Customer Reviews

Inside Outside

5 star:		(0)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Philip José Farmer is a groundbreaking writer that in the '50s & '60s starts turmoil in the scene of Sci-fi. Up to that time the genre was almost aseptic, romance: yes, sex: no.
PJF launched his short story "The Lovers" (1952) and started a change. "Flesh" (1960) and "Riders of the Purple Wage" (1967) are two interesting examples amongst other of the same kind.
The other unconventional thematic he approached is: "What happens after death". A good example of this is his Riverworld Saga initiated with "To Your Scattered Bodies Go" (1971) and an excellent short story as "A Bowl Bigger than Earth" (1967).

"Inside/Outside" (1964) pertains to this last group.
Here, a strange world named "Hell" is depicted. This cosmos is contained into a sphere with the "sun" in its center.
The reader is introduced to this complex universe following the daily life of Jack Cull. Thru his eyes and thoughts, bit by bit of odd and contradictory information is revealed. Supposedly the inhabitants of Hell went there after living a previous life in Earth, but they keep vague memories of such previous life.
Cohabitating in Hell there are Demons but Humans are the dominant specie instead of them (isn't that nice?).
Among other oddities this world is subject to constant earthquakes in order to expand and make room for more and more inhabitants. Yet another cute characteristic is: no one dies. If by accident a human being dies, his/hers body is collected by an ambulance and he/she reappears unharmed hours after.
Well, that is the background where action takes place. Discover the rest by reading the book if it seems to interest you.

PJF constructs a grim and stark novel that will affect and may disturb the reader, yet is a fascinating piece of strange sci-fi.
Sci-fi addicts will surely enjoy it!

Reviewed by Max Yofre.

In this peculiar novel Farmer takes us to a radically new locale - a heretofore unknown portion of the cosmos which its inhabitants refer to as "Hell". The protagonist (one certainly can't call him a hero) is Jack Cull, an agent of an investigative agency known as the Exchange. Amidst this living horror where no one seems to know any essential facts of existence, the Exchange seeks out information concerning the possibility of eternal salvation, or failing that, any rumors that might suffice to give some hope to the long-suffering inhabitants. Of primary concern is the mysterious being known only as "X", who appears to collect the bodies of the deceased, delivers a cryptic moral message to any bystanders, and then retires to engineer the resurrection of the dead. Thus death does not end, but only interrupts, the tedious existence of these god-forsaken creatures. Without giving away the many unique twists this story presents, Farmer gives us an extensive tour of the premises, a confrontation with X, and a major cataclysm, all within this rather short novel. This adds up to a book packed full of action, and brimming with radical, even bizarre, cosmological ideas. The characters, setting, and violent action are uniformly grim, depressing, only half-familiar, and often morally repugnant; all of which contribute to making this book an artistic success as a view of a world without any moral compass or any real hope of redemption. Regrettably, these same qualities make the book a rather depressing read, as the hopelessness and despair of the characters tends to bleed over onto the reader. Things happen so quickly that it's often hard to understand exactly what's going on, and of course no one ever understands why (they aren't supposed to, until the very end), keeping the reader more befuddled than engrossed. The conclusion of the novel, where the secrets are revealed, is certainly surprising enough, although like most theories of cosmology it may offend those with strict ideas about the nature of the universe, and it certainly is of no practical importance even if one believed in it. All in all, readers who are neither offended nor depressed by Farmer's vision may find it both clever and even amusing, although no one's life will ever be changed by it. But in the last analysis, though Farmer has done a magnificent job of integrating every facet of his novel to create a perfect picture of soulless emptiness, as with the artist who fills jars with urine, it's hard to believe that many people will actually enjoy the result.