Customer Reviews

Fata Morgana

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(7)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

It alarms me to see all of the people that write comparing Frankowski to Heinlein, or who try to over-analise (yes I meant that) his work.

I find this book, like most of Frankowski's books, to be a pleasent diversion from being forced to think in ruts. It takes the kind of tounge in cheek humor that appears in spurts in the Conrad Stargard series and focuses more on it, as did A Boy and His Tank.

It alarms me to see people reviewing it as if it were the Bible, when really it is a scapegoat, a diversion from having to think. Read a few chapters, then close your eyes and imagine "what if"...thats the key to Frankowski's books. I would have given it 4 and a half stars if I could have, just because the ending is somewhat dissastisfying (allthough nothing like A Boy and His Tank, I wanted to kick something when I finished that).

In a way he is like a somewhat more technologically savy Douglas Adams. The explination of why the isles had never been discovered reminded me of Adams explanation of the race of beings that had never developed space travel, simply because it had never occured to them to look up. The unfounded accusations of bias and stereotype are pretty much nullified when you consider that Frankowski usually justifies almost everything his characters believe, at times to a fault. In my opinion this is probably due to his "method writing" style, and it helps to develop characters.

All in all I would say that this book is an interesting diversion that allows you to ask "what if" without forcing you to think, if you don't want to. Don't try to make it something its not; Its not Heinlein, its not Tolkin, its not Verne (allthough I think Verne and Frankowski would feel a kinship), no matter how much you want to compare it to them, realise that its probably closer to "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" than it is to anything else.

I enjoyed this book. It was another fun read from Leo Frankowski, but different from his other books I have read. I was expecting that he had gotten tired of his Conrad books, as authors do, or felt that he had brought that story line to a natural conclusion, but was looking to do the same thing all over again with new characters in a new universe. It turns out I was wrong.

He spends a few chapters in the beginning introducing and developing his characters to a much greater extent than he has before. I really feel like I know the two engineers. Then he puts them in an unusual situation by shipwrecking them on the floating island. So far all in line with what the jacket cover and reviews lead me to expect. His greater depth of character development, I chalk up to a more mature author. He did a similar job in the opening chapters of "a Boy and His Tank".

Then he spends the whole middle of the book describing the Island, both the physical and social history. This is where I was surprised. Conrad, in the series which will always define Leo Frankowski for me, spent his time building things, and fighting. The new characters start off very action oriented, then turn into vehicles who ask questions so that the author can describe the Island. Then they talk to themselves about society in the real world and how it compares to the Island (the only part I didn't care for). They set out to build things, but don't have Conrad's luck, at least not at first. They try to avoid conflict, and in this they have more luck than Conrad, although they aren't completely successful of course. The Island is the main character in the middle of the book, not the people. But the Island is fascinating, and this is not a bad thing.

Then the end, just kind of ends. The author did a good job of keeping me guessing. Right up until the last few pages, I wasn't sure which way he was going to go with it. But when he finished, it was a bit abrupt, and I said "oh" instead of "Ah!". I really got the feeling that the author reached the length the Publisher required, so he stopped writing.

This book is a "what if" book not an action adventure book. What if this Island existed? Wouldn't that be cool. What if you were the ones who found it? Wouldn't THAT be cool! Guess what, it would be cool. Now that I'm done reading, I still think about it, the true measure of a good book. But I'm thinking about the Island, not the people.

Enjoyment of Leo Frankowski's books must come more easily to readers who are born to solve problems and bred to apply technology. An appreciation for the paradoxes involved in time travel often helps too. Want to know the dangers in over-engineering a ferrocrete yacht? Care to speculate on where and why Spam would be considered a gourmet food? Just want to get away from it all for a while so you can gain a fresh perspective on international trade and alternative political systems? Join Frankowski's daring duo of engineers on their round-the-world cruise. The story is told in the first person by one of the engineers, and his philosophical asides sometimes disrupt the flow of the plot; but I could not deny all five stars to any author who sends me looking for poems by Rudyard Kipling ["The Secret of the Machines"] -- even when he doesn't seem to know that the fiber component of hemp is the plant's vascular system and therefore not restricted to individual cells -- Super Hemp = No Problem. Good book, good problem solving, good way to spend a few summer hours.

I enjoyed the technical bit, and the beginning part about the engineers, and a little of it was reminiscent of Heinlein. But it seemed his characters weren't really evolved much from the 50's.

The other part, his ideal dream land, is a little strange. A large underclass of neutered servants, a small upper class bred by eugenic principals, women who are bread for domesticity even in that upper class, all reminds me a lot of something out of the Germany of the 30's, dressed up in medieval garb. Then there a lot of features for adolescent males: nude waitress/prostitutes in the bars, and upperclass women anxious to bed you if you are successful and generous.

All that was intriguing, but it's also coupled by pages and pages where the two protagonists discuss their dislike of women's lib, the government, political correctness, blacks who object to name calling, etc. to the point where it slows the action. However to their credit, the two seem to think sterilization of the servant class is something to be fixed, and at one point the hero even complains to himself that the women of the island are a little too subservient to the local powers that be. It seems amazing that these two unsympathetic have an ounce of suspicion that all might not be right in their paradise.

To be fair, after "The Cross-Time Engineer" series, there was no way to go but down. This novel is not in the same league as "The Cross-Time Engineer," but it is a decent SciFi novel. "Copernick's Rebellion" was the first Frankowski novel I read and I found it incredibly creative, but the characters were very flat, like an old 50's SciFi novel. Frankowski has really improved his characters in "A Boy and His Tank" and "The Fata Morgana." He would have received a passing grade from even my old English teacher. The best part of "The Fata Morgana" was the two main characters. Fankowski split himself into his emotional half and his logical half using two main characters and the interaction was enjoyable. But the real charm of Frankowski is how he uses engineering in his stories, like a modern day Johann Wyss ("The Swiss Family Robinson"). There is very little of that charm in this novel. I'd like to read the novel of how Conrad Stargard's relative invented the time machine. Now, that would be a Frankowski novel.

Leo Frankowski just doesn't know when to quit, and that's too bad. I read Frankowski's _Crosstime Engineer_ series and thought that it was a fun and charming updating of a Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's court, with a lot of interesting facts about medieval European history thrown in besides. But this latest book of his stinks on ice. The idea behind the Fata Morgana is that two engineers on an extended yacht trip have an accident in the Atlanic Ocean and run aground on the fabled Western Isles. What Western Isles you ask? Well these are the Western Isles of yore, that apparently were really a massive chunk of tenuously anchored lava off of the coast of France until the year 1099 when it broke loose and floated free in the world's oceans. Since then the isles have been floating free, isolated from contact with the world's civilizations and a thriving civilization has developed there, in isolation, until our protagonists come along. Now, the first question you might ask is how a chunk of rock large enough to support a civilization of 12,000 people could have floated free for the last 900 years without ever being discovered. Frankowski "explains" this by saying that it had been discovered, but no one believed any of the discoverers because the island kept moving. But wait, it gets lamer. You, the discerning reader, might ask how this island remained undiscovered in our modern era of high altitude reconnaissance and satellites. Well Frankowski "explains" this by saying that no spy satellite had ever looked down at this island and that it was too small to show up on the images from weather satellites. Now, if you can swallow this then you can swallow the rest of the novel, which, quite frankly, isn't that interesting. Our two protagonists, both engineers, are noble and hard working souls who land on this island, show the natives how it's done, foil the evil archbishop, get some hot native tail and in general save the day, all the while bloviating on various topics such as political correctness, women's lib, religion, etc. Now, Bob Heinlein, may he rest in peace, could get away with this, even when it got thick in novels such as _I Will Fear no Evil_ and _Number of the Beast_ because he kept the story moving and because his characters were interesting people who found themselves in interesting predicaments. Not so Frankowski. There are a few interesting ideas in the book, the most being a form of Christianity based upon the teachings of the Apostle Thomas (doubting Thomas), but these are basically throw aways and not enough to redeem this book. Summary: AVOID

Frankowski's latest reminds me of many of the old SF short storys I read in the old Astounding magazine. Interesting but farfetced premise. I get the feeling that this is almost a libertarian tract disguised as a Science Fiction novel. In this book Frankowski has more in common with Jonathan Swift than with David Weber.

This book was a readable adventure story. But I got tired of the author's tirades on various topics: anti political correctness, anti feminist. At times I felt I was stuck reading Rush Limbaugh instead of a science fiction adventure. The female characters were totally unrealistic male fantasy genre. This could have been a good adventure story but for me the author's politics intruded.

As with nearly all of Frankowki's books, the main hero is an engineer, so there are some passages that are best appreciated by someone with a technical background. These are few and don't detract from an enjoyable story line. The plot turns are unexpected and keep the story interesting. Overall a good book.

It is a fun piece of escapist SF. Once a sitting Congress-Critter starting worrying about Guam "tipping over" if more U.S. troops are moved THERE, I re-read it. It is a good Re-Read, too!