Being forever on the lookout for reading material, when a friend told me of his recent discovery of Sci-fi writer R. A. Lafferty, I immediately did a web search for the writer. After compiling a list of his Sci-fi books found at wikipedia, I went to my go-to page for free ebooks and downloaded 20 novels and short-story collections. The question now was, where do I begin? His first novel, Past Master was nominated for the 1968 Nebula Award and the 1969 Hugo Award, so that seemed as good a place as any as a place to start.
The story is set in the year 2535 on the utopian Earth colony, Astrobe. The leaders of Astrobe view life on the planet as less than perfect, and to bring their world in line with their utopian dreams, they send a man to Earth to travel back in time and bring Saint Thomas More into the future to rule over Astrobe. The leaders do this on the mistaken belief that More's book, Utopia was not satire, but a "how-to" manual.
Once on the planet, Thomas More travels about the world and experiences adventures of a very unusual nature. I would describe his wanderings as Don Quixote or Candide in Outer Space - with a bit of sixties psychedelia thrown in for good measure.
There were times when I found it difficult to keep up, but my review is positive, for the most part.
After reading Past Master, I downloaded a recent translation of More's Utopia, which will be the next book on my list.
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