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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
A parody of action/adventure classics,
By Dave Deubler (Pennsylvania) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Greatheart Silver (Paperback)
This book is comprised of three self-contained adventures, each of which was originally published separately. All three feature the same main character, a redoubtable airship officer named Greatheart Silver, and there is enough continuity between the three adventures to create the illusion of a novel, but not the actual impact of one. The first episode opens with Silver's fall from grace as an airship officer, then goes on to detail his revenge at a wild shootout. The Shootout is easily the most memorable section of the book; Farmer gives his playful imagination free rein in a reunion of major adventure heroes and villains from the past century, including not-so-subtle variations of Doc Savage, James Bond, the Lone Ranger, and countless others. Comic effect is heightened by presenting all these characters as past their prime physically, and down on their luck financially, but the end result is more humorous for its madcap concept than for the quality of its execution. Still, it cannot be denied that Farmer handles this kind of mass combat scene as well as any writer in the field, and the pleasure he takes in gathering all these characters together for one final mad brawl comes across well, especially if the reader is also (like Farmer) an aficionado of the action/adventure/detective thrillers of the past. Part Two is a fairly straight kidnapping yarn, although the mad scientist who plans to take over the world via the high-tech distribution of pornography is somewhat over the top, and the publishing house where writers are shackled to their typewriters must have struck a chord with Farmer's writer friends. In Part Three the technical details of the airship come to the fore as several gangs of ne'er-do-wells simultaneously attempt to wrest control of the ship from newly promoted Captain Silver. Since neither of these sections is quite as funny as its predecessors, the book does not so much build to a climax as drift until it collapses. Farmer demonstrates a good command of parody, a rare skill with action, and some facility with mystery/detective stories, but serious science fiction fans will find little to maintain their interest, and the book's weak technical structure undercuts the overall effect. Fans of action/adventure classics will find some delightfully droll moments in this book, but many other readers will not be amused.
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