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In Philip Jose Farmers incredible sequel to The Image of the Beast, Herald Childe continues what started as a murder case - a very gruesome one - but which has now become a struggle against the strange and deadly beings who have taken his wife, who threaten his manhood and threaten mankind itself.
His seems a hopeless quest. He is fighting not people but inhuman, unhuman monster from another universe. They take grotesque physical forms, they indulge cruel whims, and they are sex-mad.
There is Vivienne, amazingly beautiful, who used to be Joan of Arc. But she has false teeth and she comes literally to pieces. Her lover is a snake-like horror whose needle teeth drip aphrodisiac venom. There is Count Igescu, a real live vampire. And these three are surrounded by a grisly crowd of bizarre aliens, characters in a science fiction nightmare. But for Childe there is to be no waking up: though no one else will believe him, he knows this is for real...
His seems a hopeless quest. He is fighting not people but inhuman, unhuman monster from another universe. They take grotesque physical forms, they indulge cruel whims, and they are sex-mad.
There is Vivienne, amazingly beautiful, who used to be Joan of Arc. But she has false teeth and she comes literally to pieces. Her lover is a snake-like horror whose needle teeth drip aphrodisiac venom. There is Count Igescu, a real live vampire. And these three are surrounded by a grisly crowd of bizarre aliens, characters in a science fiction nightmare. But for Childe there is to be no waking up: though no one else will believe him, he knows this is for real...
208 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1969
2 people are currently reading
211 people want to read
About the author
Philip José Farmer
620 books883 followersPhilip 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.
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.
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Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews
May 25, 2018
This the sequal to Image of The Beast this book about new way to fuck,fuck,more ,yes fuck it's even today's stands porno but who cares it's not for everyone but it is very good crime sex book & very over the top fun.
If like good sf with filthy jokes this the Chubby Brown of sf.
If like good sf with filthy jokes this the Chubby Brown of sf.
March 23, 2018
Awesome read, if you like blood, gore, sex, bloody gory sex, and perversions and the occult and devil worship.
April 22, 2020
I'd give the story 4 stars but deducted a star for the SF Gateway e-book edition. The original novel has obviously been scanned in to a computer. Now I'd have no problem with this if someone - before charging money for the ebook - had done some proof reading afterwards.
But they didn't, which leads to hundreds of errors. One page is particularly bad with some paragraphs almost unreadable on it.
The worst error though, repeated through out the ebook, is with the name of one of the alien races. I assume they should be called "tocs"...unfortunately half the time they are called "toes"!
It's good that SF Gateway are making old SF books available in this way, but if they are going to charge money for them then they should at least do a basic proof read.
But they didn't, which leads to hundreds of errors. One page is particularly bad with some paragraphs almost unreadable on it.
The worst error though, repeated through out the ebook, is with the name of one of the alien races. I assume they should be called "tocs"...unfortunately half the time they are called "toes"!
It's good that SF Gateway are making old SF books available in this way, but if they are going to charge money for them then they should at least do a basic proof read.
November 28, 2024
Like every detective learns who can't leave well enough alone, I should have quit while I was ahead. Instead I went and got myself in too deep, and learned things I'd have been happier not to.
I reviewed the First book in this series, "Image of the Beast" quite favorably. I found it to be a compellingly seedy little story, about a detective named Childe who went to solve the mystery of several horrific snuff films being mailed around Las Angeles, and got himself into a world of monsters. It was an intriguing take on 'monsters' I thought - that werewolves, vampires, ghosts and what-have-you's were, in actuality, all some sort of... ...well, it was kept fairly mysterious (One of the baddies DID explain it, but was he just lying? Entirely possible) what they REALLY were, but the practical nature of them was a bunch of hedonistic, sadistic and amoral MONSTERS who had been woven horribly into history and civilization. Though Childe came out on top, managing to kill a few, it ultimately concluded with that good old adage of "There are some things best left alone", because there were always MORE of those beings out there, and they were being nice enough to Childe to tell him to 'drop it, don't bother us, and we'll never bother you again'.
...But then I read Blown, and here's where things got a little stupid.
Farmer decides to drop any ambiguity in this book about the nature of the beings, and explains them in intricate detail. They are, in fact, two different species, both energy-based shape-shifters, who have the absurdly ridiculous names of 'tocs' and 'ogs'. They teleported themselves to earth, fought with eachother a bit, and now can't go home. What's their plan to go home?
Why, it's detective Childe himself. Because, wouldn't you know it, he's secretly a SPECIAL CHOSEN ONE, a half-human half-toc, who has the special psychic powers necessary to operation the special teleportation device that will get all the aliens home.
There are few things I hate in stories more than when an average everyman/everywoman who was, in the first part of a story just an average schmo who gets caught up in things bigger than themselves, turns out to have secretly been a super-special chosen one all along. It feels utterly made up on the spot, as if the author couldn't possibly have had it in mind from the start and only later decided "hey why not", and it negates a lot of what makes a character appealing.
But this is far from the only sin of Blown.
Where I enjoyed the sick, depraved weirdness of the first book, now all the pervert stuff just feels like formula. Worse, it feels like LAZY formula. There was a logic in the first book to the prevalence of sex; the monsters were murdering hedonists with a secret world within the world, and descending into this world meant slowly becoming immersed in all these perversions. But now in Blown all the sex stuff just feels baked in to everything, less like a story decision and more like the author just really wanted to narrate some kinky fantasies. The worst I thought was the set of chapters where Detective Childe's ex-wife re-appeared after being kidnapped by the monsters, and she proceeded to describe her imprisonment, which involved, sparing no details, lots of exposition of various sexual acts she performed with her captors (Yes I know, it wasn't REALLY Sybil, but it was supposed to have been acting like her).
A very strange addition to the book was in the form of 'Forrest J Ackerman', a horror enthusiast and comic-creator who gets roped into things because his beloved 'dracula' painting is stolen by the monsters (For no reason other than they just wanted it). As the book goes on to describe him obsessively needing to get out his comic, Vampirella, I stopped and said to myself "Wait a second... isn't Vampirella a real comic?" I went and looked it up, and lo and behold, Forrest J Ackerman is a real man. Why did Farmer put the creator of Vampirella into this story? I don't know, but it was a strange extra detail.
In the end, I feel myself left with the little pieces of wisdom that say "Less is more". The beginning of 'Image of the Beast' feels charmingly quaint now, with Childe provoked to take up the case by watching a seedy video of his partner being murdered on-screen. I may read 'Image' again one day, and recommend it to others! ...But I'll tell them to stop right there, and not proceed to 'Blown'.
I reviewed the First book in this series, "Image of the Beast" quite favorably. I found it to be a compellingly seedy little story, about a detective named Childe who went to solve the mystery of several horrific snuff films being mailed around Las Angeles, and got himself into a world of monsters. It was an intriguing take on 'monsters' I thought - that werewolves, vampires, ghosts and what-have-you's were, in actuality, all some sort of... ...well, it was kept fairly mysterious (One of the baddies DID explain it, but was he just lying? Entirely possible) what they REALLY were, but the practical nature of them was a bunch of hedonistic, sadistic and amoral MONSTERS who had been woven horribly into history and civilization. Though Childe came out on top, managing to kill a few, it ultimately concluded with that good old adage of "There are some things best left alone", because there were always MORE of those beings out there, and they were being nice enough to Childe to tell him to 'drop it, don't bother us, and we'll never bother you again'.
...But then I read Blown, and here's where things got a little stupid.
Farmer decides to drop any ambiguity in this book about the nature of the beings, and explains them in intricate detail. They are, in fact, two different species, both energy-based shape-shifters, who have the absurdly ridiculous names of 'tocs' and 'ogs'. They teleported themselves to earth, fought with eachother a bit, and now can't go home. What's their plan to go home?
Why, it's detective Childe himself. Because, wouldn't you know it, he's secretly a SPECIAL CHOSEN ONE, a half-human half-toc, who has the special psychic powers necessary to operation the special teleportation device that will get all the aliens home.
There are few things I hate in stories more than when an average everyman/everywoman who was, in the first part of a story just an average schmo who gets caught up in things bigger than themselves, turns out to have secretly been a super-special chosen one all along. It feels utterly made up on the spot, as if the author couldn't possibly have had it in mind from the start and only later decided "hey why not", and it negates a lot of what makes a character appealing.
But this is far from the only sin of Blown.
Where I enjoyed the sick, depraved weirdness of the first book, now all the pervert stuff just feels like formula. Worse, it feels like LAZY formula. There was a logic in the first book to the prevalence of sex; the monsters were murdering hedonists with a secret world within the world, and descending into this world meant slowly becoming immersed in all these perversions. But now in Blown all the sex stuff just feels baked in to everything, less like a story decision and more like the author just really wanted to narrate some kinky fantasies. The worst I thought was the set of chapters where Detective Childe's ex-wife re-appeared after being kidnapped by the monsters, and she proceeded to describe her imprisonment, which involved, sparing no details, lots of exposition of various sexual acts she performed with her captors (Yes I know, it wasn't REALLY Sybil, but it was supposed to have been acting like her).
A very strange addition to the book was in the form of 'Forrest J Ackerman', a horror enthusiast and comic-creator who gets roped into things because his beloved 'dracula' painting is stolen by the monsters (For no reason other than they just wanted it). As the book goes on to describe him obsessively needing to get out his comic, Vampirella, I stopped and said to myself "Wait a second... isn't Vampirella a real comic?" I went and looked it up, and lo and behold, Forrest J Ackerman is a real man. Why did Farmer put the creator of Vampirella into this story? I don't know, but it was a strange extra detail.
In the end, I feel myself left with the little pieces of wisdom that say "Less is more". The beginning of 'Image of the Beast' feels charmingly quaint now, with Childe provoked to take up the case by watching a seedy video of his partner being murdered on-screen. I may read 'Image' again one day, and recommend it to others! ...But I'll tell them to stop right there, and not proceed to 'Blown'.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
October 1, 2022
Después de leer ¡Cuidado con la bestia! siento como si despertara tras haber tomado alguna clase de droga dura, es decir, confusa y profundamente desorientada. Y si bien es cierto que llevo años leyendo libros peculiares, este se lleva la palma. La mezcla de géneros no termina de convencer del todo y acaba desvirtuándolos convirtiéndolos es una anécdota literaria más, aunque no demasiada buena.
A pesar de la fama dentro del mundo de la ciencia–ficción, donde ha ganado varios premios, no conocía de nada a Philip J. Farmer, autor de “esto”. Farmer es un escritor del montón con un estilo ingenioso, simple y ejecutado a medias, gracias a una prosa dinámica y bien estructurada, un lenguaje normal y unas descripciones demasiado explícitas para mi gusto. Los personajes son… tan extraños como el resto del libro. La verdad es que no están muy bien construidos. Resultan burdos y superficiales, protagonista incluido, del que sabemos tan poco que parece increíble que sea el más importante de la trama.
No es fácil decir de que trata ¡Cuidado con la bestia! Y es que a esta extravagante historia no hay por donde cogerla. Pero me arriesgaré a intentarlo. La novela nos muestra las peripecias de Herald Childe, exdetective privado que busca a Sybil, su esposa, que ha sido supuestamente secuestrada por unos alienígenas con apariencia humana. En realidad, hay dos tipos de “aliens”, los Ogs y los Tocs, en guerra constante que se quedaron varados en la Tierra hace varios siglos. Para poder regresar a sus planetas de origen, necesitan un dispositivo llamado “El Grial” que solo puede ser activado y manejado por un ser especial, llamado el “capitán”. Childe se verá envuelto en una conspiración a escala planetaria y hará lo imposible para preservar la vida en el planeta. Aunque eso supongo tener unas cantidades exageradas de sexo o tener por amante a una mujer despampanante capaz de escindirse en pedazos. Como podéis ver la historia es una locura inclasificable aunque totalmente transparente. Es decir, no hay metáforas o reflexiones agudas sobre nada. Solo la combinación de dos tipos de literatura, como la ciencia–ficción y la erótica, que claramente son incompatibles. Y el final no augura nada bueno. Y es que el desenlace, además de abrupto y absurdo, se queda abierto, lo que indica la presencia de otra parte más de esta delirante trama.
En suma, ¡Cuidado con la bestia! es un sinsentido de novela que no puedes disfrutar, en parte porque no la captas del todo y en parte porque te genera un cierto rechazo. Lo único bueno que tiene es su corta duración. Eso y que simula los efectos de cualquier estupefaciente sin necesidad de poner en riesgo tu salud.
A pesar de la fama dentro del mundo de la ciencia–ficción, donde ha ganado varios premios, no conocía de nada a Philip J. Farmer, autor de “esto”. Farmer es un escritor del montón con un estilo ingenioso, simple y ejecutado a medias, gracias a una prosa dinámica y bien estructurada, un lenguaje normal y unas descripciones demasiado explícitas para mi gusto. Los personajes son… tan extraños como el resto del libro. La verdad es que no están muy bien construidos. Resultan burdos y superficiales, protagonista incluido, del que sabemos tan poco que parece increíble que sea el más importante de la trama.
No es fácil decir de que trata ¡Cuidado con la bestia! Y es que a esta extravagante historia no hay por donde cogerla. Pero me arriesgaré a intentarlo. La novela nos muestra las peripecias de Herald Childe, exdetective privado que busca a Sybil, su esposa, que ha sido supuestamente secuestrada por unos alienígenas con apariencia humana. En realidad, hay dos tipos de “aliens”, los Ogs y los Tocs, en guerra constante que se quedaron varados en la Tierra hace varios siglos. Para poder regresar a sus planetas de origen, necesitan un dispositivo llamado “El Grial” que solo puede ser activado y manejado por un ser especial, llamado el “capitán”. Childe se verá envuelto en una conspiración a escala planetaria y hará lo imposible para preservar la vida en el planeta. Aunque eso supongo tener unas cantidades exageradas de sexo o tener por amante a una mujer despampanante capaz de escindirse en pedazos. Como podéis ver la historia es una locura inclasificable aunque totalmente transparente. Es decir, no hay metáforas o reflexiones agudas sobre nada. Solo la combinación de dos tipos de literatura, como la ciencia–ficción y la erótica, que claramente son incompatibles. Y el final no augura nada bueno. Y es que el desenlace, además de abrupto y absurdo, se queda abierto, lo que indica la presencia de otra parte más de esta delirante trama.
En suma, ¡Cuidado con la bestia! es un sinsentido de novela que no puedes disfrutar, en parte porque no la captas del todo y en parte porque te genera un cierto rechazo. Lo único bueno que tiene es su corta duración. Eso y que simula los efectos de cualquier estupefaciente sin necesidad de poner en riesgo tu salud.
March 15, 2020
Me ha gustado menos que el primero. La parte cómica se ha perdido, así como las pinceladas detectivescas y el terror. Ha pasado a ser una novelar de ciencia ficción, que no es malo, pero no es lo que me esperaba (quería).
Aún así, la historia se amplía. Farmer nos aclara casi todas las dudas que quedaron en el aire con el libro anterior, sacándose de la manga muchos truquillos que hacen de la trama algo casi inverosímil (dentro de la coherencia dibujada previamente).
Resumiendo: menos entretenida, pero imaginativa.
Aún así, la historia se amplía. Farmer nos aclara casi todas las dudas que quedaron en el aire con el libro anterior, sacándose de la manga muchos truquillos que hacen de la trama algo casi inverosímil (dentro de la coherencia dibujada previamente).
Resumiendo: menos entretenida, pero imaginativa.
January 31, 2019
I had heard that this was a disturbing novel, but it was just pornographic. And the parts that weren’t pornographic were silly. Not for me.
April 25, 2019
One of the weirdest books I've read. Pervy and disturbing.
August 11, 2023
un desparrame 2
December 31, 2023
Very explicit and very strange. This is mostly a book with lots of perverted sex whilst aliens are trying to return home. Not family entertainment but fun in parts.
July 14, 2024
An okay science fiction novel, but not this best work.
October 29, 2013
This book, and its predecessor, Image of the Beast - An Exorcism: Ritual One, are the first books I read where the author truly mixed totally different genres in a beautiful mess. While the writing is uneven in parts and not as solid as his World of Tiers and Riverworld series, I found these two surreal books more thought-provoking and interesting.
January 12, 2009
Plus d'autre souvenir que celui d'une femme se transformant en renarde pendant un rapport avec le narrateur.
Read
May 5, 2009Blown by Philip Jose Farmer
April 27, 2014
Even dirtier
Read
July 10, 2017Ghouls and creepy monsters from another dimension. The sexual torture scenes are horrifying.
The movie "The Faculty" stole the monsters that put themselves back together again after they are cut apart.
The movie "The Faculty" stole the monsters that put themselves back together again after they are cut apart.
Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews