Gods of Riverworld

Riverworld Saga, Book 5

De: Philip José Farmer

Narrado por: Paul Hecht

Thirty-five billion people from throughout Earth's history were resurrected along the great and winding waterways of Riverworld. Most began life anew—accepting without question the sustenance provided by their mysterious benefactors. But a rebellious handful burned to confront the unseen masters who controlled their fate—and these few launched an invasion that would ultimately yield the mind-boggling truth.

Now, Riverworld's omnipotent leaders have been confronted, and the renegades of Riverworld—led by the intrepid Sir Richard Francis Burton—control the fantastic mechanism that once ruled them. But the most awesome challenge lies ahead. For in the vast corridors and secret rooms of the tower stronghold, an unknown enemy watches and waits to usurp the usurpers....

©1983 Philip Jose Farmer (P)2010 Recorded Books

Great performance, poor story

The narration was great, as it was through the entire Riverworld series. This story was added after the original end of the series, it shows. While there are some things that are interesting it seems to only rehash the same old issues, of spiritual growth. If you love the Sir Richard Francis Burton character, you may love the story. Burton once again is main character with everything revolving around him.

Almost better than the first

Book five turns some well accepted theories about why the inhabitants are on Riverworld completely inside out. Everything you thought was true will be revised based on the final truth revealed in book 5. Probably my favorite in the series after book 1.

Terrible.

Take all the enthusiasm and intrigue and likable and relatable characters from the first two books and replace them with redundancy and a juvenile fixation on sex. Then pepper it generously with horrible pretentious musings of philosophy and unnecessarily long winded character histories that have no bearing on the story. Finally avoid adequately clearing up any mysteries and essentially suck the life from everything developed up to this point and you have this dumpster fire of a book. Very disappointing after the inspired and intriguing story the Riverworld started out as. I should have quit after book 2.

The end to a sagging saga

The 5th installment of the Riverworld saga appears to have been an afterthought. Book 4 saw the entry into the tower with an explanation of its origin and purpose. While the immediate problem of the impending computer failure (in this regard, Farmer should get credit for his prescience with a protein based computer given DNA counterparts today) had been averted, we were left with the ongoing resurrection failure due to prior irrevocable commands.

Most of the tale is engaged with our rag tag intrepoid band trying to figure out how to operate the whole complex. They possess limited resurrection capabilities (they can bring back specific individuals inside the tower) and this leads to ever growing unintended consequences. The final resolution is totally unsatisfying and question the underlying premise of the entire series with regards to "ethicalness" that is treated as a quantifiable, unambiguous property that people "train" to attain. Farmer's final twist allows him to even offer the possibility that good intentions of striving for a perfect ethicality may even engender psychosis.Burton's final rejection of the ultimate reward for being as close to "ethical" as he can reach strives to capture the essential human qualities of independence, but only comes across as a stubborn toddler.

As mentioned previously, the past generation's conception of computers constrains the credulity of the reader. The computer displays a Kafkaesque devotion to rigid ridiculousness that becomes quite tiresome. There are long discussions of whether to resurrect politicians and/or religious leaders, but at no time does anyone even consider resurrecting a scientist or computer specialist. As a result, the fumbling and bumbling has more of Keystone Cop sense than a group of focused individuals attempting to save the lives of 18 billion people. Strategies devolve to what if: they'll think that we think that they'll think that we'll think ad infinitum.

So sad for what began so brilliantly.

one of the worst series I ever listened to

if this series wasn't free I would never have gone past book 1 but since it was included in the membership I thought I would see where he took the story. That would be nowhere. What a waste of time and a great disappointment.