WASER@RUTGERS.ARPA (01/20/84)
eirdstone of Brisengamen (sp?)- great book except for the way everything is wrapped up in the last few pages [do read it and the sequel, though]). Farmer, though, just had a good opening hook and went nowhere with it (an his ideas are ordinary and the literary style is nothing special). I figured that after the good opening hook that the ending was probably worth all the wading through. I was wrong. I would like to see anyone explain why it is a top-calibre series. My guess is that people read it as it was coming out and got suckered along the same way I did except that with the long time between reading the books tended to remember the earlier ones in a better light in anticipation of what they were leading up to (they seemed like they were leading up to a really great ending & all we got was a fizzle [I was soooo bummed]). So how about it all ye who feel its worth recommending, why don't you tell us why? -------
RMann@HIS-PHOENIX-MULTICS.ARPA (02/01/84)
Well, I liked the Riverworld series with the following proviso: By time I got to the end of the last book where the secret was finally revealed, I was bored to death and couldn't care less. Farmer should have made at most two books. However, I liked what he did. Basically, this was an adventure-type story started with a SF-F premise. If you were turned off by the development, then that's too bad. I thought it was clever and interesting to "invent" historical characters a give them an interesting personality. Indeed, it was enough to hold my attention and read the books effortlessly. You have to admit that Farmer is not a hack. He is endowed with an excellent imagination, vision, and well above average writing skills. His latest book, whose name escapes me, is wonderful. I mean there are people on this net who like really DULL stuff that I can't read. e.g., the Dragonlovers of Porn, so when someone says he finds Farmer disappointing, it makes me wonder what kind of stuff is necessary to get their attention.