Customer Reviews

Requiem for a Ruler of Worlds

5 star:		(14)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Book 1 of the chronicles of Hobart Floyt and Alacrity Fitzhugh

Absolutely hilarious. Daley describes a fairly distant future in which I wouldn't mind living, complete with aliens, ray-guns, Galactic gypsies, flying bicycles, starships, automatic taxidermy machines, villains, heroes, and True Love. The main characters are a mousy little bureaucrat from isolationist Earth and a chaotic and flamboyant ABS (Able-Bodied Starman). Just good fun; very hard to put down. One of my absolute favourites when I want a laugh.

Rated 'G'; I consider the content of this book to be suitable reading for all ages.

I've read almost all Brian Daley books (yeah, he's my fav author), and these come very close to my favorite (although I'm more of a fantasy fan than a sci fi fan; long live Coramonde!). While there have been a zillion alien invasion stories, this is a story about a man who lives on Earth in a post-alien invasion society where the aliens lost, but managed to totally decimate Earth: all major cities are gone, most major landmarks are gone, almost everything that we would remember is absolutely gone...Earth has fallen back on itself, wallowing in their past glory, with a xenophobic, communist/socialist government that, and it is the birthplace of outer space people that are no longer quite "human," (like Alacrity) who brave anti-alien sentiments to make a pilgrimage back to their homeworld. In the case of Alacrity, who came to look at what's left of Earth's natural beauty, he gets framed for a murder of an Earther so he can escort Hobart Floyt, Earth functionary third class, on a mission to a distant planet to accept an inheritance from a recently deceased ruler of a 12(?) planet empire. Along the way, they survive several assassination attempts, many close calls, and a reporter who uses what she learns from talks with Alacrity and Hobart to write several books about fictional adventures that they are supposed to have, that Hobart would call "penny dreadfuls" (including "Hobart Floyt and Alacrity Fitzhugh in the Castle of the Death Addicts," "Hobart Floyt and Alacrity Fitzhugh Versus the Brain Eaters of the Galactic Rim," and "Hobart Floyt and Alacrity Fitzhugh Challenge the Amazon Slave Women of the Supernova"). Sound theories and speculations about the future that is interesting to think about (especially how popular Monopoly still is! Many breakabouts carry around personal tokens to use, and there's a big entry fee that goes into the jackpot for the winner). Top-notch materiel!

This book is one of my all time favorites. Brian Daley creates a wonderfully large sci-fi world that makes you want to know more about it. The plot quickly draws you in with Daley's in depth style. While not only being enjoyable in its self, it sets up the next book in the series very well (which is also excellent). If you like Lois McMasters Bujold, you'll love this.

I'm disappointed to see that this fantastic book is out of print. Brian Daley's prose shines in this starfaring adventure that follows spacer Alacrity Fitzhugh (a pseudonym and a pun: say it out loud and you'll get a good impression of his character) and Hobart Floyt (a stolid Earth-dweller) as they wander through the galaxy, causing mayhem wherever they go. Though this book belongs in the buddy genre, it also subtly decries the xenophobia and racism of today: Earth in the future is an exclusive planet, terrified and contemptuous of the colonists who settled the stars. Alacrity comes back and is trapped into escorting Hobart to collect an inheritance left to him by the ruler of a distant solar system. As they travel togeither, they must overcome their dislike of each other as well as interference from those who do not want the mission to be completed. The series--Requiem for a Ruler of Worlds, Jinx on a Terran Inheritance, and Fall of the White Ship Avatar--is incredibly funny, written in Daly's clever, sarcastic, name-dropping style. It's great, believable science fiction, but the characters remain utterly human. What an accomplishment

I first read this book when it appeared in paperback in 1985 or so. On a recenct visit to my parents home, I found it on a shelf while poking around on a lazy afternoon and started reading...I was delighted to find it was as good as I remembered, the characters are vivid, likeable and engaging and the story is epic and interesting. I have never read too much of this genre, so I'm not as picky as some others who have reviewed this title, I suppose, but I find the above qualities refreshing in a genre that seems to have been left to the "experts", a situation that always ends up dull. My biggest piece of advice would be to buy all three books at once, if possible, free up a weekend and go for a great ride. Even at 33 I felt-as I did at 17-a sense of personal loss when the last page of the last book ended, like friends had moved away.

This book is now of as good material as is being written today this year 2000. As other reviewers have commented I too find it was of good quality and am disapointed it is not still available in stores.Also is there any other books on these two caracters after the white ship book.

Brian Daley was a Vietnam Veteran who lived in New York City, his experience with diverse cultures, densely packed shows through in his work. If you have ambitions to be a world traveller, reading Requiem for a Ruler of Worlds will help you overcome the initial terror of the absolutely strange. This is a great first book in a great series. It is an absolute tragedy that he will never write a fourth novel for this series, but each novel of the series is complete on its own. You just want more!

These books explore the nature of unbridled humanity better than any other works of fiction I have ever read. I believe the real value of these stories lay not only in there entertainment value (of which there is plenty) but more so in just what excesses and horrors we people are capable of. Read Nazi Germany, The Inquisition, Adi Ammin, and then throw these and other cultures into space, let em go and you have these stories. If we ever get of Earth and settle other planets on any kind of scale this is what it will be like.... Then theres the metaphysics (or are they physics) of "strange attractors". I personally believe in strange attractors and so do you. Seriously these are great books, five stars, read em.

With so little being written the is truly sci-fi one has to go back to the old classics and reread them over and over. This series of books was one my favorites.I enjoyed the humor, the settings in which each event took place, the flow of the story from start to finish and the fact it was just plain good old fashion sci-fi. Today most of the books in the sci-fi section are really fantasy which is not the same though some want you to think that. I rate this story right up there with all the best sci-fi written. Please bring it back for my children's sake and their children.

I came to this series knowing Brian Daley only from his Han Solo books, and was enormously surprised to find a very readable, very enjoyable book along the lines of classic SF from the 50's and 60's. Well-crafted prose, fun characters, and a genuinely intriguing storyline made this book hard to put down.