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A review by dbroebuck96
To Your Scattered Bodies Go by Philip José Farmer
adventurous
funny
mysterious
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
Vintage sf random pick #2
One of Farmer's most widely-read works, To Your Scattered Bodies Go certainly has an intriguing premise: all those who have ever died on Earth have been resurrected in a mysterious river valley.
The protagonist is Victorian explorer and academic Richard Francis Burton, who falls in with Hermann Göring and a band of others (including a primitive man) as he tries to uncover the mystery of where he really is.
This book is unfortunately, for the majority, a slog. The first half is a slow introduction of the world and its characters, which was fine for the most part, but the second half was a drag which I only endured in order to get to the 'reveal' or conceptual breakthrough at the end. It's this reveal that distinguishes the story as science fiction rather than fantasy, as it at first seems to be. If it wasn't for the reveal, which was decently worthwhile, this would probably have been a 2 star read. As for the rest, it actually is quite boring, only broken up and made just about tolerable by occasional flashes of humour.
An additional note on the writing, Farmer writes a British upper-class of the Victorian era using the word "gotten". No. Someone of that place and time simply would not have used that word. It had fallen out of use in Britain by then and didn't make the character's voice particularly believable.
I was satisfied enough with the answers given at the book's ending to not want to continue with the Riverworld series, which I hear only yield diminishing returns. Given that this first entry is not front-rank in my view (aside from the original premise), I won't be reading any more from this sequence.
One of Farmer's most widely-read works, To Your Scattered Bodies Go certainly has an intriguing premise: all those who have ever died on Earth have been resurrected in a mysterious river valley.
The protagonist is Victorian explorer and academic Richard Francis Burton, who falls in with Hermann Göring and a band of others (including a primitive man) as he tries to uncover the mystery of where he really is.
This book is unfortunately, for the majority, a slog. The first half is a slow introduction of the world and its characters, which was fine for the most part, but the second half was a drag which I only endured in order to get to the 'reveal' or conceptual breakthrough at the end. It's this reveal that distinguishes the story as science fiction rather than fantasy, as it at first seems to be. If it wasn't for the reveal, which was decently worthwhile, this would probably have been a 2 star read. As for the rest, it actually is quite boring, only broken up and made just about tolerable by occasional flashes of humour.
An additional note on the writing, Farmer writes a British upper-class of the Victorian era using the word "gotten". No. Someone of that place and time simply would not have used that word. It had fallen out of use in Britain by then and didn't make the character's voice particularly believable.
I was satisfied enough with the answers given at the book's ending to not want to continue with the Riverworld series, which I hear only yield diminishing returns. Given that this first entry is not front-rank in my view (aside from the original premise), I won't be reading any more from this sequence.