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Hoka #3
Hoka!
Vintage paperback
219 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1983
2 people are currently reading
159 people want to read
About the author
Gordon R. Dickson
587 books377 followersGordon Rupert Dickson was an American science fiction author. He was born in Canada, then moved to Minneapolis, Minnesota as a teenager. He is probably most famous for his Childe Cycle and the Dragon Knight series. He won three Hugo awards and one Nebula award.
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
October 4, 2025
This is a collection of four novelettes featuring the teddy-bear-like aliens from the planet Toka who mimic Earth fictions with unexpected and comedic results. The stories are sly and clever and very well-written and charming and very, very funny. Along with some framing material, there are four stories collected here, The Napoleon Crime from a 1983 issue of Analog and three from 1950s issues of F & SF; Undiplomatic Immunity, Full Pack (aka Hokas Wild), and my favorite, Joy in Mudville. Each story is nicely illustrated by a different artist, and there's a very cool Michael Whelan cover. (The cover lists the title as "Hoka" and the title page as "Hoka!" but either way... Pure fun... what kind of a grump doesn't like teddy bears?
July 12, 2017
A collection of comedic short stories about a planet of imaginative, literal-minded, impressionable... alien teddy bears. To some extent, "alien teddy bears cosplay famous Earth history and fiction" is the entirety of the joke.
"Joy in Mudville" ★★½ | Baseball is apparently a galactic pastime in this universe (humans' primary advantage seems to be the exportation of popular culture) so the Hokas have their own team, with stereotypes to match. (Their designated hitter is "Casey" after the poem "Casey at the Bat," and experiences a crisis of confidence whenever he hears the poem.) They face off against a team of cheating lizard-octopus aliens. Weird, mildly amusing.
"Undiplomatic Immunity" ★★★ | Probably the best one of the set. The human delegate to the Hokas returns to Earth to negotiate their upgrade in status towards full independence, but there's a conspiracy brewing, and the Hokas he brought along have all decided to act out a British espionage novel (with one of them continually referring to other characters as "old [vegetable]," for example "old turnip" or "old onion."
"Full Pack (Hokas Wild)" ★½ | Featuring the delegate's wife, Tanni, and this time the Hokas are hooked on The Jungle Books. It just so happens that a trio of ape-like, snake-like, and tiger-like aliens have apparently crash-landed nearby and might need Tanni's help. The actual plot is suuuper obvious and yet rather plodding. The readiness with which the darker-furred southern-continent Hokas decide to play the Indians of the British Raj (before they get their paws on Kipling) is more than a little weird, especially since the humans never seem to tell them so.
"The Napoleon Crime" ★★½ | Certainly more plotty than the others, but somewhat overlong. There's a possible conspiracy underfoot to teach the Hokas about war. How can a looming conflict between the Georgist-English-cosplaying Hokas and the Napoleonic-cosplaying Hokas be defused, and the offworld agitators rooted out?
"The Bear That Walks Like a Man" ½ | "Publisher's Note: It has been noted elsewhere that some ideas are so dumb that only intellectuals can believe them. Particularly, left-wing intellectuals. We offer the following as proof." And what follows is some sort of in-universe communist-inflected "criticism" of the previous Hoka stories as "bourgeois propaganda"... it's confusing and weird, because in universe they might actually have some valid points (humanity's policy is very much not Prime Directive even though they keep the nice toys away from the Hokas) but at the same time it's the author's universe, so if they declare it to be Rule of Cool and/or Fun then of course the complaints are stupid. But on the other hand, some of the criticism that they're mocking would actually be valid in the real world...
OVERALL: ★★. The fact that the Hokas haven't encountered human pop culture newer than about 1920 makes everything seem a bit more like "Anderson and Dickson make alien teddy bears cosplay their favorite childhood stories." If that sounds amusing, check it out. I chuckled during the spy story but otherwise mostly just rolled my eyes. At least it's a super quick read.
"Joy in Mudville" ★★½ | Baseball is apparently a galactic pastime in this universe (humans' primary advantage seems to be the exportation of popular culture) so the Hokas have their own team, with stereotypes to match. (Their designated hitter is "Casey" after the poem "Casey at the Bat," and experiences a crisis of confidence whenever he hears the poem.) They face off against a team of cheating lizard-octopus aliens. Weird, mildly amusing.
"Undiplomatic Immunity" ★★★ | Probably the best one of the set. The human delegate to the Hokas returns to Earth to negotiate their upgrade in status towards full independence, but there's a conspiracy brewing, and the Hokas he brought along have all decided to act out a British espionage novel (with one of them continually referring to other characters as "old [vegetable]," for example "old turnip" or "old onion."
"Full Pack (Hokas Wild)" ★½ | Featuring the delegate's wife, Tanni, and this time the Hokas are hooked on The Jungle Books. It just so happens that a trio of ape-like, snake-like, and tiger-like aliens have apparently crash-landed nearby and might need Tanni's help. The actual plot is suuuper obvious and yet rather plodding. The readiness with which the darker-furred southern-continent Hokas decide to play the Indians of the British Raj (before they get their paws on Kipling) is more than a little weird, especially since the humans never seem to tell them so.
"The Napoleon Crime" ★★½ | Certainly more plotty than the others, but somewhat overlong. There's a possible conspiracy underfoot to teach the Hokas about war. How can a looming conflict between the Georgist-English-cosplaying Hokas and the Napoleonic-cosplaying Hokas be defused, and the offworld agitators rooted out?
"The Bear That Walks Like a Man" ½ | "Publisher's Note: It has been noted elsewhere that some ideas are so dumb that only intellectuals can believe them. Particularly, left-wing intellectuals. We offer the following as proof." And what follows is some sort of in-universe communist-inflected "criticism" of the previous Hoka stories as "bourgeois propaganda"... it's confusing and weird, because in universe they might actually have some valid points (humanity's policy is very much not Prime Directive even though they keep the nice toys away from the Hokas) but at the same time it's the author's universe, so if they declare it to be Rule of Cool and/or Fun then of course the complaints are stupid. But on the other hand, some of the criticism that they're mocking would actually be valid in the real world...
OVERALL: ★★. The fact that the Hokas haven't encountered human pop culture newer than about 1920 makes everything seem a bit more like "Anderson and Dickson make alien teddy bears cosplay their favorite childhood stories." If that sounds amusing, check it out. I chuckled during the spy story but otherwise mostly just rolled my eyes. At least it's a super quick read.
October 20, 2008
Earthman's burden
Alexander Jones crash lands to find himself among a sentient race that have briefly met humans once before, at least long enough to read a western novel. Now the entire Hoka culture has come to be based on the limited repertoire of westerns they read. Now they are teddy bears in chaps riding the local version of 'horses'. Later with more books to read subcultures based on other literary genres are the backdrops to other short stories.
Jones survives his first meeting but is sent back as the plenipotentiary to the Hokan race. This would be fine except they can and do change their entire culture whenever they find a new idea that catches their imaginations and they are very imaginative.
Alexander Jones crash lands to find himself among a sentient race that have briefly met humans once before, at least long enough to read a western novel. Now the entire Hoka culture has come to be based on the limited repertoire of westerns they read. Now they are teddy bears in chaps riding the local version of 'horses'. Later with more books to read subcultures based on other literary genres are the backdrops to other short stories.
Jones survives his first meeting but is sent back as the plenipotentiary to the Hokan race. This would be fine except they can and do change their entire culture whenever they find a new idea that catches their imaginations and they are very imaginative.
January 31, 2022
I did not realize that this book was a part of a series until after I read it and updated it on here. The book seemed like such an interesting concept to me and Ioved the cover art. I found a copy for 75 cents and gave it a read. At the start I was intrigued. As the book continued I realized that it reads more like a series of short stories around the realm of Toka than one cohesive novel. The early stories (Joys in Mudville and Undiplomatic Immunity) were excellent in my opinion. The decline then started with the Jungle book story arc (full pack - Hokas wild) still good but the start of unwanted wonkiness. But then the final story (Napoleon Crime) in my opinion was horrible. It almost ruined the whole book for me. I found this part of the book rather uncreative and just took me out of the story. I wanted to read about teddy bears in space comingling with aliens, not some historical reenactment. That's just me. Don't get me wrong, the idea or concept of this arc was neat. See how advanced the Hokas can get and they evolve as humans do on the path or both war and knowledge. But with this being said, the action of this part of the book was just kind of corny, hard to follow, and overall lame to me. In general I loved the concept and art included in this book, I just thought the story went to a place I wasn't expecting and I don't mean that in a good way to be honest. I'll go back and read the first two and see if this changes my perception of this book.
Read
March 27, 2022The series of stories follow a human representative of an interstellar federation on a world with teddy bear-like aliens who are odd and tend to take up roles based on human fiction.
I enjoyed the first story, but didn't find the following stories provided enough new ideas (or at least not that connected with me.) I think it's partly the extent of continuing portrayal of the stress on the (hapless?) human representative. And amount of reference to bureaucracy and friction with other diplomats. Perhaps, it's not entirely those elements in and of themselves, perhaps it's those elements from an older period of time.
I enjoyed the first story, but didn't find the following stories provided enough new ideas (or at least not that connected with me.) I think it's partly the extent of continuing portrayal of the stress on the (hapless?) human representative. And amount of reference to bureaucracy and friction with other diplomats. Perhaps, it's not entirely those elements in and of themselves, perhaps it's those elements from an older period of time.
November 13, 2020
It was a great follow up! I didn't read the second book though...I'll have to fix that!
August 13, 2016
The continuing comic adventures of those amazing alien teddy bears who love playing out fiction, and Alex, still plenipotentiary, trying to cope.
Four stories here, longer than the first ones. We have a baseball episode, interstellar intrigue that the Hokas tackle like Foreign Service novels, a Jungle Book adventure with three aliens -- and Tanni instead of Alex, for once -- and a final grand adventure centering around a Hoka Napoleon. For once, Alex actually has to explain that a Hoka can call himself Napoleon and still be sane. By Hoka standards. It even provides a resounding conclusion.
Four stories here, longer than the first ones. We have a baseball episode, interstellar intrigue that the Hokas tackle like Foreign Service novels, a Jungle Book adventure with three aliens -- and Tanni instead of Alex, for once -- and a final grand adventure centering around a Hoka Napoleon. For once, Alex actually has to explain that a Hoka can call himself Napoleon and still be sane. By Hoka standards. It even provides a resounding conclusion.
June 12, 2014
Dangerous teddy bears. Great fun.
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews