shivers (03/01/83)
I agree with Tim Maroney: Farmer's best work is his World of Tiers
series. I recommend it highly. The basic premise is that a race of immortal
super-scientists have the technology to create artificial universes, each with
its own unique physical laws. The race, called "Lords", lose their science but
retain their technology, and degenerate into spending all their time trying to
invade each other's universe. The losing party loses his universe, and spends
his last few hours (weeks?) undergoing horrible tortures. This is the typical
Farmer game: life is a big contest with very high stakes. The possibilities
for these premises are staggering. Depending on the lord, you get some very
interesting universes: one lord is a romantic, another is a sadist. One
designs a universe that is nothing but a big trap. The series really gets
interesting when you discover that OUR universe is actually a pocket universe,
too. The ruling lord prefers to rule in secret, that's all...
I would like to know if anyone out there knows of a sequel in this series
to "The Lavalite World". I have spent a frustrating four years trying to find
such a sequel. There ought to be one. Farmer really leaves you hanging after
"The Lavalite World" -- you have no idea where Wolff and Chryseis are. Of
course, that doesn't necessarily imply that Farmer wrote one. If anybody knows,
I'd sure appreciate their responding to decvax!yale-comix!shivers.
-Olin Shivers