What do You think about The Unreasoning Mask (2007)?
There's an interesting central premise in here (one no doubt that many a thoughtful person has come up with under the influence of caffeine, alcohol, or starlight) but you've got to wade through a lot of unnecessary incident and circular detective work to get to it. The ending of Unreasoning Mask is highly unsatisfying and seems to be setting up a sequel - sadly, I'm not interested enough to check it out, if it exists. It also has the annoying sci-fi trope of "mysterious" characters holding back information and dishing it out gradually, so that you, the reader, will have read a book. It's really not worth the payoff. If you're not going to read it, the main idea is below. But if you are, and want to punish yourself, then skip the rest of this. Spoilers Below ...Basically, our universe is a cell, one of trillions of cells, a multiverse, that makes up a being, a being that has a rudimentary awareness, like an infant, but with the potential to mature and become fully sentient. Mankind has discovered a form of space travel that allows passage between the universes but also creates a kind of space cancer that eventually will break down the "cellular walls" that separate/connect the universes, thereby killing the multiverse being before it can become fully aware. A small group of aliens knows about this and seem to have survived the death of the multiverse a couple of times and are intent on helping it mature to adulthood this time (and also, making sure that they are the ones that get to communicate with it.) They've got a safe way of traveling that for some reason, they don't think to share with anyone. The body of the being has a defense against the cancer that's slowly breaking it down - it's a moon sized anti-body called a Bolg that travels between the universes through a kind of safe osmosis. It goes around destroying life on any planet where humans/aliens have jumped to with their destructive form of space travel. So, our hero just jumps around in his ship, running away from this thing, causing space cancer, while frequently appealing to the group of aliens to figure out what's going on. You'd think they'd take him aside and say "Hey, quit causing space cancer with your ship - we're trying to talk with the multiverse." Why they don't tell him right away, and why I kept reading, remains the true mystery...
—Richard
I've read all of Philip José Farmer's books, and of his stand alone sf novels, this is one of his best. Apparently I'm not alone in thinking this. Interzone editor David Pringle included The Unreasoning Mask in his book, Science Fiction: The 100 Best Novels, and sf author Ian Watson called it "a masterpiece, Farmer's finest."This novel might be viewed as a thinking person's version of Star Trek's "The Doomsday Machine" or "The Immunity Syndrome"; but it's really much more than that, with its metaphysical themes and implications, as well as its well-conceived world building of alien cultures and psychological examination of human motivations.Captain Ramstan commands a rare alaraf drive starship which allows it to jump instantaneously to distant regions of space. Just as Ramstan sets off an interstellar incident by stealing the god-idol of an alien world (called the glyfa), he is alerted that one of the alaraf ships has disappeared, a victim of a world-killer called a "bolg." What is the mysterious connection between the glyfa and the bolg, and why does Ramstan begin to have waking visions of a mystical being from his long extinguished Muslim faith? Ramstan, chased by the aliens who worship the stolen god, races across the pluriverse to find the answers.The Unreasoning Mask is a gripping, captivatingly disturbing book. Even at his most fantastic, Farmer manages to entrance with a compelling degree of realism, in particular in regard to his portrayal of human nature, which in his fiction seems to carry at least as much bad as it does good. Don't miss this darkly riveting sf adventure.
—Christopher Carey
