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Book Review: Philip Jose Farmer’s Night of Light

Night of Light by Philip Jose FarmerAfter fleeing Earth to the planet Kareen, thief and murderer John Carmody is taken in by two Catholic missionaries who order him on a covert fact-finding mission to the Temple of Boonta on the eve of an annual ritual known as the Night of Light.

Most Kareenans take sedatives to ensure that they sleep during the chaotic and savage Night. To remain awake is to be subjected to torturous hallucinations, to lose one’s sanity, and potentially, to be murdered or commit suicide.

Fearless and irreverent, Carmody mocks all religions, until he defies regulations and remains awake during the Night in an attempt to assassinate a god incarnate named Yess. According to Kareenan beliefs, the goddess Boonta has two sons, the benevolent Yess and the evil Algul, each of whom are reborn through the ages and take turns ruling Kareen.

As me makes his way through the streets to the temple where Yess has concealed himself for the Night, Carmody is confronted by bizarre, disturbing visions that eventually compel him to renounce his old life and convert to Catholicism.

Years later, after returning to Earth and undergoing rehabilitation, Carmody enters the priesthood and is ordered by the Church to return to Kareen and dissuade the latest incarnation of Yess from sending missionaries to spread Boontism to other worlds. However, vestiges of Carmody’s old life reemerge as the Night of Light is once again nearly upon Kareen…

Strong in both plot and character arc, Night of Light is yet another captivating, original, and wildly imaginative example of Philip Jose Farmer’s propensity for using science fiction as a milieu to explore and question long-established religious beliefs. This is also evidenced by some of his other works, such as Inside Outside and the Riverworld series.

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Book Review: The Wailing Asteroid by Murray Leinster

The Wailing Asteroid by Murray LeinsterA signal from outer space reaches Earth and is broadcast over the radio, interrupting Joe Burke just as he is about to propose to his secretary and longtime friend, Sandy Lund. As it turns out, the signal is comprised of sounds resembling those of a flute. They are eerily familiar to Burke from a recurring dream he had as a child after his uncle gifted him with a number of relics found in a Cro-Magnon cave.

Though disappointed, Sandy returns to Burke’s engineering office where he plays a recording he made of the sounds years before and they are an exact match to those from space. Soon after, astronomers identify the source of the signal as an asteroid on a course that will bring it close to Earth.

Without sufficient evidence, the United States and Russia interpret the signals as a threat. The two major powers compete, and fail, to send a craft to the meet the aliens. However, Burke designs and constructs a small ship with the assistance of a yacht builder named Holmes and a taciturn electronics expert named Keller. Sandy’s sister Pam joins the team to assist with tracking orders and receiving shipments.

Early in their testing of a reactionless drive, an explosive mishap draws the attention of a reporter, two government agents, and the police. Burke tries to persuade them that he is building an advanced bomb shelter. They are not convinced and suspect Burke and company of conspiring with the aliens. A few days later, the police return to arrest them, but Burke launches the ship with Holmes, Keller, and the Lund sisters aboard.

A week and a half later, they reach the asteroid and fly the ship through a tunnel, which closes behind them. Lights, breathable air, and an artifcial gravity system are activated, allowing the intrepid voyagers to leave the ship. To their dismay, they find the asteroid devoid of life.

Burke and his team explore the interior and learn that it is a garrison, long abandoned by its troops. They also interpret the flute-like signal as a beacon ordering the ancient soldiers to return in order to defend against an approaching enemy. Who were the soldiers and where did they go? More importantly, can Burke and company learn how to operate the garrison in time to defend Earth against this powerful and unknown threat from interstellar space?

If you can ignore Leinster’s cardboard characterizations—such as the whiny and emotionally clueless Burke and the stereotypical capricious, husband-hunting women—The Wailing Asteroid is an enjoyable light-hearted adventure with a healthy dose of plausible 1960s science and engineering.

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Book Review: Inside Outside by Philip Jose Farmer

Humans and demons living together? What’s Hell coming to?

Inside Outside by Philip Jose FarmerJack Cull is one of the millions of humans resurrected from the dead only to live on a dry blistering world where the sun never sets. Is this truly Hell or merely Purgatory? Whatever it is, one this is certain, the place isn’t supernatural. The denizens, whether human or “demon” are biological and the planet itself unstable and prone to earthquakes as it expands to accommodate new arrivals.

While on duty at the Information Exchange, Jack receives a call from a contact claiming that a man named Fyodor has evidence that Jesus Christ himself, known as “X” on this world, never left Hell after he was crucified, but is still here working to save souls and help them escape. Jack is given permission to leave his post and meet with Fyodor to confirm the story. On his way out, he encounters an old flame, Phyllis Nilstrom, a gold-digging opportunist who left Jack when someone of higher rank in the Exchange became available. That someone happens to be Jack’s supervisor.

As it turns out, Phyllis is traveling to the same sector where Jack is scheduled to meet with Fyodor. As such, Jack is tasked with ensuring her safety.

Shortly after meeting with Fyodor at an outdoor café, a riot ensues in the street, leaving two men dead. An ambulance arrives, from which steps “X” himself! He assists in loading the victims into the ambulance presumably to take them to a place where they will be resurrected once more. However, the mob attacks the ambulance crew and “X” is decapitated. Fyodor is at first devastated, then enraged when a demon confiscates Christ’s head and disappears into a manhole.

Fyodor and Cull pursue the creature, but not before a second group of rioters arrive, pursuing several members of the Exchange—including Phyllis! She joins Cull and Fyodor in a wild and perilous expedition through the sewers and tunnels of Hell in search of answers about the origins of this world and the true identity of “X.”

With its concept of continuous resurrection of the dead on an alien world, Inside Outside seems to be a precursor to Philip José Farmer’s 1971 masterpiece, To Your Scattered Bodies Go, the first book in his acclaimed Riverworld series.

While there is almost no character development here, Farmer builds his world slowly at first, presenting details as the story unfolds until the trio enters the sewer. After that, the pacing ramps up to breakneck speed in one of the most bizarre and imaginative twists on Judeo-Christian beliefs.

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Book Review: My Friend Jackson by Christopher D. Ochs

My Friend Jackson by Christopher D. OcsAfter moving out of the Projects and into an apartment building in a slightly less dangerous part of town, high school student Jasmine Price and her mother befriend an elderly neighbor, Mrs. Fieldings.

While her mother works two jobs—and her father is serving overseas in the Army—Jasmine often spends time after school in the company of Mrs. Fieldings, who becomes her surrogate grandmother. As their friendship blossoms, Jasmine comes to call her “Bibi,” a term of respect and endearment.

The move also includes a transfer to a new high school, where Jasmine becomes the target of bullying and intimidation, mostly by her fellow players on the girls’ basketball team.

A short time after the first incident at school, Bibi introduces Jasmine to her three-horned Jackson’s chameleon named Mlinzi. The lizard’s colors change during the encounter, indicating an immediate trust and affection for Jasmine. Noting this, Bibi gifts the chameleon to Jasmine, who renames him Jackson.

Meanwhile, the baseless hatred toward Jasmine escalates at school until she is cornered in an alley by the basketball team’s captain, Nevaeh, who accuses Jasmine of making a play for her boyfriend. It becomes clear that Nevaeh intends to kill Jasmine—until something preternatural intercedes…

Christopher Ochs masterfully introduces all the key players in medias res and maintains steady tension throughout this believable tale of girl-on-girl bullying in an urban public school. There are scenes in which the dialogue among the teenagers is more mature than expected, given their callow and puerile behavior in other parts of the story. However, Jasmine’s brief transformation from prey to predator as a result of her relationship to the creature is well crafted. I applaud the portrayal of Jasmine’s mother as a harried, and mostly absent, mother struggling to make ends meet while dealing with her daughter’s deteriorating situation and fretting about her husband after he is wounded in the line of duty in Afghanistan. Overall, the blending of the harsh realities of inner city life with the fantastical elements of a unique monster story is both seamless and subtle.

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Book Review: The Green Odyssey by Philip Jose Farmer

The Green Odyssey by Philip Jose FarmerAfter crash landing on a primitive and barbaric planet, Earth astronaut Alan Green becomes a slave to the Duke of Tropat and paramour to the duke’s termagant wife, all while married to a gorgeous slave woman named Amra. Green has one daughter with Amra, but her other three children are each from different “owners” who bought and sold her over the years.

When Green learns that two Earthmen recently landed near the distant city of Estorya and were taken prisoner as “demons,” he strikes a deal with a trader, Miran, to hide aboard his ship on his next voyage across the vast, grassy plain of Xurdimur. For on this world, boats travel not only by sea, but also over land using a series of large wheels.

It is Green’s plan to free the imprisoned Earthmen before they are executed during an upcoming festival, then return with them to Earth aboard their ship.

After a perilous escape from the duke and duchess, Green disguises himself as a monk and boards Miran’s ship—only to be confronted by Amra and her children, who he had planned to leave behind for they would never be able to adapt to life on Earth.

During their trek across Xurdimur, Miran cleverly evades an attack by pirates, but a day or two later, his ship collides with one of the fabled roaming islands that levitate across the plains of their own volition. Many of Miran’s crew are killed in the crash. Most of the survivors are slaughtered shortly after by the savage cannibals inhabiting the island. Although wounded, Green evades capture, but is separated from Amra and the children. He soon learns that they were imprisoned by the natives.

No sooner does he rescue them than Green encounters a disheveled Miran who also survived the collision. In the middle of the night, they manage to steal a smaller boat from the island and continue across the plain to Estorya. Will Green be able to liberate his fellow Earthmen before Miran betrays him to the authorities? Will their ship be undamaged and able to depart this godforsaken world and if so, will there be enough room for Amra and the children?

The Green Odyssey was Philip José Farmer’s first novel-length publication and is more fantasy-adventure than science fiction. While the setting has a few unique elements, the characters are two-dimensional. Overall, the story is reminiscent of the Barsoom novels of Edgar Rice Burroughs and seemed to be a precursor to Jack Vance’s Planet of Adventure series in which an Earth astronaut named Adam Reith crash lands on a barbaric alien world named Tschai and after acquiring several companions, ventures off across the planet to find the means to return to Earth.

 

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Book Review: To Your Scattered Bodies Go by Philip Jose Farmer

To Your Scattered Bodies Go by Philip Jose FarmerShortly after his death in 1890, British explorer, linguist, and writer Richard Francis Burton reawakens in a massive chamber filled with bodies suspended in mid-air. He is then confronted by men in a flying craft who fire upon him, knocking him unconscious.

Burton and many others from the chamber are revived, hairless and naked, along the shores of a massive river in what at first appears to be paradise. Although for some, it does not resemble the afterlife as described by their religious doctrine.

It is soon learned that they had been resurrected from different eras of Earth’s history from Neanderthal through the 21st century—including an extraterrestrial from Tau Ceti who died on Earth in 2008.

Each is equipped with a container, later called a “grail,” tethered to his or her wrist. As they explore this pastoral land, noticably devoid of animal and insect life, the people discover large rocks every few miles. These “grailstones” provide supplies including many of the familiar foods and beverages of Earth as well as cigarettes, marijuana, and a “dream gum” that induces everything from hallucinations to loss of sexual inhibitions.

For mutual protection, Burton forms a group consisting of a Neanderthal who calls himself Kazz, a 20th century science fiction writer named Peter Frigate, the famous Victorian-era aristocrat Alice Liddell-Hargreaves, and Monat, the alien from Tau Ceti.

To Your Scattered Bodies Go by Philip Jose FarmerEventually, Burton and his group build a crude sailboat and make their way down the river until, after a lengthy battle, they are captured and brought into a village ruled by none other than former Nazi leader Hermann Göring and Tullus Hostilius, the third King of Rome. Burton leads a successful escape from the village during which, Göring is killed—albeit temporarily. Almost everyone who dies on the river world is eventually resurrected elsewhere.

More importantly, Burton and company capture an agent of the “Ethicals,” the scientifically advanced beings who modified the planet onto which they resurrected millons of Earth’s dead. However, the man commits suicide before providing any helpful information.

Burton, now a target of the Ethicals, continues his quest to uncover their true motives—even if he has to die nearly a thousand deaths to do so.

To Your Scattered Bodies Go (1971) is the first book in Philip Jose Farmer’s groundbreaking magnum opus Riverworld saga, which continued with The Fabulous Riverboat (1971), The Dark Design (1977), The Magic Labrynth (1980), Gods of Riverworld (1983), River of Eternity (1983) and a few anthologies.  Each book introduces true  figures from Earth history including Richard Francis Burton, Alice Hargreaves, Samuel Clemens, Tom Mix, Mozart, Cyrano de Bergerac, Jack London, Marcellin Marbot, King John of England, Baron Lothar Siegfried von Richthofen, and others.

No science fiction reader’s journey should be considered complete without a journey to Farmer’s Riverworld.