Thriveth reviewed To Your Scattered Bodies Go by Philip José Farmer (Riverworld (1))
Review of 'To Your Scattered Bodies Go' on 'Goodreads'
4 stars
Great story, original and trippy set-up and premise. Fun and surprising idea to populate the character list with real historical people, and the way they are used is generally fairly interesting.
But... Two things blemish this book and they are kind of connected. One is the blatant sexism in it. One could perhaps in part excuse the constant focus on the attractiveness and "figure" of women in the book - and little else about them! - with the POV character being a Victorian British man. But that does not explain the complete lack of interesting parts to play for the female characters beyond being judged on their attractiveness by the main character.
The other is the seemingly uncritical idolization of the main character. A bit of a male Mary Sue... A Marty Stu? I am a bit disappointed by this; I have not read much else by Farmer but what …
Great story, original and trippy set-up and premise. Fun and surprising idea to populate the character list with real historical people, and the way they are used is generally fairly interesting.
But... Two things blemish this book and they are kind of connected. One is the blatant sexism in it. One could perhaps in part excuse the constant focus on the attractiveness and "figure" of women in the book - and little else about them! - with the POV character being a Victorian British man. But that does not explain the complete lack of interesting parts to play for the female characters beyond being judged on their attractiveness by the main character.
The other is the seemingly uncritical idolization of the main character. A bit of a male Mary Sue... A Marty Stu? I am a bit disappointed by this; I have not read much else by Farmer but what I have did not display this unbecoming characteristic.
