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A review by cruelspirit
The Dark Design by Philip José Farmer
adventurous
challenging
mysterious
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.0
Book three in the Riverworld series. After my love of the first book and my dissapointment with the second I was aprehensive about getting into book three. After being exposed to a highly imaginative world, full of mystery and adventure in the first book I was let down with the near removal of everything I loved in the second book. Considering this book is nearly twice as long as both of those were, I was hesitant to get into book three.
Luckily it seems Philip José Farmer took the criticisms I had 45 years before I even expressed them. A lot of what I loved about To Your Scattered Bodies Go was revisited in The Dark Design. Familiar characters are back and new ones are actually interesting, they are going on adventures again, the societies they visit are more interesting, and the mystery is being unraveled. It feels like what you signed up for in the first book while building on top of it, taking things up a notch. There is a bigger focus on spirituality and dreams in this book and it is interesting to see where Farmer takes those ideas.
Philip José Farmer introduced his, not so subtle, self insert character Peter Frigate in the first book but here he is a main character. In To Your Scattered Bodies Go I found this to be a fun addition that added to the bizarre tone of the book. Here I still enjoy it as it really adds more to that "out of the box sci fi" tone. There are many tangents that Farmer goes on in this book, one of which is pretty much just turning this book into his auto biography. Personally, I enjoyed this but I can see some readers taking issue with it.
Unfortunately, there are a lot of problems too. Many of the dull and dry moments from the second book, The Fabulous Riverboat, are back. So little of importance happened in that book that I could almost recommend skipping it outright. Unfortuately, they do reference events that happened in that book but you could just read a synopsis in order to stay up to date. The Dark Design is also very bloated. This seems to be the biggest complaint most people have. Reading the introduction, Farmer even says this book was supposed to be longer, leading to there being a fourth book. A lot could have been ommitted or streamlined for a more enjoyable reading experience.
Once again Farmer shows that action is one of his weaker skills. You wouldn't think action would be so bland but every time an action scene happened I was left wishing we were back to world building or uncovering mystery.
A big change in this book is the shifting between multiple characters and their perspectives. I read plenty of books like this so that wasn't that much of an issue for me but I found a lot of character's experiences to be pretty repetitive of each other, which definitely lead to confusion in comprehension. There are so many ships and airships that characters are building, or chasing after that they all start to blend together.
Overall there are points that I liked as much as the first book, reminding me why I'm still reading this series. I'm interested in continuting on but for as much as I liked parts of this book there were plenty that annoyed me, leading to a middle of the road score.
Luckily it seems Philip José Farmer took the criticisms I had 45 years before I even expressed them. A lot of what I loved about To Your Scattered Bodies Go was revisited in The Dark Design. Familiar characters are back and new ones are actually interesting, they are going on adventures again, the societies they visit are more interesting, and the mystery is being unraveled. It feels like what you signed up for in the first book while building on top of it, taking things up a notch. There is a bigger focus on spirituality and dreams in this book and it is interesting to see where Farmer takes those ideas.
Philip José Farmer introduced his, not so subtle, self insert character Peter Frigate in the first book but here he is a main character. In To Your Scattered Bodies Go I found this to be a fun addition that added to the bizarre tone of the book. Here I still enjoy it as it really adds more to that "out of the box sci fi" tone. There are many tangents that Farmer goes on in this book, one of which is pretty much just turning this book into his auto biography. Personally, I enjoyed this but I can see some readers taking issue with it.
Unfortunately, there are a lot of problems too. Many of the dull and dry moments from the second book, The Fabulous Riverboat, are back. So little of importance happened in that book that I could almost recommend skipping it outright. Unfortuately, they do reference events that happened in that book but you could just read a synopsis in order to stay up to date. The Dark Design is also very bloated. This seems to be the biggest complaint most people have. Reading the introduction, Farmer even says this book was supposed to be longer, leading to there being a fourth book. A lot could have been ommitted or streamlined for a more enjoyable reading experience.
Once again Farmer shows that action is one of his weaker skills. You wouldn't think action would be so bland but every time an action scene happened I was left wishing we were back to world building or uncovering mystery.
A big change in this book is the shifting between multiple characters and their perspectives. I read plenty of books like this so that wasn't that much of an issue for me but I found a lot of character's experiences to be pretty repetitive of each other, which definitely lead to confusion in comprehension. There are so many ships and airships that characters are building, or chasing after that they all start to blend together.
Overall there are points that I liked as much as the first book, reminding me why I'm still reading this series. I'm interested in continuting on but for as much as I liked parts of this book there were plenty that annoyed me, leading to a middle of the road score.