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3.61 AVERAGE
3.61 AVERAGE
I took until the last 25 pages for me to care about this story. The plot is interesting and the world unique, but I found the story lacking in the short run of the book. I may pick up the next to see where it goes, but as of right now probably not.
http://nwhyte.livejournal.com/1332783.html[return][return]I am always a bit nervous about returning to books I enjoyed when I was much younger. Will the magic survive? I had fond memories of Farmer's four-part Riverboat series, despite the very unsatisfactory ending, and the peculiarly anal accuracy of some descriptions ('the mountains were seven miles or 11265 metres high', if I remember correctly from one of the later books). There is a brilliant central sensawunda concept: all of humanity who ever lived (up to the year 2008, and who survived past the age of seven) are resurrected on the shores of a world-twisting river, apparently as some gigantic social anthropology experiment. Richard Burton (the explorer, not the actor) attempts to find out What Is Really Going On, aided in later volumes by Samuel Clemens / Mark Twain.[return][return]Coming back to the first book 25 years after I first read it, I am sorry to say that I found it pretty dire. Farmer is too dazzled by the audacious brilliance of his concept to actually write interesting characters or settings - one early warning is when he writes himself into the book, as Peter Joseph Frigate, to tell us just how interesting Burton is. There are numerous blunders of racial or gender sensitivity, of which the most boringly repetitive is a bizarre fixation with Hermann G
Notes:
- Enjoyed the mix of time/places of the resurrected.
- I would have liked the story more if it wasn't a bunch of summaries. The parts where the characters were interacting with the world or involved in events were better than the blip summaries on blah blah happened.
- My library has the series. I'll get around to the other books.
- Enjoyed the mix of time/places of the resurrected.
- I would have liked the story more if it wasn't a bunch of summaries. The parts where the characters were interacting with the world or involved in events were better than the blip summaries on blah blah happened.
- My library has the series. I'll get around to the other books.
Farmer is not your ordinary story-teller, and this is is one of his more inventive works. Ultimately I got a little lost in the story, but the core idea was so compelling I gladly followed through to the end.
What sounded like an interesting premise was actually an incredibly unpleasant journey with unpleasant people that killed any interest in the purported mystery of what’s actually going on.
adventurous
mysterious
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
The plot of this book sounds so fun. After Armageddon, all of humanity is resurrected along the bank of an endless river and a team of smart folks build a boat to travel up the river to find the purpose of this world. Along the way they meet various historical icons. Perhaps they meet Mother Theresa, John Wilkes Booth, or Mark Twain?! But what I get is a cynical book with a totally unlikable, psychopathic protagonist who only allows hot girls into his team and measures men by how useful they might be. Humanity immediately starts killing and raping each other, even though they are well fed by whatever put them there. This book is just negative and disrespectful to the variety of cultures and faiths. One shocking thing about this story is that the protagonist insists that he respects Jewish people every time someone calls him an anti-Semite, but in the last half of the book he TEAMS UP WITH A LITERAL NAZI! I am certain the author was blind to a lot of the problems in this story. Still, I enjoyed the overarching mystery about the world.
Ok, sabía que eran 4 entregas, pero confiaba que esta me explicara un poco más.
Veamos, me gustó el libro. Me gustó esa sensación de completa confusión al inicio (similar a la que sienten los protagonistas). Disfruté del hecho de que fueran personajes históricos y toda la construcción del Mundo Río.
Burton como protagonista estuvo bien, es como el típico héroe de novela de aventuras, así que no tengo quejas ni esperaba mucho más. Del resto de los personajes creo que el que más me interesó fue Hermann (creo que así se escribía). Alice fue un desperdicio, estaba ahí para que la violaran y para que Burton tuviera alguien a quien desear. Entiendo que el libro tiene casi 50 años, por eso el machismo y sexismo de él no afectó lo que yo pienso del libro. Solo afectó que por momentos me cansaba el continuo violar, pelear y matar de los hombres.
Creo que en contra me jugó el que Burton hiciera cálculos tan buenos que después los Éticos reafirman. Se suponía que sus datos eran estimados, pero luego ellos dan los mismos números. Ahí me falló un poco la creación del autor. Las dos opciones que daban del Mundo Rio (versión Éticos y versión antiÉticos) se me hicieron casi igual de insulsas. Ojalá la real sea más interesante.
Estuvo divertido. Es probable que lea los otros eventualmente.
Veamos, me gustó el libro. Me gustó esa sensación de completa confusión al inicio (similar a la que sienten los protagonistas). Disfruté del hecho de que fueran personajes históricos y toda la construcción del Mundo Río.
Burton como protagonista estuvo bien, es como el típico héroe de novela de aventuras, así que no tengo quejas ni esperaba mucho más. Del resto de los personajes creo que el que más me interesó fue Hermann (creo que así se escribía). Alice fue un desperdicio, estaba ahí para que la violaran y para que Burton tuviera alguien a quien desear. Entiendo que el libro tiene casi 50 años, por eso el machismo y sexismo de él no afectó lo que yo pienso del libro. Solo afectó que por momentos me cansaba el continuo violar, pelear y matar de los hombres.
Creo que en contra me jugó el que Burton hiciera cálculos tan buenos que después los Éticos reafirman. Se suponía que sus datos eran estimados, pero luego ellos dan los mismos números. Ahí me falló un poco la creación del autor. Las dos opciones que daban del Mundo Rio (versión Éticos y versión antiÉticos) se me hicieron casi igual de insulsas. Ojalá la real sea más interesante.
Estuvo divertido. Es probable que lea los otros eventualmente.
The premise of this book is captivating, but the series wore thin rather quickly for me. Anyone who is fairly serious about be versed in SF should probably read at least this first book.
What would happen if all of humanity was inexplicably resurrected after death on a vast alien world?
A frequent daydream of mine is to imagine "If I was suddenly transported back in time..." Farmer's daydream has a fantastic variation on the theme of time travel: Every human being who ever lived (including Da Vinci, Genghis Khan, Gandhi, Abraham Lincoln, Oscar Wilde, Cleopatra, Hitler, Elizabeth I - plus the billions of mere rank and filers from every era and region) suddenly wakes up in a vast world dominated by impassable mountains and a giant River. With every physical need provided for, obviously resurrected humanity starts over with new wars and slavery, just to keep things interesting.
The new world is a mystery that one man wants to solve: Sir Richard Francis Burton caught a glimpse behind the curtain of Riverworld before resurrection and is determined to interrogate the man behind the curtain. He explores the endless River with a small group of companions and slowly begins to understand that Riverworld is no supernaturally created afterlife. In fact, the designers may have dark plans for humanity. Half the fun of reading this book is learning more about the Riverworld, so I won't say more about the plot or specifics of the world.
In choosing historical figures, Farmer shows perfect taste: the talented polyglot explorer Richard Francis Burton (1821–1890), Nazi Reichsmarschall Herman Göring (1893–1946), and Alice Liddell Hargreaves (1852–1934). Burton is a fascinating character, full of contradictions, and Farmer obviously knows a lot about his eventful life. Göring, too, is given depth and interest beyond that of a Nazi sociopath. The only shortcoming is Hargreaves, who gets a fairly perfunctory treatment as a love interest (most of the women seem to be here merely to be admired for their figures). The women are frequently lumped in with the property (you know: food, tobacco, women), though you can tell Farmer attempts to give them some credit for action and independent thought. Sexism is a common problem of old-school science fiction, though Farmer is not as bad as some.
It's a fascinating book, and I highly recommend it to fans of classic science fiction. If you enjoyed Larry Nivens' Ringworld or Alfred Bester's The Stars My Destination, you'll love To Your Scattered Bodies Go. It's not necessary to know about Sir Richard Burton's real life, but he's such a fascinating character you'll probably want to pick up one of the biographies about him by either Edward Rice or Byron Farwell.
Next up: Farmer's sequel, The Fabulous Riverboat, starring Samuel Clemens!
Quotable:
"Burton, despite the scoffings of his twentieth-century friends, believed steadfastly in most of the superstitions he had nourished on Earth. He often laughed at the superstitions of others, but he knew that some numbers held good fortune for him, that silver placed on his eyes would rejuvenate his body when it was tired and would help his second sight, the perception that warned him ahead of time of evil situations." - 199
A frequent daydream of mine is to imagine "If I was suddenly transported back in time..." Farmer's daydream has a fantastic variation on the theme of time travel: Every human being who ever lived (including Da Vinci, Genghis Khan, Gandhi, Abraham Lincoln, Oscar Wilde, Cleopatra, Hitler, Elizabeth I - plus the billions of mere rank and filers from every era and region) suddenly wakes up in a vast world dominated by impassable mountains and a giant River. With every physical need provided for, obviously resurrected humanity starts over with new wars and slavery, just to keep things interesting.
The new world is a mystery that one man wants to solve: Sir Richard Francis Burton caught a glimpse behind the curtain of Riverworld before resurrection and is determined to interrogate the man behind the curtain. He explores the endless River with a small group of companions and slowly begins to understand that Riverworld is no supernaturally created afterlife. In fact, the designers may have dark plans for humanity. Half the fun of reading this book is learning more about the Riverworld, so I won't say more about the plot or specifics of the world.
In choosing historical figures, Farmer shows perfect taste: the talented polyglot explorer Richard Francis Burton (1821–1890), Nazi Reichsmarschall Herman Göring (1893–1946), and Alice Liddell Hargreaves (1852–1934). Burton is a fascinating character, full of contradictions, and Farmer obviously knows a lot about his eventful life. Göring, too, is given depth and interest beyond that of a Nazi sociopath. The only shortcoming is Hargreaves, who gets a fairly perfunctory treatment as a love interest (most of the women seem to be here merely to be admired for their figures). The women are frequently lumped in with the property (you know: food, tobacco, women), though you can tell Farmer attempts to give them some credit for action and independent thought. Sexism is a common problem of old-school science fiction, though Farmer is not as bad as some.
It's a fascinating book, and I highly recommend it to fans of classic science fiction. If you enjoyed Larry Nivens' Ringworld or Alfred Bester's The Stars My Destination, you'll love To Your Scattered Bodies Go. It's not necessary to know about Sir Richard Burton's real life, but he's such a fascinating character you'll probably want to pick up one of the biographies about him by either Edward Rice or Byron Farwell.
Next up: Farmer's sequel, The Fabulous Riverboat, starring Samuel Clemens!
Quotable:
"Burton, despite the scoffings of his twentieth-century friends, believed steadfastly in most of the superstitions he had nourished on Earth. He often laughed at the superstitions of others, but he knew that some numbers held good fortune for him, that silver placed on his eyes would rejuvenate his body when it was tired and would help his second sight, the perception that warned him ahead of time of evil situations." - 199