The Dark Design (Book 3 of Riverworld)

I finished reading The Dark Design by Philip Jose Farmer.📚

The book had good and bad sections, and I liked the parts about airships. Unfortunately, these were relatively short. These parts were fast to read. On the other side, I struggled when the chapters were more philosophical. In most of these chapters, the author explores the concept of what makes us human. They are fascinating to think about – but I’ve wanted to read this book because of the airships on the cover :-)

I liked the following quote I found:

“Your parents’ parents were born in 1875. That makes four. Double your ancestors every twenty-five years. By 1800, you have thirty-two ancestors. Most of them didn’t even know each other, but they were ‘destined’ to be your great-great-great-grandparents. In 1700 A.D., you have five hundred and twelve ancestors. In 1600 A.D., 8192 ancestors. In 1500 A.D., 131,072 ancestors. In 1400, 2,097,152. In 1300, 33,554,432. By 1200 A.D., you have 536,870,912 ancestors.

It was the trigger for one of my doodles I’ve posted on my blog earlier. Overall I was entertained reading the book, but I would not read it a second time. d

• /review
• /riverworld
• /book-3
• /airship