Customer Reviews

Transfinite man (Berkley medallion book)

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

 

 

I always wished they would make a motion picture of TM. It's a real page turner mystery with a huge payoff/twist at the end. It's on a par with the best Heinlein. And even if maybe accidental, one of the most prescient scientifically now that String Theory is evolving into parallel universes and additional dimensions (13 so far). For lovers of great SF that delivers in scope and imagination, story telling and character, you won't be disappointed.

Good 60's Space Opera, similar to some degree to Alfred Bester's 'Tiger Tiger'. Ivan Dalroi is a private investigator, sufficiently hard-boiled to make Phillip Marlowe look wishy-washy. Hired to investigate a corporation, Failways a sort of package travel company, taking vacationers into one of five parallel continums, with the implicit threat that if anything upsets them, well, those millions of holiday makers won't be coming home. It's big enough to have it's own armed forces, and is on the verge of taking over the country.
Dalroi is having a bad day, most of the people he meets seem to want to kill him, often without really getting to know him well enough to dislike him.Dalroi is very hard to kill, in fact it is one of his outstanding characteristics. He's also got some holes in his memory, It is becoming increasingly difficult to tell friends from foes at any given moment. Gradually it becomes clear that Dalroi is the focal point of a titanic power struggle between Failways, Government, and an odd consortium of movers and shakers. One interesting fact in Dalroi's past was a death sentence, which was carried out, three times, unsucessfully. The movers and shakers are forced to realise that they are simply pawns in a much bigger game. Quite literally, the whole universe is out to get Dalroi. Turns out to be quite a fair fight.

A man discovers he has some odd abilities that work erratically, plus, people are out to get him.

Then you have a conspiracy, an alien conspiracy

Plus, a bit of descent into hell, carnage.

Sort of a third rate Stars My Destination work, a little.


2.5 out of 5