Rastignac The Devil

By Philip José Farmer

Here is high fidelity fiction at Philip José Farmer's storytelling best. It's a vibrant, distractingly different tale of three centuries into the future. And as you read you'll have a vague, uneasy feeling that it's all taking place somewhere in the unexplored parts of the universe, even today.

Enslaved by a triangular powered despotism -- one lone man sets his sights to the Six Bright Stars and eventual freedom of his world.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Start Publishing LLC
• Release date: Sep 3, 2014
• ISBN: 9781633557253

Philip José Farmer

Philip José Farmer (1918–2009) was born in North Terre Haute, Indiana, and grew up in Peoria, Illinois. A voracious reader, Farmer decided in the fourth grade that he wanted to be a writer. For a number of years he worked as a technical writer to pay the bills, but science fiction allowed him to apply his knowledge and passion for history, anthropology, and the other sciences to works of mind-boggling originality and scope. His first published novella, “The Lovers” (1952), earned him the Hugo Award for best new author. He won a second Hugo and was nominated for the Nebula Award for the 1967 novella “Riders of the Purple Wage,” a prophetic literary satire about a futuristic, cradle-to-grave welfare state. His best-known works include the Riverworld books, the World of Tiers series, the Dayworld Trilogy, and literary pastiches of such fictional pulp characters as Tarzan and Sherlock Holmes. He was one of the first writers to take these characters and their origin stories and mold them into wholly new works. His short fiction is also highly regarded. In 2001, Farmer won the World Fantasy Award for Life Achievement and was named Grand Master by the Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America.

Reviews for Rastignac The Devil

[pgiunta_3 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

On a distant planet ruled by three despotic governments—human (specifically French), reptilian, and amphibian—the populace is forced to wear a second organic skin which keeps them docile and connected to one another psychically. The human leader of the rebel underground, Jean-Jacques Rastignac, fears that the human population will soon be vanquished by the other two. He wishes nothing more than to leave the planet and travel among the stars. He might get his chance when his best friend, a giant Ssassaror named Mapfarity, breaks him out of jail and informs him that a spaceman from Earth has crash landed and is being held captive by the amphibian king. Of course, there’s the small matter of getting to him. If you have enough patience and stamina to endure three chapters of info dumping and talking heads that Farmer uses to impart the society's historical, cultural, and political background, you might enjoy one of the most bizarre and, at times, repulsive science fantasy tales in Farmer’s oeuvre.

[HaroldGale · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Lively fun from the height of the Campbellian years of science fiction - social satire in the tradition of Voltaire.