Οι εραστές

by Philip José Farmer, Λίλη Ιωαννίδου (Translator)

Ξεφεύγοντας από τη Θεοκρατική τυραννία της Γης του 31ου αιώνα με μια αποστολή στον πλανήτη Όζαγκεν, ο γλωσσολόγος Χαλ Γιάροου ανακαλύπτει πως ό,τι φοβόταν στη Γη, τον ακολούθησε: ο προσωπικός του "Φύλακας-Αγγελος" που επαγρυπνεί για κάθε σημάδι αμαρτίας ή λανθασμένης σκέψης... Ωστόσο, η εισβολή στη ζωή του μιας πανέμορφης αλλά επικίνδυνα διαφορετικής γυναίκας, γκρεμίζει κάθε είδος αναστολής και υποταγής...

Genres: Science Fiction, Fiction, Aliens, Fantasy, Science Fiction Fantasy, Novels, Romance

214 pages, Paperback

First published June 1, 1961

About the author

Philip José Farmer was an American author, principally known for his science fiction and fantasy novels and short stories. He was born in Terre Haute, Indiana, but spent much of his life in Peoria, Illinois.

Farmer is best known for his Riverworld series and the earlier World of Tiers series. He is noted for his use of sexual and religious themes in his work, his fascination for and reworking of the lore of legendary pulp heroes, and occasional tongue-in-cheek pseudonymous works written as if by fictional characters.

Reviews

[Michael · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was published in 1952, only 3 years after Orwell’s “1984” It was Farmer's first book, a novella that won him a Hugo Award as a “Most Promising New Talent.” With a bit of the flavor of P.K. Dick, it features an unlikeable man, Hal, who is a cog in the machinery of a totalitarian theocracy with a repressive Victorian outlook on sexuality. As a linguist on an imperialist mission to the planet Ozgan, his job is to help the team learn the language of its sentient species, the Wogglebugs, which have evolved from insects. The hidden agenda is to find any excuse necessary to wipe them out to facilitate human colonization of the planet. Unknown to his personal monitor for correct behavior, Pornsen, who is a bit of a fusion between the Inquisition and political officers placed within the Soviet bureaucracy, Hal encounters an apparently normal human woman in his forays among the ruins of a colony lost to history, who seeks his help. His friendship with her begins to humanize him, and as his love turns to obsessive lust, he becomes radicalized against his brainwashing. His growing affinity for the Wogglebugs advances through their help in keeping his transgressions secret, and soon he becomes an outright rebel against emerging plan of the human invades to wipe them out. The fly in the ointment for our emerging identification with Hal comes when it turns out his lover is not fully human and there is a collision between moral development and an edge of horror that rewards his betrayal of his species. The biology and technology concepts in this tale are not very plausible or compelling, and the Wogglebugs are insufficiently alien in their society, but the psychology of its antihero and his metamorphosis made this a worthy and innovative read for me, about 3.5 stars of pleasure.

This was included in a recently published collection of three works by the author, available as an ARC from Netgalley (reviewed here: The Lovers * Dark Is the Sun * Riders of the Purple Wage).

[Wealhtheow · Rating 2 out of 5]

Hal Yarrow is a linguist sent to the newly discovered planet Ozgan, where another sentient species lives. He has led a repressed and unhappy life. But on Ozgan, he realizes that his tyranical religion and way of life are illogical, and breaks free to find love amongst the natives.

The writing is lazy. There are countless instances of Farmer forgetting what came mere pages ago. For example, on the first page, Yarrow tells a fellow passanger what a "joat" (jack-of-all-trades) is. Not five pages later, the book tells us what a joat is--using the exact same explanation, almost verbatim! Or, on page 147, the book tells us "[Yarrow] had had no intention of saying he loved her. He'd never told any woman he loved her, not even Mary. Nor had any woman ever told him." What pathos--except that a hundred pages earlier, Yarrow was whining that Mary constantly told him that she loved him, and demanding he tell her that he loved her. It took me all of three seconds to find textual evidence: page 14, during a fight with Mary, "'But I do love you,' [Yarrow] said for what seemed like the thousandth time since they had married." C'mon, Farmer! The book is only 219 pages long--surely it wouldn't have killed him to keep his main character's motivations straight!

Another thing that killed me was the language. Yarrow is a linguist, on the planet to learn the natives' languages. And so initially, we get whole paragraphs like this: "Cnosider the tense system. Instead of inflecting a verb or using an unattached particle to indicate the past or future, Siddo used an entirely different word. Thus, the masculine animate infinitive dabhumaksanigalu'ahai, meaning to live, was, in the perfect tense, ksu'u'peli'afo, and, in the future, mai'teipa. the same use of an entirely different word applied for all the other tenses. Plus the fact that Siddo not only had the normal (to Earthmen) three genders of masculine, feminine, and neuter, but the two extra of inanimate and spiritual..." Except as soon as he's on the planet, everyone communicates without problem! There are no mistranslations, or problems of a concept not existing in one language. No one needs Yarrow's help translating anything--they all just know each other's language. And the aliens and humans not only speak each others' languages with colloquial ease, but the aliens use expressions like "in the arms of Morpheus" to say they're going to bed. After only a few months of knowing humanity? I really doubt it!

The alien planet is hardly alien--they have apartments, automobiles, bars that are just like 20th century Earth bars. Farmer put no effort into the world building at all! Nor did he put much effort into the science of his science-fiction. Despite pages upon pages of infodumps, all of it is just completely made-up and arbitrary. His infodumps are particularly impressively out of place--in a single scene Yarrow is discovered to be a heretic, told he's going to be tortured and killed, then watches as all the humans on the planet are killed, then told his love Jeanette is actually a parasitic insect, and then told that she's dying because she's bearing his young. Then there's a 15 page monologue by Fobo about how Jeanette's biology works (all of which is totally nonsensical), to which Yarrow's response is simply to ask what would happen if she had multiple lovers. Then they talk about what would biologically happen when her kind is gang-raped! WTF? That's the worst example, but far from the only one.

All that said, the idea underpinning the novel-- that of a parastic race that survives by latching on to humans and making them love them isn't terrible, though the sexism (of so noticably the kind popular in the 20th century Western Europe&America) in the assumptions of how it works kinda ruins it a little. And Yarrow's emotional life is well written; Farmer is on firm ground there. But when it comes to plot, or sf elements, it's all very unstable and poorly done.

[Olethros · Rating 3 out of 5]

-No es tan fiero en león como lo pintan. Al menos no al principio-.

Género. Ciencia-Ficción.

Lo que nos cuenta. Hal Yarrow, lingüista de profesión en el año 3050 e infelizmente casado con Mary, vive en una sociedad religiosa totalitaria y represiva bajo el control del Iglestado. Cuando es enviado en misión secreta al recién descubierto planeta Ozagen, comienza una amistad con Fobo, nativo del planeta, y con Jeannette, una bella y enigmática mujer que parece descender de otros colonos humanos que llegaron al planeta con anterioridad.

¿Quiere saber más del libro, sin spoilers? Visite:

http://librosdeolethros.blogspot.com/...

[Dave · Rating 2 out of 5]

Philip Jose Farmer first published “The Lovers” in the August 1952 issue of Startling Stories. Nearly a decade later, Farmer expanded the novella in 1961 into a full-blown novel. It is a dystopian future with an Earth many years in the future decimated by nuclear wars and smaller countries such as Iceland, Israel, the Malay Federation, and the Hawaiian Islands responsible for repopulating many areas on Earth. Exploration of outer space has not been hugely successful, that is, until now, when a planet populated by insect creatures (Wogglebugs- a name credited to Frank L. Baum) is found and it can support human life. Hal Yarrow is an unhappy man in an unhappy marriage in a world where every thought is measured and controlled and minders are set for numbers of people to monitor people – just as in Communist societies. Yarrow is chosen for the mission, which turns out to be releasing a plague on the new planet -Ozagen- wiping out the Insect people and paving the way for colonization of the planet. While there, though, Yarrow meets a humanoid woman, who of course is irresistible and sexy, and falls for her. Little does he realize though that she is inside more insect-like than human-like and he is viewed by his compatriots as a traitor to his own species.

This reviewer has not had a great familiarity with Farmer’s work. With that proviso, though, this reviewer found this novel (that began as a novellete) to be a bit of a mess. It had a number of interesting ideas and themes, but seemed to be a veritable patchwork of a number of different ideas all sewn together and none sewn together that well. Not recommended.

[Xabi1990 · Rating 4 out of 5]

Releido en Febrero de 2012. esto escribí en un club de lectura de Zonaereader:

Comienzo diciendo, feliz, que no me ha defraudado el libro :clap . Confieso que cuando releí en el Club alguna obra de Asimov me defraudó. Las tenía en un pedestal y la relectura las dejó no mucho por encima de un aprobado.

“Los amantes”, de 1961, creo que es una novela entretenida y que a pesar de sus añitos está razonablemente bien escrita. Como recuerdo siempre, en la ciencia ficción clásica lo importante era la historia o la moda del momento. No tanto el estilo de escritura.

¿Os habeis fijado en que la mayoría de la CF es extrapolable a situaciones cotidianas del momento en que fue escrita o incluso de hoy mismo?. ¿Un estado absolutista basado en una religión que lo controla todo y donde el sexo es casi un tabú no os suena de nada?. ¿Dónde nadie disiente de la política oficial?. Pues en la época se supone que esta novela fue una crítica velada del momento por el que pasaba USA, con sus cazas de brujas, puritanismo, el mundo dividido en dos bloques, el fariseismo social, etc. Y casi la misma crítica podríamos hacer hoy.

Admito que por mi parte me encantan las novelas en las que se imaginan mundos con unas costumbres muy distintas de las actuales, con distintas prioridades, valores sociales, costumbres sexuales o gastronómicas o arquitectónicas o musicales o ... vamos, algo diferente. Esta cumple en parte, porque como decís una vez nos centramos en nuestros dos amantes, podrían ser cualquier pareja que conozcamos.

No me parece que decaiga el final. Al comienzo nos enseña dónde nos movemos, nos dibuja el escenario, y al final se centra en lo que se hace en dicho escenario, en nuestros amantes. Mezcla extrapolaciones biológicas y científicas poco sostenibles –salvo la idea, coincido en que muy buena, del “aton”- pero perdonables habida cuenta de que Farmer y esta novela no son de la corriente “hard” de la CF, donde sí se pide que la ciencia involucrada sea un poco más sostenible.

Y además, como en el fondo soy más tierno que el día de la madre, la batallita romántica de nuestros protagonistas no deja de enternecerme un pelín.

Resumen y acabo : sí, me ha gustado (4/5) a pesar de que se que no es una gran obra literaria. Es un clasico que hoy es totalmente legible y que los amantes de la CF le guardamos en el corazoncito.

Gracias al que lo propuso (¡¡¡Ostias, si fui yo!!!)

[Karl · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another book I read multiple times in magazine version and in paperback back years ago. This copy is signed by Philip José Farmer.

[Jennifer · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read The Lovers in its original publication form in the August 1952 issue of Startling Stories. What is perhaps most startling is how accurately and fully Samuel Mines, the editor, recognized the immediate and long-term influence the story would have. It is worth searching for the issue at Internet Archive and reading his full editorial, but here's the gist of what Mines wrote: "The Lovers is an important story...because it will make a lot of fine writers sit up and be quoted as blurting: 'My gosh, I didn't know we could do anything like that in science fiction!'"

[Thom · Rating 3 out of 5]

This seems like a short story expanded to a novella or short novel. Interesting (and complete) world design, religious oppression taken to an extreme. No real action in the first half, though. The second half is a good story, with elements of adventure and intrigue at the personal and government scale, and works fairly well.

Tried to find exactly why this book was banned, and only found the statement: "An exploration of alien sex so explicit it was one of the most banned books of it's time."

The only thing explicit is the biological description of how a species reproduces - unless it is the idea of sex with lights on and eyes wide open.

Easily a four or five star short story that suffers with expansion. Still a very quick read.

[Valentina · Rating 3 out of 5]

PopSugar Reading Challenge: 10. Un libro que obtuviste gratis

[Padblock · Rating 4 out of 5]

Tiene los elementos fundamentales de cualquier distopía, aderezados con generosas dosis de coito extraterrestre. Combinación curiosa.

[Maria Beltrami · Rating 5 out of 5]

Tutti gli ingredienti di un buon romanzo: amore, odio paura, guerra, rifiuto, odio, speranza, eccetera... sapientemente dosati e mescolati, e messi sulla pagina con autentica maestria, con un linguaggio piacevole e attraente che tiene incollati alla pagina.

[j · Rating 3 out of 5]

Farmer's writing is strictly utilitarian here, but you can see how works like this served as transitional stepping stones to the eventual new wave. What is great -- after a sluggish middle section -- is the denouement, where Farmer employs the usually-insufferable technique of the climactic exposition dump to such absurd lengths as to render the whole thing maniacally hilarious. I can't even put to words how funny it is to have this poor stupid protagonist have this particular stuff explained to him at such excruciating lengths by a friendly insectoid.

Also a brief note on the nickname given to those insectoids: It derives from Mr. Woggle-Bug, a character from Baum's Oz novels. This is a reference that has vanished into obscurity, but was likely a lot more fresh in the general cultural memory in 1952, when the first version of this work was published. Either way, the name is more than somewhat unfortunate -- quite awkward at the least.

[Marta · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ne Gli amanti di Siddo siamo nel 3050 d.C. in una Terra molto diversa dalla nostra, sia per confini territoriali, che per lingue parlate, che per la società stessa in cui vive il nostro protagonista. Una guerra batteriologica ha distrutto l’umanità, e in questo clima post-apocalittico, quei pochi terrestri rimasti in vita, hanno ricostruito un mondo, modificando la delimitazione delle Nazioni e la distribuzione dei popoli. Una realtà mondiale che ora appare divisa in due con una terra-cuscinetto al centro: da un lato c’è l’Unione Haijiaca con capitale Sigmen City, nella nostra attuale America Settentrionale – Canada, dall’altra la Repubblica di Israele. Al centro la cosiddetta Marca, la terra di nessuno – equivalente all’Europa Meridionale – contesa tra le due potenze.

Hal Yarrow, il protagonista, vive e lavora a Sigmen City. Svolge il ruolo di joat di linguistica presso l’Università della città. Ma come si apprende sin dalla prima riga dell’incipit, l’unica cosa che vorrebbe fare è fuggire, scappare via, da un regime spietato, da una società religiosa-repressiva dedita al culto del Precursore Isaac Sigmen. Una realtà governata dalla Schiesa, una sorta di Stato-Chiesa, al cui capo ci sono Uzziti e Urieliti, una sorta di poliziotti e sacerdoti, che si occupano di controllare che ogni persona rispetti le regole. Regole ferree e spietate, basate su un libro, il Talmud Occidentale. Assurde.
Per fare degli esempi? Anche solo per salire su un ascensore ci sono delle regole da rispettare: la precedenza va al rango sociale più alto. Bisogna pregare prima di svolgere dei compiti, compiere dei gesti ben precisi, anche per specchiarsi ci vogliono pochi minuti, i necessari per controllare se si è lavati bene. Si ha solo un quarto d’ora per prepararsi al mattino e la barba la puoi avere solo se appartieni alla Gerarchia più influente.
Se pensiamo che al ritorno in casa ci sia un po’ di riposo, ci sbagliamo. Hal ha una moglie – imposta dall’acai, il suo angelo custode che controlla tutti i suoi movimenti e pensieri – che è ormai troppo frigida, troppo rispettosa delle regole. Anche per fare l’amore, occorre seguire un determinato iter, al solo scopo di poter procreare. Uno di quei regimi dove la religione più puritana ti annienta dentro. Ah, e non dimentichiamo che ci sono anche libri e parole vietati!

In questa realtà assurda, Hal ha uno spiraglio di luce, che si presenta grazie a un invito a essere un volontario per un viaggio interstellare verso un pianeta lontano, Ozagen, che hanno scoperto essere abitato da forme di vita intelligenti che discendono dagli… insetti! Lo scopo? Conoscere e imparare la lingua e gli usi degli alieni, per poi procedere all’Operazione Ozagenocidio!



Durante un’esplorazione delle rovine di una città costruita 2000 anni prima su questo pianeta a opera di una razza di umanoidi ormai estinti, Hal incontra Jeannette. All’apparenza sembra una bellissima donna, quasi una ninfa della mitologia, vestita solo di due lembi di stoffa scuri a coprire le nudità, ma si accorge presto da quelle labbra di un color scarlatto naturale, che in verità non è del tutto umana. Lei gli racconta la sua storia e gli chiede di salvarla. Ed è così, che incurante dei dettami rigidi della società e della missione, lui decide di farlo e di portarla con sé a Siddo, la nazione più importante di Ozagen. Da lì inizia una relazione tra i due – cosa inammissibile! -, ma anche un mutamento nel nostro protagonista. Grazie all’amicizia con Fobo, un wog – alieno abitante del pianeta – e di Jeannette, Hal allarga i propri orizzonti e inizia a provare un profondo senso di ribellione. Di più non voglio dirvi.

Mi è piaciuto? Devo dire che a parte alcune cose, come parole che non ho ben compreso, o informazioni sulla società e del mondo creato che secondo me si potevano ampliare (ma ho poi letto che ci sono altri libri ambientati nello stesso contesto, anche se autoconclusivi), la mia opinione è sicuramente positiva. Complice il tema dell’amore, quel pizzico di tragedia, e una scoperta finale interessante, non mi è dispiaciuto per nulla! Certo, ci sono immagini per le quali ho provato un po’ di disgusto, argomenti che invece mi hanno trasmesso molta curiosità.

La cosa bella di questo romanzo di fantascienza è che si pongono in primo piano le persone, anziché le macchine. Si affronta l’umanità, degli esseri umani che sono diventati sempre più vuoti, sempre più distanti. Addirittura non possono mangiare guardandosi negli occhi, e non si deve far rumore alcuno nel masticare. Eppure, proprio quella Jeannette, che del tutto umana non è – anzi, sul finale si comprenderà la sua vera essenza – dimostra più cuore di tutti. Anche lo stesso Fobo, un wog, riesce a far aprire gli occhi a Hal. Ho letto e si può di certo ritrovare tra queste pagine, che c’è anche il tema del razzismo. In effetti come sempre gli esseri umani si sentono forse un po’ troppo superiori, e vedono nel diverso, nell’alieno qualcosa di squallido, inferiore, da annientare.

Farmer dà anche molto spazio a digressioni sulle diverse lingue parlate dai Wog o da Jeannette; oltre che ha spiegazioni varie sulla genesi di questi esseri alieni. Ci dà anche una spiegazione su come sia composto ora il mondo, sulla distribuzione degli abitanti e delle lingue parlate. Secondo me è un libro che racchiude molto di più di una semplice storia di umani e alieni, o di amore e diversità.

[Recensione completa nel blog: https://unavaligiariccadisogni.wordpr...]

[Metaphorosis · Rating 3 out of 5]

3 stars, Metaphorosis Reviews

Summary:

In a repressive future society, a jack-of-all-trades linguist exchanges cultural restrictions for a long trip to another world. Whe he finds there shakes and reshapes his world view and his heart.

Review:

In this Hugo-winning novella, Farmer provides more complex characters than in much of his later work. The hero is a rebel, but not too much of one; he’s caught up by the beliefs he was raised with, and has difficulty getting past them. In this, he doesn’t always take the easy literary path; he doesn’t invariably triumph against all odds, and not all of his choices are good. The villain of the piece has another side that we only glimpse, but know is there.

While the depth of characterization is a surprising precursor to the more simplistic templates Farmer later relied on, the seeds of that more facile approach are here as well. I never really found myself believing in the society he created, nor in the alien biology he posits. For one thing, there’s no clear focus to the book; it feels very much like he’s making it up as he goes along. Sometimes that works. Here it doesn’t.

For all the story’s flaws, there are the bones of interesting ideas, and I can see why it attracted attention. At the same time, the story feels unnecessarily stretched out, and the weak spots are hard to ignore. This should probably have stayed at short story length. Still, I wish he’d taken the complexity and interesting choices that are here, and written more like that, rather than what seems to have been a determined tack toward pulp.

I received a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

[Antonio Heras · Rating 3 out of 5]

Una novela (breve) de ciencia ficción bastante original (teniendo en cuenta cuándo fue escrita) con algunos detalles muy interesantes que hacen que obvies que la trama, el esqueleto de la narración, ya lo has leído o visto infinidad de veces. Con todo, un 3,5 sobre 5.

[Crystal Pistal · Rating 2 out of 5]

I didn't find it horrible but I only really cared about the parts with the "lovers" themselves.. and the ending. I found myself skipping paragraphs where the author rambled on about things that didn't really matter or enhance the story..at least for me!

[Fiona · Rating 3 out of 5]

so weird and funny teehee

[Nicolas · Rating 4 out of 5]

J'avais écrit une première introduction de cet avis, dans laquelle je mettais en avant le côté historique de ce bouquin, mais je l'ai effacée. Non parce que je veux ignorer cette histoire, mais plutôt parce que je pense que d'autres sauront mieux la mettre en valeur que moi. Et maintenant que cette précaution est prise, je peux en parler librement.
Ce roman nous raconte donc les aventures de Hal Yarrow, linguiste en quête d'une autre vie, qui va avoir la chance de partir à la conquête d'un monde étranger, et surtout à la découverte de l'amour et du bon sexe(1).
A lire la quatrième de couverture, je m'étais attendu à un truc limite trop chaud pour être touché, d'un érotisme aussi prégnant qu'un fauteuil en rotin(2) ou qu'un essaim de nanomachines(3). Et en fait, pas du tout. D'accord, on voit souvent la maîtresse de notre héros de l'espace dans une tenue plutôt légère. Et d'accord aussi, dès qu'ils sont ensemble, elle ne pense qu'à le glisser dans son lit. Mais les détails salaces de leur histoire s'arrêtent là où commence le gonflement de son pantalon. Le reste est plus du domaine de l'amour et de la passion que de l'érotisme et du porno. Mais, bien sûr, ma perception de cette histoire est forgée par ma culture, et j'ai l'impression qu'avec le temps, nous avons basculés du côté des Worgs, ces extra-terrestres qu'étudie le héros.
Et à mon sens, c'est là une des forces de ce roman : ne pas être simplement la première histoire de sexe de la SF, mais plutôt un bon récit de SF éclipsé lors de sa sortie par son prétendu état de brûlot pornograhique.
En effet, hors de la sphère privée du héros, qui est mon sens l'évènement déclencheur d'une bonne partie du récit, on est ici face à une civilisation humaine puritaine, paranoïaque et agressive, qui considère comme hostile et relevant de sa zone d'expansion la planète où résident d'étranges extra-terrestres, pacifistes mais déterminés. Et cette tentative d'invasion, même si elle ne fournit qu'un décor aux problèmes personnels du héros, est assez intéressante dans ses inspirations et ses ressorts. Mais surtout, je trouve qu'on comprend assez facilement de quel côté se place l'auteur, dénoncant les dérives d'un état dictatorial et souhaitant s'enrichir du contact avec l'autre, quelle que soit sa forme et ses motivations.
Enfin, et puisque c'est à mon sens indispensable, je dois écrire un
mot sur la conclusion de cette histoire.
Une conclusion trop abrupte à mon goût, mais sans doute dictée par la nouvelle dont ce roman est tirée, mais saisissante. Saisissante par la justification que donne l'auteur à la mort de Jeannette. Saisissante par ce que ces révélations peuvent avoir de troublant par Hal Yarrow,
héros malheureux de cette histoire. Saisissante enfin par l'espoir qui apparaît lorsque le lecteur comprend que Yarrow va finallement accéder seul à une espèce de paradis copulatoire.
Pour conclure, je trouve que ce roman, même s'il apparaît désuet par de nombreux aspects (les trottoirs roulants, typiquement), reste un formidable message d'amour pour l'autre, et à ce titre devrait faire partie de toute bonne bibliothèque SF souhaitant sortir un peu des sentiers rebattus de la SF ligne dure pour s'intéresser au moteur de ces récits : l'humain.

* (1) Par opposition au sexe purement reproducteur, le bon sexe, lui, fait du bien aux deux participants
* (2) Tout dans cette allusion est une question d'époque (pensez à Emmanuelle, qui en son temps fit elle aussi monter la pression).
* (3) Ca, c'est pour les lecteurs de Thanatos

[Velvetink · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really liked it when I read it as a kid. Have to read it again to comment though.

[Lukerik · Rating 4 out of 5]

When I meet a beautiful woman at night in the ruins of a lost civilisation I fall in love with her. That’s my policy. You know there’ll be something wrong with her. She’ll probably have histrionic personality disorder or a penis or something, but by God, if a man can’t give a woman a bit of attention, or flip her over and do her from behind then I think he has to consider if he really is a man. Well, that’s what happens to the hero of this story, and after a time (or a few times anyway), it turns out he is one.

This is a novel about parasitism, both physical and spiritual, and explores the concept quite richly. All upper lips stiffened for spoilers please. Our hero, whose name I forget, is a victim of it. Parasitism, not spoilers. At some point in the past a man called Sigmen has fed his vast ego on the life-force of humanity, draining it to create a theocracy apparently designed to induce suicide. Good and bad are now Real and Unreal. Yet what is Unreal would appear to be quite innocent human nature. He has installed personal guardians over everyone and spouse informs against spouse. These guardians have no beneficial function in society and survive on the fear they generate. The society itself has become a parasite. Discovering a sentient species on another world, they visit but intend to kill them all and take the planet for themselves. I think the point being made here is that parasitism causes death. Obviously, it’s a physical death for the poor aliens, but a spiritual death for the humans, both as a victim of the parasite Sigmen, their basic humanity drained, and as a parasite of the aliens, destroying what little humanity they had left. There’s a particularly telling passage where Hal (I’ve remembered his name now) murders his guardian, his parasite. “...his heart felt light. It was strong, pumping unimpeded as if a hand around it had released its clutch.” Death is the only release.

Meanwhile, over in the other plot, a parasite has attached herself to Hal. She may be described as one, but is she really? It’s strikes me that she’s actually a symbiont. Her species cannot survive without the attachment, but the attachment doesn’t kill the host, but rather benefits it, not the least of these being love. The irony here (and in the last line) is that she has attached herself to a parasite. He doesn’t mean to harm her. His behaviour is conditioned by the parasitical society he lives in, yet it’s his behaviour that implants something that will eat her from the inside.

Anyway, it’s well worth a read and very thought provoking, but there a couple of glaring artistic errors which it’s difficult to overlook. Bit of a shame given that Farmer first expanded and then revised it over the years from the original novella, but it’s a bit late to complain to him now.

[Yina Collazos · Rating 3 out of 5]

Esta novela me generó opiniones encontradas, por la parte negativa me costó mucho encontrarle verisimilitud a la ocnstrucción de mundo, quizá el autor se la tomó fácil al hacer que todos los perosnajes se ocmuniquen faiclmente, y que cuando se intercambian costumbres parezcans er las mismas en cualquier parte, problemas de comunicación o culturales dificilmentemete son reflejados en una novela sobre conquista interplanetaria y romance entre especies, lo que termina desturyendo parte de la verisimilitud. En segundo punto, el casi inexistente perosnaje que interpretan las mujeres de la novela, y el amor nacido de la nada entre los amantes, un amor profundo y sincero , que sale de la anda, pues la mujer no es más que un objeto de deseo, y aunque en muchas novelas de la epoca encontramos estos tropos, pocos me han resultado tan insulsos como en esta.
Aun así, la novela es intrigante, siempre quieres saber más, la explicaicón final sobre el giro de trama es creativa, extraña e interesante. El giro de trama es creíble y construido, nada revolucionario, pero satisfactorio, el protagonista y su amigo son personajes interesantes, con personalidades , dudas y planes. En general, de nos er por la falta de verisimilitud dentro de la misma historia de muchas situaciones, la novela es interesante. Quizá la perspectiva de época sea algo dificil de quitar.

[Tauni · Rating 3 out of 5]

I personally found this book “all right”. The writing was definitely confusing at some points. I feel like Farmer put a lot of unnecessary parts into the book, as someone else that wrote a review stated, such as at the end of the book. There wasn’t really a point to write pages and pages worth of a description on how Jeanette’s species works. I could see a few pages to give the reader an idea of what was going on, and to add to the story for Hal Yarrow’s sake but not as many as 15. I also felt like the book was rushed. One minute Hal is having a serious interview in regards of the project for Ozagen, and the next minute he’s already landed at the plant of the Wogglebug people. If he could even out the long descriptions of events with actual events taking place, maybe I could have found it more enjoyable.

To not completely bash on the novel, one of the things I did enjoy was the world descriptions. Farmer did an amazing job at giving a detailed description of Earth and a slightly-less description of Ozagen. The dangers of the planet were a nice change from the extremely religious humans that the book started off with. The overall love story was tragic, but somewhat sweet at the same time. It was nice to see Hal and Jeanette mix so well. Nothing was really too thrilling, or something that would keep me at the edge of my seat. Besides the repetition and overly descriptive passages, the book was generally a nice read.

[Rene Bard · Rating 2 out of 5]

My first PJF book may be my last. We'll see...

The Lovers is a novella from 1952 about a human male who falls in love with a humanoid female on a distant planet. While the story may have been fresh at the time it was published, it has not aged well. The sci-fi elements and the romance elements are ridiculous unless you appreciate the finer points of a space rocket with lots of paper files (in triplicate!) or a female protagonist who will do anything to please her man as long as he keeps her supplied with booze. Sometimes ridiculous can be good, but not here.

To be fair, I thought The Lovers was interesting as a meta-read; there are books on my shelf that are only there because of when they were published, allowing me a chance to triangulate the cultural distances between historical eras.

[Riju Ganguly · Rating 2 out of 5]

A not-so-clever dystopian novel, that's how I would like to describe this work. At times, our protagonist behaved in a sensible and intelligent manner. On other occasions he behaved like a jerk. But the book really became incomprehensible once the merry band of human fanatics reached the other planet. Jeanette, the... er, not-exactly-human heroine stepped in, and the book sort of imploded. The biology and sociology both being bonkers, only one question remained. Is this a thought provoking work?
Nope. Star Trek is better.
However, as a rather convoluted forerunner of 'Avataar' and such formulaic works, it’s quite readable.
That's all. Ciao.

[Ismael Manzanares]

Como otras veces, me parece que Farmer tiene más imaginación que talento literario. Las ideas son buenas (el Iglestado que domina todos los aspectos de la vida humana, las razas alienígenas y en especial la raza de ella) pero el desarrollo es deficiente. No ha envejecido bien del todo y en algunos puntos presenta incoherencias en los personajes, con muchas explicaciones dirigidas directamente al lector y sitaciones inverosímiles.
Aunque sea solo por las ideas que presenta es interesante leerlo.

[Temucano · Rating 4 out of 5]

Para mi esta novela no pierde su atractivo. El escape de una sociedad terrestre opresora desemboca en un planeta de seres insectoides de múltiples formas, que no son tan idiotas como parecen. La historia de amor es increíble, con unas cotas de erotismo no tan pronunciadas, pero que para su época escandalizaban (1952). Inolvidable la escena nocturna en el bar y el sorprendente final, que me puso entre triste y asqueado. Fue lo primero que leí de Farmer y debo reconocer que me conquistó con esta historia, emocional y asquerosa, mezcla que Farmer prepara muy bien. (1.12.2004)

[Natasha 4E · Rating 4 out of 5]

Government and religion have blended, resulting (as you might expect) in a rather creepy society where everything revolves around control and following the rules. The story follows Hal Yarrow who attempts to escape his unhappy life. He falls in love with a woman on another planet, resulting in a strange relationship. The story has many interesting themes and seems well constructed; a lot less random than other novels by this writer.

[Paul · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting early work from Farmer. There are some very interesting ideas explored here, especially those concerning religion, discrimination, and free will. At times the writing seems dated, and the naming of one of the alien races is particularly unfortunate, and this made reading uncomfortable at times.

[Jesús · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ciencia Ficción de manual. No está mal esta historia pero huele un poco a noveleta de serie B de esas que tanto se escribían en los años 50. Una historia muy clásica de alienígenas y de una sociedad controlada por el estado-iglesia. Hacia la mitad se pierde un poco el interés y parece que la historia no va a ningún sitio, pero luego al final se arregla un poco.

[Liz · Rating 3 out of 5]

Started out intriguing given the current political climate, but got kinda boring in the middle. Ending was unsatisfactory, though some predictions I had made came true. Similarly dated stereotypical description of women, expected because of the publication date and having read Farmer before.