Disclaimer: I received an e-ARC of this book from the publisher and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
This volume has books 4-6 in the World of Tiers series by internationally acclaimed author Philip José Farmer. I solid read for fans of fantasy and science fiction.

Behind the Walls of Terra

Farmer brings the action to Earth in this book. It’s unfortunate, because the lack of other-worldly settings exposes the weakness of the prose. Happily, Farmer manages a stronger grip on the characters in this installment. Kickaha is still the macho leader, Anana still the strong but submissive follower – despite the fact that she has a thousand years of experience on him, and a much more sophisticated background. Farmer papers this over by having her lack language skills, but it’s a thin excuse.

While the characters are a little more contained, the action is even more arbitrary than before. The story is easy enough to follow, but I gave up on a search for logic pretty early. The result is a tolerable but not very interesting adventure story.


The Lavalite World

With this fifth book, Farmer demonstrates conclusively that he’s out of plot ideas, but can still work up an unusual setting. Happily, he’s largely given up on his awkward gating device, and made the myriad gates more easily operated. Unhappily, he offers nothing new to go with them. As with most of the prequels, the entire book continues to be a search for gates, which then must be checked for ubiquitous traps, and then never quite lead to where they should. In other words, it’s the same story over and over and over again.

Farmer has made an effort with the setting – literally based on a lavalite, with lumps splitting off a main mass and eventually re-merging. The science is barely there, and even the central characteristic of the word, its mutability, gets shunted aside in places. Aside from a nod to immortal ennui, there’s no attempt to explain just why anyone would create such a world – going to great lengths to design interesting, dangerous, and ultimately pointless creatures to inhabit it and make things hard on the humans the designer imported.

I found the book trying and dull. At one point, Farmer, perhaps irritated by criticism of shallow characters, or simply with a character sketch on hand, suddenly plunges needlessly into a chapter-long discussion of Kickaha’s upbringing, apropos of nothing at all. Anana, while much the more interesting character, continues to be a tag-along helpmeet, existing largely to motivate Kickaha’s machismo and coo at his cleverness.

I wish Farmer had done more with his setting, including populating it with more interesting and genuine characters, and that he’d made more of an effort in the way of plot.


Red Orc's World

Apparently, Tiersian therapy was a real thing that Farmer learned about. I’m sure it must have intrigued him, and I can see the appeal of incorporating into his World of Tiers series as a sort of recursive meta-fiction. Unfortunately, what was likely fun for Farmer has considerably less appeal for readers.

The writing is surprisingly clunky. Perhaps because he has to deal more with the real world, and less with fantastic coincidence and exaggerated personalities, the protagonist seems crudely constructed and only mildly interesting. While there are clear parallels between Jim’s home life and Red Orc’s upbringing, Farmer strips them of all subtlety, pointing them out and underlining them at every turn.

It’s nice for once to see things from the villain’s viewpoint, but Farmer never goes very far beneath the surface. ‘Red Orc has a hard childhood, so he becomes a bad man’ is about as far is it goes. The rest of the book is a series of episodes in Red Orc’s life, loosely tied together by the Jim Grimson story. I found it hard to be interested in either.

All in all, likely a fun project for the author, but dull for the rest of us.


More Than Fire

Farmer set up some interesting possibilities with this book – a return to the stone computer world that holds the secret of the universe creation engines, a meeting with the last, long-hibernating member of the ancient race that developed the technology, and some other larger than life characters – and he throws it all away in favor of a standard Kickaha-gates-traps-escapes adventure. I had hopes that a really strong, intriguing, and original ending could redeeem the series by delving into the mysteries behind it all; a tall order, but feasible. Having set out the ingredients to make it happen, Farmer proceeds to make a different recipe altogether – corn bread where he could have had gingerbread.

There’s a lot of inconsistency in the World of Tiers series, especially around the technology for creating universes, which is sometimes long-lost, sometimes recently used, and whose origin is never clearly set out. By bringing in a member of the ancient race that apparently came up with both that and the gates, Farmer created an opportunity to round the series off with a satisfying explanation. Instead, it’s more of the same inconsistency that has plagued the series so far.

While the series started with Robert Wolff/Jadawin, Farmer makes no effort to bring the story full circle. Jadawin doesn’t get a look in. Similarly, Anana, Kickaha’s love interest, is present mostly as a motivator for Kickaha, not as a genuine character. Even Kickaha himself, long hinted to have Lord’s genes, remains unexplained. Pretty much the only thread that is tied up is Red Orc, Kickaha’s long-time nemesis.

This was a book with a lot of opportunity, almost all of it wasted. If you’ve gotten this far in the series and enjoyed it, this is more of the same. If you were hoping for some sort of redemptive explanation of it all, don’t bother reading this.

It was a mistake to request all of these PHF books at once because reading them all together recalls how old they are and how tastes have changed. These books were revolutionary and fun at the time but they have been so widely imitated that they have lost their specialness. This is too bad because really, PHF sampled a little bit at a time can be quite a treat.

I received a review copy of this and five other volumes of the works of Philip José Farmer through NetGalley.com.

The World of Tiers Volume 2 by Philip Jose Farmer- Whew! This series has lots of action and adventure, but definitely ran out character development and intricate plotting a while ago. In this second omnibus of Farmer's second most famous series, including: Behind The Walls of Terra, The Lavalite World, Red Orc's Rage, and More Than Fire, we have a lot going on and a lot we've seen already but still can enjoy.
Behind The Walls of Terra- Kickaha, the former earthman, now a heroic adventurer- think John Carter or Tarzan- returns to Earth only to be pursued through the gates by those who would subjugate his own universe. As with most of these stories the settings are more important than what's going on.
The Lavalite World- A really strange setting finds Kickaha in a universe where worlds create their own moons then reabsorb them back. This and the creatures who live on this exotic world make for a grand backdrop to the relentless action that ensues.
Red Orc's Rage- Okay, this is where I thought the series was going off the rails as it is quite a different story line from all the past books. In this story, a young man, Jim, from a small Ohio town is going through psychotherapy for various mental and economic issues. He attends therapy sessions with a role-playing game called "World of Tiers", and He finds himself projected into the mind of Red Orc. The rest of the book finds Jim see-sawing back and forth from his life on Earth and as the Lord Red Orc in world of Tiers. Sounds crazy, but if you stick with it, really lets you find out why Red Orc is the way he has become. The style in this novel is very different from all the others, and sometimes this book is not even listed in the series.
More Than Fire- Kickaha and Red Orc finally have their face-off. This book resumes the fast-paced action adventure style and is well done but rather a let down in a long series.