when it’s not making you laugh out loud, just plain fun. There’s even a dash of satire, if you like that. And best of all, it’s not above goofiness (using poisoned tiddlywinks in battle, or keeping a pirate flag in every British galleon “just in case,” or the line “Bit of a brute, that Sergeant LeBrute.”). Favorite stories: probably The Sheriff of Canyon Gulch, In Hoka Signo Vinces, and Yo Ho Yoka!
The Hokas themselves are definitely the best thing this collection has going for it. They’re adorable, sweet, slightly emotionally unstable, but also ridiculously brave and have a really high alcohol tolerance. All of the roles the Hokas take on are from human history or fiction, which creates some interesting themes. Humans feel shock, and perhaps horror, when they see what they don’t take seriously (or no longer take seriously) absolutely and fully adopted without a grain of irony. That’s what great about the Hokas—they may be vaguely aware of the distinction between fantasy and reality, but it hardly matters, because they have no concept of detachment. They live with the incongruity, and love it. As a somewhat compulsive daydreamer who also takes life very seriously, it’s something I relate to and like to see in fiction. Reminds me of a quote from The Napoleon of Notting Hill (a Chesterton novel): “If we have taken the child’s games, and given them the seriousness of a Crusade … we have turned the nursery into a temple.”
There’s other great points, too: Alexander Jones has the potential to be a bland protagonist, but the author works a few twists and turns into his character that make him more than just the ‘straight man.’ My favorite character, featured in Yo Ho Hoka!, is Olaf, a Hoka Viking in search of the great city Constantinople. But … Constantinople doesn’t exist on the planet Hoka … yet. Olaf brings a strange melancholy into the Hoka gleefulness, with his search for an unreachable city. And this is the one place where the author takes the Hokas with as much gravity as they take themselves— “The Hoka Viking turned slowly to regard the human. In the sunset, above the droop of his long blond mustaches, his face seemed to hold a certain Varangian indomitability.”
But with all that, Hoka! Hoka! Hoka! isn’t perfect. The weakest thing is probably the writing itself, which is sometimes clunky. The female humans aren’t great either; Alexander’s wife, Tanni, is okay, but with the other two the author succumbs to the “sexy girl throwing herself on the protagonist” trap (blech). The interludes can probably be skipped without much loss to the story, although you would miss the gentle satire of colonialism, which is mostly embedded in those segments.
As a whole, though, any book that makes me laugh as often as this can’t go wrong too often. It’s up there in my favorite sci-fi fiction. Great stuff.
February 18, 2023
One of the funniest book I ever read. I (almost) died laughing - but decided to write a review first. So if you are a veeery serious person who doesn't want to be caught smiling - avoid this book. All others: enjoy.
May 2, 2022
Fun book. Hoka's are just a lot of laughs.
April 7, 2023
Delightful read. One of the most entertaining and fun things I've read in ages. I couldnt wait to tell my wife and daughter about it.
April 6, 2025
Screwball tales of cosplaying “Ewoks”. I did not expect this level of manic energy in one book. The Don Jones story had me proper belly laughing and I couldn’t help but think of the French taunting King Arthur scenes in the Monty Python and the Holy Grail whilst listening to the Tiddlywink Warriors.
May 21, 2012
I'm sure those of you that know me will well and guess that the Hoka books are my favourite Poul Anderson books with Hoka Hoka Hoka being the best. I am a sucker for stories that are well written but yet make me laugh. The world is so full of serious that when I want to escape, I want to shoot up to the stars all the way. The best part of the book Hoka Hoka Hoka is that the stories are written along with one of my other favourite authors Gordon R. Dickson. He may not be a Grandmaster like Poul Anderson, but he certainly shares a wonderful sense of humour with him.
This is a collection of short stories about Alexander Jones the plenipotentiary for the Hokas homeworld and his unfortunate attempts to deal with the Hokas crazy imaginations. They are an alien race of teddy-bear like creatures that take all human literature completely literally and immerse themselves entirely in the roles they read about - invariably with comedic results. After all, an ursine Sherlock Holmes hot on the trail of an interstellar dope smuggler or the French Foreign League heading off to rescue Alex's wife when she crash lands can't end well! These tales are definitely worth a good cup of coffee on a sunny Sunday afternoon. I hope you enjoy them as much as I have!
This is a collection of short stories about Alexander Jones the plenipotentiary for the Hokas homeworld and his unfortunate attempts to deal with the Hokas crazy imaginations. They are an alien race of teddy-bear like creatures that take all human literature completely literally and immerse themselves entirely in the roles they read about - invariably with comedic results. After all, an ursine Sherlock Holmes hot on the trail of an interstellar dope smuggler or the French Foreign League heading off to rescue Alex's wife when she crash lands can't end well! These tales are definitely worth a good cup of coffee on a sunny Sunday afternoon. I hope you enjoy them as much as I have!
February 1, 2016
Shenanigans ensue on a world inhabited by sentient teddy bears who really get into Earth stories and culture.
A really cute idea and overall a fun read, this is one collection of short stories that is probably best read over a period of time instead of all at once as some of the contrivances needed to get the story started some become repetitive and annoying. Also the writing really shows it's age and the less said about the one woman who is represented in the stories is written the better.
Not a horrible way to introduce young readers to science fiction, though the creaky writing style and language...as well as some of the settings that aren't as common today as they were when the stories were written might make it harder for them to get into the stories. I read it for the nostalgia factor and it was definitely worth it for that.
A really cute idea and overall a fun read, this is one collection of short stories that is probably best read over a period of time instead of all at once as some of the contrivances needed to get the story started some become repetitive and annoying. Also the writing really shows it's age and the less said about the one woman who is represented in the stories is written the better.
Not a horrible way to introduce young readers to science fiction, though the creaky writing style and language...as well as some of the settings that aren't as common today as they were when the stories were written might make it harder for them to get into the stories. I read it for the nostalgia factor and it was definitely worth it for that.
August 3, 2012
Not much to comment on this one. A purely campy book in which small teddy bear-like creatures completely emulate whatever they happened to recently read or see in a movie. Earth has assigned Alexsander Jones as plenipotentary of the planet Toka, an overseer of sorts to the Hoka. The book is comprised of novelettes following Alexander Jones adventures: Western, Space Patrol, Pirates, French Legionnaire, to name a few. This is not a book to be taken seriously. A good book for traveling or waiting around for appointments - you can pick it up and put it down without too much thought.
Recommended if you like a little scifi fluff, skip it if you can name the monster in episode #33 of Star Trek.
Recommended if you like a little scifi fluff, skip it if you can name the monster in episode #33 of Star Trek.
August 1, 2013
[My comments are on Hoka! Hoka! Hoka! and Hokas Pokas]
Both books are set in the future, where all the planets are in some sort of U.N. thing, and they discover new planets and then slowly work with these new inhabitants until they reach the stage where they can be part of the group.
By the way, I didn't mention this, but its a comedy science fiction. The planet in question has creatures (that are like short teddy bear looking creatures) who mimic whatever they read. The books are split into separate chapters, each having the Hokas being engaged in a new identity that they mimic, such as a society of cowboys.
I know this sounds stupid and childish, but it is actually funny a lot of times! No, really. Seriously. It is.
Both books are set in the future, where all the planets are in some sort of U.N. thing, and they discover new planets and then slowly work with these new inhabitants until they reach the stage where they can be part of the group.
By the way, I didn't mention this, but its a comedy science fiction. The planet in question has creatures (that are like short teddy bear looking creatures) who mimic whatever they read. The books are split into separate chapters, each having the Hokas being engaged in a new identity that they mimic, such as a society of cowboys.
I know this sounds stupid and childish, but it is actually funny a lot of times! No, really. Seriously. It is.
August 14, 2013
This is a book that is a bit slow to start but after the first story I felt really invested. It was hard at times to follow the story line with all the changes in characters, but I overall enjoyed it and feel like it's a book that if I read it again I would catch a lot more and like it even more that I already do.
March 11, 2014
This is a great adventure book about a planet full of cute teddy bear creatures with more imagination than is comfortable for those around them. Each chapter is a single short story. The book reads aloud well and fired the imagination of my 10 and 13 year old boys.
December 27, 2013
Still stands up despite its years, very funny.
Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews