19 of 19 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Leaves you wanting even more..., June 27, 2002
This review is from: The Gods of Riverworld (Riverworld Saga, No 5) (Paperback)
This is the 5th book in the Riverworld series.
The main character is now only Burton, although the story does focus on other characters in his party for brief amounts of time.
The main plot here is having reached the tower and solved its mystery the party must now solve the mystery of a Renegade in control of the tower. The story centers on this and also the pleasures they take by using the almost god-like power of the computer in the tower.
This is a pretty good novel but the boring sequences from the last one are here in spades and now come in the form of intricate backgrounds of each of the characters. Also there is a strange weirdness you may feel while reading this because of the fact that the whole book 326 pages takes place in the tower in a relatively short period of time. This is where many other reviewers got the notion that the Author just threw this book in to make some cash.
Still it's exciting to follow Burton around without the hindrances of a huge amount of people and one thing I can say about this novel and the one previous is that towards the very end there is a point where everything is explained. It's kind the equivalent of the bad guy in Scooby Doo removing his mask and explaining why he "could have pulled it of if it weren't for those darn kids." And these points are very exciting and make you sit up and pay attention since basically this is exactly what you've been waiting to find out for 5 books.
Note: There is one very specific discrepancy I would like to point out. It's around page 28, and it's where the party is talking about living together because of the Renegade, Turpin asks Frigate if he's ever been in the slammer and Frigate replies only in his own personal one. THEN Burton thinks to himself that Frigates statement wasn't true because Frigate had been a prisoner several time including under Hermann Goring(this took place in To Your Scattered Bodies Go, and Burton was there also).....Well this is very strange because it was later revealed (in The Dark Design) that the Frigate that was in Goring's prison with Burton was not the same Frigate as the one in the tower currently! And Burton Knew this! So he should not have thought. Anyone that has read this far will know the story behind the two Frigates I don't want to reveal too much. But that's a pretty bid mistake.
----In regards to the other reviews of this series that I've written, I'd like to say a few words concerning the series as a whole...
Well over all I'd say this is a pretty good series. I could have used some editing in some places and some more info in others. But I have to say the feeling I had when I finished the last couple lines of the last book was a good one. I wanted there to be more after 5 books I was surprised and saddened that it ended. So unless you have nothing better to do go ahead read through this and skip over the stuff that is boring because believe me you won't be missing anything. Otherwise if your really bored you can just read every word of it, that's what I did the first two times I read the series.
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16 of 17 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A Thoughtful Coda to the Series, December 27, 2001
As other, less generous reviewers below note, this is not necessarily indispensible-- you can read the 4-book Riverworld series without reading this and feel completely satisfied with its denouement. But Farmer is always thought-provoking, and I was pleased to have read this additional (and unquestionably final) chapter in the saga. As Farmer so often does, here again he completely confounds expectations and reverses the "truth" of the previous books. Philosophizing here as in all his other works, he tackles themes that flow through his entire oeuvre-- morality, immortality, free will, theology... there's little he misses along the way. So, if the Riverworld series is your cup of tea, and the first four books pleased you, this is a solid bet-- don't miss it for the final pieces of the puzzle.
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20 of 24 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
A terrific disappointment after the first four volumes, November 14, 2000
By A Customer
This review is from: The Gods of Riverworld (Riverworld Saga, No 5) (Paperback)
The author really should have resisted the temptation to add this last volume to a projected four-volume series. He obviously had nothing new or interesting to add, so we must suppose that he needed to pay off a new car or boat and so added this travesty of the earlier volumes. Not only does he not resolve any of the unanswered questions left at the end of volume four (which were tolerable ambiguities), but he completely destroys the essential world view and philosophical leanings that he developed in the earlier volumes. If you want a sense of completion to the series, stop with volume 4 and imagine anything else that you want to address anything you find unresolved. No matter what you decide upon, it doubtless will be better than the incredible drivel into which this volume descends. This is a volume destined to grace the bottoms of garbage pails everywhere.
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