Each month I make sure to read some science fiction, partially because I like a lot of the tropes: dystopias, Utopias, time and space travel, aliens, robots, and the FUTURE! but another key reason I like to read the genre regularly is that in many ways it is dangerous fiction. It gets me thinking about concepts and my own preconceived notions, looking at problems from another angle, and in many ways, seeing how the human spirit endures.
This doesn't mean I don't like reading some good meat and potatoes style space operas, but it does mean I get to look forward every month to reading something that might really surprise me.
A case in point is Phillip José Farmer's To Your Scattered Bodies Go. This 1971, Hugo Award winning novel, and the beginning of his Riverworld Series. The conceit of the novel is simple, what if after dying you woke up on a strange world, and everyone was there? Literally everyone, all of human history, going to our prehistoric era and ending at the Earth's demise. You just wake up, find yourself in a field and back in your mid-twenties, along with people from across Earth's space and history.
There's no clear messaging, no one to tell you what to do, and yes, although many people believe you're now all in heaven, something don't match up - the stars are different, and many of the people here are not the people you thought would be rewarded with any sort of afterlife...
Why are we here, and for what reason?
The book follows famed British explorer Sir Richard Burton as he awakens and tries to makes sense of the strange new world he finds himself in. Societies and religions begin to spring up, but again there is no clear answer as to why everyone is brought back and exactly where they have all ended up.
The novel is largely one of exploration, both physically, as Burton travels down a river which seems to connect this entire world, and existentially, as everyone he meets seems to have a clear understanding of the reasons, but with no proof. I found it to be a fascinating read, and will keep an eye out for any other books in the series in future.
For the last few months I’ve been working my way through Phillip José Farmer’s The Dungeon, a shared-world fantasy series that was published from 1988 to 1990.
Let me go back a quick step here:
1) A shared world fantasy series is one where different authors continue the story forward from novel to novel, think of it like an elaborate, and book series length, game of telephone.
2) I started reading this particular series because one of my favourite Canadian authors, Charles de Lint, wrote two instalments (Volumes 3 and 5)
3) I tend to be a sucker for series, whether the 50+ books in the Dragonlance series, the expanded Universe Star Wars Novels, or the increasingly depressing, but always engaging Wild Cards series (edited by Game of Thrones creator George R.R. Martin)
So a series really has to let me down for me to decide to jump off during the last book...
Strongly influenced by pulp magazine stories of the 1920s and 30s and involving everything from dimension hopping to dinosaurs and spaceships, The Dungeon, at first glance seemed pretty tailor-made for me. I've read a number of series with different contributing authors and when done correctly,, shared world series can be fascinating and exciting for a reader who wants to get different perspectives on the same world.
The Dungeon series starts out all right, and then with each new author just seemed to get better and better, yes de Lint was a high point for me, as he found ways to make the stories move faster and also came up with some very interesting plot twists and great character moments.
The problem actually came when I hit about page fifty in the final volume. Author Richard Lupoff (who wrote the first book in the series) seems to have either not read the rest of the series or simply decided to ignore it - he comments about the adventures of the protagonist, Clive Folliot by going into in-depth description of his adventures in book one, and then simply mentioning there were other adventures as well.
The book seemed incredibly dismissive of the rest of the series and as each book ended on a cliffhanger, also managed the ruin the one presented at the end of book five by IGNORING THE ENTIRE THING! Seriously, I could have finished the book and had worse things to say, but after being figuratively slapped in the face by the first few chapters, I decided it would make more sense to state the following.
It is ok to put down a book you don't like - even if you've read everything else in the series and this book promises to give you all the answers you've been craving since you began. The best part about any entertainment medium is that as the consumer (reader, player, audience, etc.) you have the right and the ability to simply say
"No Thanks".
Sorry for my rough words (as a Canadian they may be less rough than yours, but trust me, they're pretty bad here).
