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A review by melaninny
To Your Scattered Bodies Go by Philip José Farmer
3.0
2.5 rounded up reluctantly
--
Okay so, no one tell my dad about my Goodreads account. Okay? Okay.
While reading through the Hugo and Nebula winners book list, my dad frequently remarked his surprise that there was no Philip José Farmer on the list. I reassured him that Farmer had works that won one or the other, but just hadn't struck gold and won both. So when we came to the end of the list, my dad insisted that I give To Your Scattered Bodies Go a shot, insisting that it would hold up to time.
And, well. He was right and wrong. The premise of the book is interesting. A group of humans from all eras wake up together, Naked and Afraid, and the story follows the societies they make, the reactions, the humanity. I can see how this book influenced works that came after it, how waking up in vats very easily became that scene in the Matrix, how this was an interesting study in humanity.
But. For a book that should be an intense study of humanity, it falls short because it suffers from terminal cishetwhitemanbrain. It lacks all of the finesse and empathy that, say, Le Guin would have brought to such a work. Instead we follow a man who is controversial for his time period (for being racist and anti-semitic and espousing such beliefs in books because he had bad experiences traveling?) as he traverses the Riverworld and tries to "solve" it. Women are barely in the story, for which I was relieved, because when they were in it the writing of them was painful. They were mostly defined by their beauty (as it could be seen through their baldness), their hysterical reactions to the circumstances, and their rapeability. It also features a notorious Nazi war criminal, and his story arc is redemptive. Had this been done with any sort of flourish, artistry, or care I would maybe be interested, but it felt honestly like it was in here to just be edgy. I'm not sure what points the author wanted to make, but I doubt I agree with them. Farmer was not seasoned enough a writer to write the work that maybe this book should have been.
All of that said, it had enough of interest in it that I kept going. It didn't feel as painful as some of the other Hugo winners from this era did, and at least it tried to be substantive. Still, not a recommended read from me.
--
Okay so, no one tell my dad about my Goodreads account. Okay? Okay.
While reading through the Hugo and Nebula winners book list, my dad frequently remarked his surprise that there was no Philip José Farmer on the list. I reassured him that Farmer had works that won one or the other, but just hadn't struck gold and won both. So when we came to the end of the list, my dad insisted that I give To Your Scattered Bodies Go a shot, insisting that it would hold up to time.
And, well. He was right and wrong. The premise of the book is interesting. A group of humans from all eras wake up together, Naked and Afraid, and the story follows the societies they make, the reactions, the humanity. I can see how this book influenced works that came after it, how waking up in vats very easily became that scene in the Matrix, how this was an interesting study in humanity.
But. For a book that should be an intense study of humanity, it falls short because it suffers from terminal cishetwhitemanbrain. It lacks all of the finesse and empathy that, say, Le Guin would have brought to such a work. Instead we follow a man who is controversial for his time period (for being racist and anti-semitic and espousing such beliefs in books because he had bad experiences traveling?) as he traverses the Riverworld and tries to "solve" it. Women are barely in the story, for which I was relieved, because when they were in it the writing of them was painful. They were mostly defined by their beauty (as it could be seen through their baldness), their hysterical reactions to the circumstances, and their rapeability. It also features a notorious Nazi war criminal, and his story arc is redemptive. Had this been done with any sort of flourish, artistry, or care I would maybe be interested, but it felt honestly like it was in here to just be edgy. I'm not sure what points the author wanted to make, but I doubt I agree with them. Farmer was not seasoned enough a writer to write the work that maybe this book should have been.
All of that said, it had enough of interest in it that I kept going. It didn't feel as painful as some of the other Hugo winners from this era did, and at least it tried to be substantive. Still, not a recommended read from me.