Behind the Walls of Terra
Philip Jose Farmer
World of Tiers #4
Still on the search for Jadawin-Wolff and the last of the Black Bellers, Kickaha and Anana find themselves on Earth. Kickaha learns surprising things about the world he grew up on, and both find themselves quickly at odds with Earth’s lord, Red Orc.
Farmer brings the action to Earth in this book. It’s unfortunate, because the lack of other-worldly settings exposes the weakness of the prose. Happily, Farmer manages a stronger grip on the characters in this installment. Kickaha is still the macho leader, Anana still the strong but submissive follower – despite the fact that she has a thousand years of experience on him, and a much more sophisticated background. Farmer papers this over by having her lack language skills, but it’s a thin excuse.
While the characters are a little more contained, the action is even more arbitrary than before. The story is easy enough to follow, but I gave up on a search for logic pretty early. The result is a tolerable but not very interesting adventure story.
05 December 2017 Science fiction | Philip Jose Farmer | World of Tiers |