The Magic Labyrinth (Riverworld Series #4) Book

This is the fourth and most disappointing novel of the Riverworld series. Although the first three had some problems, they remained interesting. What drove me to keep reading this series was the mystery of why the world was built, and the purpose behind the resurrections. This fourth novel provides the final explanation for everything that is going on and who is behind it all. And that explanation is unfortunately predictable and entirely unoriginal. I will explain what I mean only in the most vague terms to avoid spoilers.

The explanation is predictable because Farmer provided too much of it before the final scene in which the whole truth is revealed. Too many facets of it were already guessed at or revealed to the main characters in earlier books. And so when the final truth is given, only minor details are new -- everything else was already anticipated by Burton and the others. At best we have some of them saying, "Ah, so that is why X happened." But these are only the most trivial details -- all of the big deductions made by the main characters end up being, on the whole, correct. And so there was no big "aha!" moment where the light bulb goes of for the reader.

But perhaps that could have been forgivable if Farmer's explanation hadn't been so trite. Perhaps if one never reads much science fiction this might have seemed original, but as someone who has read widely of the genre and seen many movies and TV shows in the genre, the driving force behind what is going on is nothing new in sci-fi. In fact, it's been done to death. I was highly disappointed in this fact, because the idea of the Riverworld itself is so original that I expected surely to be surprised and delighted by a wildly unique explanation at the end of who is behind it all and why. But we have the same old culprits here that we would have in any other unremarkable and highly predictable sci-fi novels or movies.

Finally, the other problem is that Farmer side-tracked the main plot, which is getting up the river to find the source and learn the truth, for nearly 75% of the book so he could focus on the sub-plot of the Clemens vs. King John feud. This he tracks in minute detail, to the point where I almost gave up on the novel for not caring - because I literally did not care at that point who won the fight. Even within this story, this side-track, Farmer insists on diverting us from the diversion by providing a 2-page biography of just about every minor character to appear in the novel -- about a page on what they did in the real world, and then another page on what they've been doing on the Riverworld. Then the bit character who has just been bio'ed leaps into the fight and, in almost every case, promptly dies. Gee, I'm sure glad Farmer treated me to the history of a character that won't be around in another chapter.

When combined, these negatives weigh down the narrative and bring what had been a mildly enjoyable series to a thoroughly unsatisfying conclusion. Farmer, in the introduction to book 3, claims that books 3-4 were supposed to be a single novel but grew too large to publish in one volume. Had I been his editor, I could have helped him cut the two down by telling him to just get the Clemons-John fight over with quickly, and get back to the real point of the story - the travel upriver.

There is a fifth Riverworld book, but I'll not bother to read it. This one was too poor to want to read any more. I'm afraid in addition, because the ending is so unsatisfying, I find myself unable to recommend the series as a whole. And that's a shame, because the first two books are pretty good, and the basic premise (minus the awful and cliche'ed explanation!) is a good one. It's a shame Farmer didn't do more with this.