Pleasure Raiders Book

An effective introduction to Farmer's work for the uninitiated in terms of his humour, subversiveness, experimentalism and his fondness of multi crossing genres. However it soon becomes apparent he had aimed Image of the Beast at a fairly narrow readership, originally for the publishers of pornography Essex House, so potentially interesting attempts at introducing transgressive themes and ideas degenerate into cynical and gratuitous smut. Suits me as I love explicit sex scenes and Farmer treats them with surprising (if uncalled for) realism, but other readers attracted by his reputation are likely to be unmoved, if not totally repelled by this brief stab at sci-fi sexploitation. However if you approach this from an appreciation for irreverent pastiches (in this case private dick pulp thrillers) and artifacts from the more frivolous areas of the counter-culture you may well be beguiled by Farmer's expansive and mischievous imagination.