Customer Reviews

Conrad's Quest for Rubber (Adventures of Conrad Stargard)

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

I enjoyed this most recent addition to the Conrad series, and hope there will be more coming. I see a fundamental problem for the author in continuing this series however. Life has become too easy for Conrad. By this point in the series he has done it all, he's way ahead of the competition, and it's hard for the author to come up with any more challenges for him. I believe that is why Conrad was relegated to the status of a minor character in this book, i.e. so that the story could focus on the challenges of a "mere mortal" character. Understanding this, didn't make it any more enjoyable though. Conrad is the character I came back to see more of. It was disappointing to only see him in passing.

What was more disappointing though was that the author did create a challenge for Conrad, and he couldn't handle it. In the end he got outside help, which was almost like cheating. I want to see the protagonist rise to the occasion and overcome his own obstacles, not have them solved for him.

I was not offended by the gratuitous sex throughout the book myself, but I can see how some of the other reviewers were. As sex goes, this was really very mild. It is only because this is supposed to be a science fiction/fantasy book and not an erotic novel that it is even noticable. That said, I would like to point out that it is rather repetitious that the girls are always 14 years old, even the ones who have been around for years now. I understand that life expectancy was shorter in the middle ages, and people were old in their 20's and dead in their 30's, but the author could mix it up a bit with some 15 or 16 year old girls, just for variety.

The Adventures of Conrad Stargard series is excellent. Frankowski delivered a refreshing take on medieval Poland. A sort of " I wonder what would happen if..." experience. Can't put it down kind of storytelling. The newest addition to the series - 'Quest for Rubber', leaves much to be desired, however it does give the reader enough of a 'fix' to get by. Those of us who waited so long for this addition to the series were not disappointed, but this book does not rise to the level of say Book 3. The four and five star reviews should be reserved for earlier Frankowski tales. He seems to have left his formula behind. Most of the book's action take place outside of Poland. Conrad makes only minimal appearances. The main character, I forget his name (you see what I mean), is a slightly modified Piotr. Not much engineering going on in this book. Only glimpses of the technological advances made my Conrad and his people. I miss Francine, Anna, Henryk, Tadeos, and Vladimir. Mr. Frankowski - take us back to Poland.

I zipped through this yarn and enjoyed it, somewhat. It was better than its predecessor, Conrad's Lady. And she only had a brief walk-on cameo in this book. I have followed Conrad since the first printing of CTE ('80s). If one looks at the back cover of that one gets the impression that there were to only be the four. Yes the first 50 pages are rehash; however, in Leo's defense, by providing a new perspective of familiar events you don't have to re-read the prior novels (its both old and new). Writing from a 1st person perspective ain't an easy task either. That is all part of the formula. (As is the wonton and often pedophile sex, which I could do without.) One thing that I have felt is that Leo watched James Burke's Connection series and modified it to push his hero's engineering wonders. Please don't take that as a criticism. Incorporating an idea into good story is still a difficult feat. Still he did rush the end. I hope the next book will feature more engineering and more Conrad. Also, the next text will either explore the sea or aim for space before Conrad passes on. Father Iggy will be pope and Conrad may get canonized before he dies. I do hope there is a new book, I am still a fan-just looking for a stronger story than the past two.

Another great book in the Adventures of Conrad Stargard. Don't miss the new prequel! Maybe when the last Star Wars comes out they'll make Conrad into a movie franchise? A must read for engineers and computer nerds while waiting for the next Harry Potter.

I don't know where I was when this book came out but I jus found it and bought it immediately.

I read the other reviews out of curiousity. Most of them point out several severe flaws that I acknowledge. In spite of this, I rate the book fairly highly for the simple reason that it was very enjoyable. It's stimulated my imagination almost as much as the first four. I could read flawed books like this one all the time!

This series is a real favorite of mine. Great story line, great characters, and unique ideas. Now (as of Summer 2005) the latest Conrad book, "Conrad's Crusade" is now available from [...], on line! It is solid action on par with the best in the series. [...], and I recommend it highly.

As a great fan of Conrad I was really looking forward to another book exploring his alternate time/dimension Poland. Unfortunately the first third of the book is a rehash of parts of the last two books and the last two thirds lack the logic and direction of the series. Conrad plays no great part in this book and the action and characters are less developed and of much less interest. I would buy another in the series and hope it was better but this one is not a winner

It was a great day when I stumbled on to the 6th installment of the Conrad series. I had given up on Leo Frankowski revisiting the facinating story of Conrad in 13th Century Poland. I devoured this book in one night. I found the story very entertaing and a great read. I enjoyed the tangent of telling the story thru a new character yet I thought we could do with a lot less background, come on we all have read the first 5 books and don't need a complete rehash of them. Just one chapter to establish the new character's background should be enough. Frankowski's piggish attitude towards women reaches new lows with this book. The characters Maude and Baboo are very insulting. One a bio-engineered Super-Woman, the other a primative simpleton treated like a house pet. The author has tread into dangerous waters here and should tone it down in future books. Exploring the 13th Century world with a new and young character is quite exciting as it ads personal drama to the quest. In the future I would like to see Conrad have to deal with and interact with the real historical characters. Including Holy Roman Emporer Fredrick, Alexander Nevski of Novograd, and of course Kublia Khan would add great villans and allies to this already rich series. I would love to see Conrad sucked into the Crusades by Pope Ignacius Conrad's Confessor.

The criticisms that others have posted here are unfortunately all too valid. The Conrad Stargard series seemed to have reached a satisfactory conclusion with Lord Conrad's Lady; it's a mystery to me why the author continued it.

Conrad's Quest for Rubber reads like a rough draft that was abandoned for lack of new ideas. The main character, Josip Sobieski, is very ordinary. His diary lengthily rehashes main events of the previous five novels, but his viewpoint is curiously devoid of interest. His main contribution to civilization is discovering that he can do his laundry by towing it behind a steamboat in a leaky barrel.

Meanwhile, out of sight, Conrad invents the submachine gun, which comes in handy in annexing the province of Brandenburg in retaliation for an invasion. Behind the scenes, he recreates the Gdansk shipyards and builds ocean-going steamships for explorer teams in search of raw materials to exploit and savages to civilize. However, Conrad's yearning for an extension cord doesn't quite seem to justify going to the ends of the earth for rubber. And it's simply an incredible stroke of idiocy that Conrad would forget all about European diseases' deadly impact on the peoples of the western hemisphere.

The book is also disturbing in a bad sense. Throughout the Conrad series, Frankowski's female characters are not really women but an adolescent fantasy come true. In Rubber, the role of women becomes systematically degrading. The "wench" Maude, a "neohorse" in female form, begins to become somewhat human, but we're left to assume she'll progress somehow. Sobieski can never quite decide whether an Amazonian pygmy named "Booboo" is a wife or a pet cat. The character concept is not only gratuitous but downright repulsive.

Finally, the estrangement of Sobieski's father is poorly motivated and irrelevant to the action, such as it is; it merely gives Sobieski the chance to dismiss the old man's attempt at reconciliation with a burst of cruelty. Lack of relevance in fiction implies a subtext outside the work; whether or not there is one, I don't want to hear about it.

Conrad's uncle Tom, the deus ex machina in residence, shows up at the end to rescue a Conrad Stargard who has begun to outlive his usefulness. Would that he had rescued this novel, but that's beyond even his powers.

This book was a bit of a disappointment. The first 5 focus on how a 20th century man fares in 13th Century poland. About 90% of this book focuses on how a 13th century Polish peasant fares in the new world created by the 20th century man. After loving the first 5, I found it difficult to care about this new character foisted upon us.

Perhaps the part that bugged me the most was about the explorers contaminating the natives with disease. The series has established that Lord Conrad was an extremely well educated man who had even written manuals on sanitation. Any school kid knows the Europeans wiped out many people in the New World with diseases that hadn't existed there. Yet he seemed shocked and was ready to wall of Europe to prevent the same thing from happening to the Europeans. Hence the previously mentioned magical ending.

Let's hope book 7 returns to the main character of Conrad