Wed 21 Aug 2024
SF Diary Review: PHILIP JOSE FARMER – The Felled Star.
Posted by Steve under Diary Reviews , Science Fiction & Fantasy[7] Comments
PHILIP JOSE FARMER – The Felled Star. Serialized in If SF, July-August, 1967. Combined with the serial “The Fabulous Riverboat” (If SF, May-June 1971) into the second Riverworld novel, The Fabulous Riverboat (Putnam, hardcover, 1971).
Continuing the Riverworld series, we now follow the adventures and dreams of Sam Clemens as he and a shipful of Viking warriors [as they] sail upstream in search of a mysterious tower reportedly seen in the polar regions. One of the Ethicals intervenes again, to cause a meteorite to fall, promising a source of much-needed iron.
The story does not end, and cannot stand by itself; hence the low rating. Who couldn’t it be told at once? Farmer’s Sam Clemens has only faint resemblance to the historical Mark Twain, though no doubt the facts of his life are correct. Some comments [are included] on the human condition, reflections on life by Clemens, etc.
Rating: ** ½.
August 21st, 2024 at 9:05 pm
I didn’t say much (if anything) in this review about Riverworld, and what it is.
Wikipedia to the rescue, maybe:
“On the Riverworld, every human who ever lived and died – from the earliest Neanderthals up to 1983 – is resurrected on the banks of a seemingly endless river on an unknown planet. Along the river’s almost 18 million twisting and turning miles, some 36.6 billion humans are miraculously provided with food, but with no clue to the possible meaning or purpose of this strange afterlife.
“Some people set sail upon the great river to quest for the meaning of their resurrection, and to find and confront their mysterious “benefactors”. Among the denizens of the Riverworld, we meet Sir Richard Francis Burton, Mark Twain, Odysseus, Cyrano de Bergerac, Hermann Göring, Tom Mix, and many others, including a modest alter ego of the author himself. Some characters collaborate and some embark upon solo journeys of their own in this landscape.”
For more, here’s the link:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Riverworld
August 22nd, 2024 at 6:47 am
The genesis of Riverworld began in 1952 with a long novel titled OWE FOR THE FLESH, which he submitted to the Shasta Science-Fiction Novel Prize contest, where it won first prize, with a promise of boom publication. With the promise of publication and a cash prize, Farmer quit his job to become a full-time writer. Unfortunately, Shasta went belly-up and neither the promised publication nor the prize money eve materialized. The original novel is now considered lost.
Thirteen years and three revisions later, the Riverworld saga finally saw publication as five novellas published in WORLDS OF TOMORROW and WORLDS OF IF magazines. Eventually the Riverworld sequence was comprised of five books and two “shared world” anthologies.
August 22nd, 2024 at 2:09 pm
Thanks, Jerry. I knew all this in general, but not the details. I’m always happy to learn anything I didn’t know before.
August 23rd, 2024 at 8:04 am
I’ve read a lot of Philip Jose Farmer books over the years. Farmer was a Big Idea guy. Resurrecting everyone who ever lived on a planet with a gigantic river was mind-blowing when I was reading the RIVERWORLD series from 1971–1983. But, sadly, the series (and the writing) didn’t live up to the Big Idea. I can say that about most of Farmer’s work.
August 23rd, 2024 at 7:46 pm
I pretty much agree with you about Farmer’s work, George. He had a huge number of wonderful ideas, but to me it never seemed that, for one reason or another, he was never able to follow through on them as completely as he might have.
August 23rd, 2024 at 9:42 pm
I agree and disagree about Farmer and this book. I liked it a great deal and still do, but I think Farmer was much more interested in the idea and exploring the musings than writing a linear novel in this case. He didn’t quite have the chops to be a Kurt Vonnegut, but he clearly had the ambition which is where it felt as if these books were going.
August 27th, 2024 at 6:48 pm
There’s also a TV pilot from SyFy that went nowhere (streaming on Prime), then a reboot in 2010.