3 stars, Metaphorosis Reviews

Summary:

A collection of speculative stories from Philip Jose Farmer, including three from the Riverworld series.

Review:

Here, at last, my long journey into Philip Jose Farmerworld comes mostly, and gratefully, to an end. I first encountered Farmer through his Riverworld books, which I continue to think are a great achievement in SFF, and deservedly qualify as classics. After extensive reading, though, the sad fact is that his other work – including stories for which he won prizes – doesn’t come close. The bulk of it is slipshod, far-fetched, and thinly characterized.

This collection, fairly enough, captures all facets of Farmer’s writing, from three reasonably solid Riverworld stories to stories that received acclaim to stories that are outright juvenile – and not in a fun way. In brief, I’d have to say that the only reason to buy the collection is for the Riverworld stories. They’re not essential, but they do flesh out a Tom Mix side story, and some of them show the good side of Farmer’s work.

I received a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

As a huge fan of Philip Jose Farmer's monumental Riverworld series, I cannot help but be a bit disappointed by this short book, as it only includes a couple of Riverworld short stories and a bit of essay-like writing. On second thought, this book may serve to introduce new readers to Riverworld and all its riches.

Philip José Farmer was one of the leading lights of mid-twentieth century science fiction and his Riverworld series is considered some of his best writing. Unfortunately, mid-twentieth century science fiction has not aged well and this collection, Riverworld and Other Stories, contains only two Riverworld stories and a bunch of previously unpublished and unfinished standalone stories. I was disappointed in this collection.

I asked to read this book because it had Riverworld stories. I’ve been fascinated by the premise ever since I saw Syfy’s pilot episode/movie of Riverworld in 2010. The Riverworld is a seemingly endless river valley where billions of humans have been resurrected. The world contains little metal or biodiversity, but everyone’s needs are taken care of through alien technology. No one knows why they’ve been resurrected or what they’re supposed to do now, which makes a great setting for philosophical stories about the meaning of life. While characters like Yeshua and Doctor Faustroll advocate personal reflection and improvement, most of the Riverworld is organized into kingdoms and empires run by violent warlords like Árpád the Hun or Kramer the Hammer, a German religious fanatic. This is what I wanted to read about. I got a little of it, but not enough.

The two Riverworld stories bookend a series of stories that I did not like. One of them contained a surprisingly pornographic scene in the middle of an interesting premise. I’ll admit to skimming them because I was disgusted or uninterested in the content. I only stuck around for the Riverworld stories. This collection is clearly not Farmer’s best work.

The biggest issue I had with these stories was the depiction of women. There are no female leading characters. The few prominent women seemed to have been written in solely so that the male characters would have someone to have sex with. They either have highly charged libidos (and are scorned by male characters as sluts or Jezebels) or are “good” girls who are willing to have sex with the male leads. Only the male leads and secondary characters—with two exceptions—get any kind of character development. The two women who get some development are only seen through the eyes of males who either despise or disrespect them. There was barely enough interesting content to keep me going through this collection.

I doubt that I will give Farmer another chance, no matter how much the Riverworld interests me.

I received a free copy of this book from NetGalley for review consideration. It will be released 8 August 2017.

A great collection of stories. Including the headliner. Look forward to more from Farmer.

Riverworld by Philip Jose Farmer- This is a collection of Philip Jose Farmer stories including the title novelette and a couple of other Riverworld stories, along with different stories and an essay about Riverworld from his long career. As with much of his work, Farmer likes to mix religion with action and does so here with the title story as well as "J. C. on the Dude Ranch" about Jesus and Satan as two cowpokes in the Wild West. "The Henry Miller Dawn Patrol" finds the real-life racy author living in a nursing home and dealing with it his way. A lot of the stories, Farmer explains in his intros, are "fictional author stories", where the writer of the story is supposedly a character in another story, a la Kilgore Trout. One of the best things about the collection, I found, was the intros or forwards for most of the stories. Him telling us why he did it this way and how the whole thing came about is fascinating. The stories are much like those for any anthology in that some are great and others so-so, but each to his own. If you haven't read any Philip Jose Farmer, this might be a good introduction, but even if you not thrilled you owe it to yourself to at least read the first Riverworld novel "To Your Scattered Bodies Go", and maybe the first and second World of Tiers novels. There's magic out there