Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!floyd!harpo!seismo!hao!hplabs!sri-unix!RNeal@HIS-PHOENIX-MULTICS.ARPA From: RNeal@HIS-PHOENIX-MULTICS.ARPA Newsgroups: net.sf-lovers Subject: Farmer's Riverworld and Stanislaw Lem Message-ID: <17506@sri-arpa.UUCP> Date: Tue, 13-Mar-84 15:50:00 EST Article-I.D.: sri-arpa.17506 Posted: Tue Mar 13 15:50:00 1984 Date-Received: Fri, 16-Mar-84 02:28:41 EST Lines: 30 Well, I finally got up the drive to read The Magic Labyrinth (book 4 of Riverworld). It took a long time to start due to the discouraging reviews I have read in this meeting. I was pleasantly surprised. I enjoyed the book and I think it did quite a good job of wrapping up the Riverworld mystery. Maybe I missed something, but I thought the reason behind it all was quite good. The series is quite long, though, and I would not read it a second time. Now to Lem. I have seen some transactions claiming what a great writer he is. I have read The Cyberiad, Solaris, and The Invincible. The Cyberiad was very good and very funny, and the other two (both novels, while The Cyberiad is a collection of shorts) started off well. But he has an extreme problem ending those two novels! The Invincible started off great and got better, but when I got to the end, I was looking for at least another chapter. It was as if he ran out of paper. It really ticked me off for such a great book to have such a lack of ending. I read Solaris because I heard some of the plot and was interested (and I figured it couldn't just drop off like the other did-he is supposed to be a good writer). ss Solaris is good about 1/3 of the way through. Then it starts a down hill run the likes of which I have never encountered before. By the time I waded through the muck to the end (I never leave a book unfinished) I wished I had never heard of Lem and never started this book! So that some of you out there will know what type of stuff I do like (so you can determine if these reviews will do you any good), my favorites are Niven, Chalker, Hogan, Piers Anthony, "Doc" Smith, and Alan Dean Foster to name a few... >RUSTY< RNeal.dm8%pco -at cisl