I pretty much went over just what I found so appealing with this book in the above link from 2016. However, I am always up for talking about this book, so prepare for some fanboy’ing ahead.
Way-Farer is probably in my Top 10 Favorite books. That being said, I also consider it to be the turkey hotdog of books. By that, I mean that it will offend the literary Vegans AND the literary Steak Experts. I like Classics and such authors as Dickens, Tolstoy, etc. In that regards, you can call me Mr Vegan. On the other hand, authors such as Brent Weeks and Brandon Sanderson know how to grill up a fantastic fantasy steak so thick and juicy that you can barely fit it in your mouth. This, this is 277 pages of science fiction from the early 1980’s. Gauche AND underwhelming to either side of me.
So how did I come to consider this a Thrive book? Honestly, pure happenstance. It filled a particular need at a particular time and lodged deep within my soul. I was a teen just realizing how big the world was and wondering how I could ever grow up in it. Jerome, the main character here, was a young man on a Heroic Quest and I could pretend that I was him. I resonated with the boy that Jerome was in the beginning of the book and as I read and saw his journey to manhood, I wanted that too. Now, I didn’t really want to go on a mountain and get beaten up day after day by an old man, but I did want that calm assurance that Jerome has by the end of the book.
Now, 25+ years later after the first time that I read this, I feel like have arrived there. Back then, I identified with Jerome the novice. Now, I identify with Jerome the Master swordsman. And that change, that visible maturation, is why I love this book so much. I STILL IDENTIFY WITH THIS BOOK! It has been a measuring stick through the years for me and I can’t honestly say that about almost any other book.
I thrived on this book back then and I thrive on it today. Mission Accomplished!
Bookstooge's Reviews on the Road 
True book love! It defies the purists and, yet, we would not want it any other way. 😀
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Indeed! I thank my lucky stars that I read so many books when younger. Even if I don’t remember them all in detail, I DO remember how they made me feel and that has lasted.
And it allows me to read this stuff again and actually like it 🙂
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Never heard of it… had my first meat on a pizza, first meat at all in about 3 weeks yesterday. I am sure i can go vegetarian at the moment. But just mention stake… i want steak now🙂
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I am not surprised you’ve never heard of it. It was originally written in 1980 and I believe only released in the United States and Canada. Plus, once the ebook revolution hit, it was never re-released as an ebook because it seems the author isn’t writing anymore. Any ebooks you find of it will be handcrafted by fans and released into the wild.
Yeah, meat is hard to let go of. Mrs B grew up vegetarian, so she’s not tempted to “go back”. Me, I’d be in the same boat as you.
And you’ve never had meat on pizza before? Was it just cheese and veggies? Or no pizza at all? That is actually one of things I’m working on, just eating cheese pizzas now. I figure I’ll conquer that, then move on to something else 😀
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Dominoes does a vegan bbq pizza thats actualy realy nice. Also there are some DR Oetker vegetarian options that i realy like. Wasnt first time i had meat on pizza tho, just since Ive been in Netherlands.
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Gotcha. If I had to make a choice between meat and cheese though, I’d choose cheese every time. I don’t think I could live without it 😦
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Ive completly fallen in love with Dutch Cheese, the stuff we have in SA will never be able to compare.
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There was a crappy translation of this book in portuguese…i still got it. The cover is just awful. But I don’t remember much about it. Thx for this review.
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Seriously, it was translated into portuguese? A legit publishers release or a fan release?
I’d always assumed he was strictly North American release and that was it. That is actually pretty cool 😀
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Many years ago there was a Portuguese publishing house publishing off-the-beaten-track SF, mainly American. I discovered lots of wonderful stuff there. Nowadays I only see shit being translated! American, European, …, you name it. If it’s on the bestseller lists (Hugos, Nebulas, etc.) it will see the light of day in Portuguese. Mind-boggling…or shit-boggling I should say!
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Yep, if I see a book that touts what “list” or “award” it was on/won, I don’t even bother.
This is yet another reason I like blogging and having international interactions. I’m always learning little tidbits like this. I would have bet the farm, if I had one, that Way-Farer had never seen the light of day beyond our borders, so to learn otherwise is neat.
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I think this turkey hotdog analogy is my new favorite! I am actually curious about this one and going to add it to my list. Is it bad that I am crushing on that very retro cover haha. I have a weird affection for kitschy book covers.
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It is definitely the very definition of an 80’s SF cover 🙂
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I threw this into my Amazon “buy” list. If I can snag an old copy with that cover, bonus!
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I believe that is the ONLY cover available. Manuel Antao says he read it in portuguese back in the day, but I couldn’t find ANY info about that so maybe that edition had a different cover. But all english ones are this one alone. The rest of the series has pretty cool ninja spaceship 80’s themes too.
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Then I can order with confidence 😉👍
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From the cover art this looks like an older-style story, indeed, but if it still managed to resonate with you (which is never a given with re-reads…), then it must really have found a place in you imagination! 🙂
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It did indeed. When I read it in ’16, I didn’t even bother to try to be objective. There was just no point by that time. 🙂
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A book that was at the right place at the right time. It’s nice that you gave it a favourite tag even if it’s not one of those “everyone-will-understand-why-it-is-greatness”. And that food allegory is priceless. 🤣
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Yep, it certainly wouldn’t hit me the same way as it did back then.
And thanks for understanding the implied “it’s not great in a classical way” 😀
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Can’t say I have ever heard of it, but I’m loving the retro vibes right from the font to the main image.
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The author was a pretty low b-list author from the 80’s. He wrote 4 in this series, 3 or 4 in another series and then as far as I could tell, never wrote another thing once the 90’s were going.
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This review makes me think you might like the “Prince Roger” 4-book series from Ringo and Weber. Have you read it?
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I have not even heard of it. But Ringo is one of those authors I haven’t had real good luck with. And Weber has always struck me as a military writer and I’m not really into that.
Do you have any reviews of them?
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I haven’t reviewed them yet, but I might put up a short one some day. I liked this Weber/Ringo combination better than either author’s independent work. It’s like Ringo kept Weber from getting too dull, and Weber kept Ringo from going off the rails.
There is a good bit of military conflict, as well as just fighting dangerous, non-sentient alien creatures.
Prince Roger is the third son of a galactic empress. He knows he’ll never be in power, so he just screws around and occasionally puts in a ceremonial appearance on a backwater world. He’s coming home from one of these, and his ship is sabotaged and crashlands on a planet populated by a primitive, often hostile, alien race. I can’t remember exactly how the books go, but it might be that book one is just survival, book two raising an army of local aliens, book three building ships and crossing an ocean, and book four trying to attack the planet’s only spaceport and seize a ship.
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Ok, sounds semi-promising.
Thanks for the rough outline…
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Someone else recommended this to me a while back. Gitabushi, maybe…
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Sure it wasn’t me? I’ve pretty much pimped this whenever possible 🙂
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It’s possible it was you.
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I’ve just never run across anyone else who’s heard of this book, much less read it.
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Well, that is a good argument for it having been you. =)
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