Customer Reviews

The Maker of Universes (World of Tiers)

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This book was the first in my collection (my colection numbers around 60 books and different printings of many). I have worn out two copies of this book already reading it over and over. This adventure introduces the best of Farmers characters and one of his alter-egos, Kickaha. This is a must read for anybody who has read one Farmer book and wants to try another. Ill warn you now though, if you get this to book, you should consider getting the other books in the series at the same time because you will not want to pause for a second before moving to the next book. The order goes: The Maker of Universes, The Gates of Creation, A Private Cosmos, Behind the Walls of Terre, The Lavalite World, and More than Fire. Also try Red Orcs Rage.

This first volume in the World of Tiers series features fast-paced, non-stop action/adventure from one of the finest practitioners of such in the fantasy genre. There's no time for character development or detailed scientific explanations in this one - once Robert Wolff hears that trumpet call and pops through a hole into another world, everybody's too busy swinging and ducking to philosophize much. But as with Farmer's truly brilliant Riverworld series, the extreme breadth of physical settings and social groups keeps readers constantly wondering what comes next. The whole adventure takes place on an other-dimensional world shaped like a giant wedding cake, with different societies existing on each tier, and the quest structure ensures constant movement from one locale to another. The plot is painfully simplistic, and quickly breaks down into a pattern of travel sequences followed by fight scenes, whereas more space could've been devoted to establishing motivations, and explaining various phenomena. The ending seems particularly rushed and the surprising twists are revealed so hastily they have almost no impact - by the time we know who's who and what's what, the book's already over. Of course there are plenty of other books in the series, so maybe this story is just the beginning, but having read just this first volume, I would not be quick to recommend this book to science fiction fans. Fantasy/adventure addicts should enjoy this book for Farmer's mastery of slam-bang action, but overall, it's really only a little better than average.