Customer Reviews

Quofum

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

 

 

This is sub-par for Foster (a great author in my book). He's one of my favorite authors, but the last few books don't even sound like they were written by him. The same elements are there but all the magic is gone. There's no suspense, the characters are flat, and the whole book reeks of deus ex machina intervention.
This book was below the bar even as a random read from the bookstore shelf, much less from an author with the ability to produce truly excellent work. I bought the book without even looking further than the by-line, and it was an incredible disappointment.
Skip this one.

The Humanx Commonwealth is intrigued with the unique planet Quofum, which is outside their sector, because the orb appears to vanish and reappear off their monitors. Captain Boylen is assigned to escort four xenologists to study the planet especially the life forms since the oceans contain alcohol.

Thus he and his crew bring two men, one woman and a Thanx to the mysterious planet. Upon arrival they find three shockers. First there are several primitive but intelligent species that are so dissimilar they could never evolve on the same orb. Second they encounter thousands of other various life-forms never seen anywhere else. Finally as mysterious as the diversity findings prove, the visitors have no idea who made a gigantic underground compound containing technology and gadgetry none of the scientists recognize.

This is a well written tale crucial to the expected final Pip and Flinx novel though the two stars never appear in QUOFUM. The story line is fast-paced and exciting, but disappointingly never finishes any key thread; instead it sets the background for that Pip and Flinx finale. Consequently fans of the saga will have mixed feelings about the trip to QUOFUM.

At two key points I was slapped into recognizing that Alan Dean Foster writes book series. I know I know it says A BOOK OF THE COMMONWEALTH on the dust jacket. What was to me a Greek middle (i.e. coming from out of nowhere) might not have been if I had been familiar with Foster's universe. I find that I prefer a novel that can stand on its own especially in terms of plot and resolution. I think I can handle a trilogy - especially if I know a book is part of one. The ending of QUOFUM is deferment, which is definitely not fulfilling. A book should be able to be both - part of a grand series and a rich work in and of itself.

Pip and Flinx used to be my favorite series for Sci-Fi and the early books (Tar Aym Krang, etc) rocked.

Today I have no idea where ADF is going with the characters, they're just not interesting at all and I have no idea what the latest book is any more, since he keeps dribbling the books out based on some arcane schedule. The first couple of Commonwealth books were also something I looked forward to, but with this rambling, incoherent, and bland book Qofum it just has lost any interest for me.

Even the opening of most of ADFs early books really drew you in, this one just made me start to wonder why I was going to invest any time in it.

I think David Weber also has the same problem, the latest Honor Harrington Books seemed to be cheap and flatly uninteresting and seemed to bank on the fanbase established in the good old days.

Alan Dean Foster's "Quofum" is a book that goes nowhere. Oh, technically, the writing's very nice. But, there's no point to the book. Outside of a whole lot of descriptive prose describing what the science team at the core of the book is doing, nothing happens. Worse, the mechanism used to leave that crew to their own devices (about the middle of the book) just comes out of the blue and is nonsensical (it's so silly that I almost stopped reading there (I wish I had)). For the coup de grace, the rest of the book consists of even more pointless descriptive prose followed by 10 pages or so of deus ex machina that fails to even tie anything up. If the writing were technically bad, I'd be happy to rate this at an Awful 1 star out of 5. But, in all honesty, I can't do that. So, I'll bump it up to a Bad 2 stars out of 5.

So sad that such a brilliant writer,(FOSTER), would allow himself to spit out 270+ pages of useless detail for a "cliffhanger",that could covered in a (2) page prolouge. I've read almost all of his previous books,but have never dealt with this total disappointment before. So much for "EXPECTATIONS".

This is a very disappointing, almost pointless excursion by Mr. Foster The 300 pages of this massmarket paperback could have easily been edited down to ~80-100 pages woven into a Flinx book, or better yet combined into the obvious sequel (or "other shoe") volume still to come. Given the quality of many of his previous books, I was surprised that he submitted this as a complete book, and that the publishers released it.

I've read several books by Alan Dean Foster, and some have been very entertaining. Most of his stories though have an annoying drawback, they are not tightly woven and they leave threads dangling. Quofum is a good example of this. It is set in the same universe as the Pip and Flinx series but, except for the last chapter, does not tie into that recently concluded tale. I don't want to give the story away (such as it is) but it includes a mystery planet, a murder, an assassin, an intrepid group of scientists, and a great evil that threatens the galaxy. The whole purpose of the story seems to be to allude to the conclusion of the Pip and Flinx adventure that is told in "Flinx Transcendent" where Flinx finally confronts the evil void that is threatening to consume the galaxy. Unfortunately, there is no indication of that until the very last chapter and even then it adds no real explanation about either the great evil or the race of beings that fled from it leaving the tools Flinx will eventually use to attempt to defeat it. The story up to that point is fairly dull and contrived. What it does do is leave more threads dangling, including the fate of the aforementioned assassin, the final disposition of the intrepid scientists, and several questions about the planet Quofum and the race that created it. The Pip and Flinx books are worth reading, especially now that "Flinx Transcendent" has tied up several of the lose ends that Foster left dangling in that tale. Quofum however is not.

Okay, first I will admit I am a bit jaded after the last couple or three or four PIP and Flinx novels. I have not been impressed with Mr. Fosters contributions since Sliding Scales. Quofum continues in the same vein. In Quofum we are treated to the same vanilla formula of oddball alien plants, animals and native aboriginal aliens. This takes up most of the book. Without giving away too much, the plots I was more interested in was the "killer" plot and the underground labyrinth. Frankly I was more interested in the killer's fate then that of the four researchers. The few pages spent on his encounters and his fate piqued my interest more than page after page of different species of plant, animal and rock and whatever is in between. Same with the underground labyrinth, which makes up just a few pages of the book. I would prefer to read more about advanced aliens civilizations with godlike abilities than discourses on alien anthropology and biology. To Mr. Foster and his publisher, I say enough already. We are more than ready for Flinx Transcendent. You have stretched this storyline over upteen novels. Let the next one be the wondrous climatic finish to the main plot line, no more teasers.

Quofum has no plot, no long-term antagonist (think bad sentient), boring protagonists (think good sentients) and spends nearly all of its content describing alien life forms and an alien planet. The mysterious evil approaching the commonwealth continues to be a vague stereotype and I am hoping that it will rapidly swallow Flinx, Pip and ADF's future horrible writing.

What few plot lines exist are quickly terminated or go nowhere such as the assassination of the mission leader by a Quarm, a romance, connecting with several other species on the planet, and the discovery of and subsequent eternal imprisonment within the planet's technological core. Foster provides the planet's secrets in a rush in the last pages and we are left with three boring sentients as planetary prisoners eternally waiting until they are either consumed by this unknown evil racing towards the Commonwealth or until they unlikely provide some sort of miracle.

ADF has the capacity to write well as proven by the Tar Aym Krang, Excerpts to Reality and a very few other books but otherwise he often writes poorly when it comes to plot. Quofum sadly is an example of his poor writing and it makes readers like myself disappointed that Flinx, Pip and the Commonwealth story became so utterly bad and boring over the decades.

I would not recommend this book to anyone and I am astonished that other reviewers actually found it in any way enjoyable or well written.