The Unreasoning Mask by Philip José Farmer (book review)
On a stopover with his starship, al-Buraq, Captain Hûd Ramstam discovers he has a planet’s god in his cabin. That is, if you believe the back cover. Actually, the seal-centaur called Wassruss is dying and needs to be returned to its home planet for a sea burial. She/he provides three objects to Ramstam which have extraordinary power if used in the correct order.
Ramstam also has his own problems. One of his senior crew, Benagur, wants to take over his captaincy. They are under pursuit by another starship, but not sure why. We don’t see the size of their starship but considering that allowing 40 crew at a time to have time on-planet suggests quite a lot. Farmer only concentrates only on a few of the command crew and then only when needed.
The last third of this book focuses on a sentient object, presumably from his cabin, called a glyfa, which gets Ramstam involved in some cosmic conflict across the Pluriverse. The pace is fast and so, essentially, you’re there for the ride and hope things sort themselves out at the end. Looking up ‘glyfa’ and found it’s a Greek beach. The ‘bolg’, used as a name for a missile actually means an Irish stomach. I do have to wonder what was going through Farmer’s head. Was he thinking back in the late 1970s when he was writing this novel that readers would just assume two exotic words wouldn’t be investigated or looked odd enough to come from another language not to question it.
What is interesting is Farmer has not gone the usual route of the future where there is no recognition of religion or nationality. Ramstam is an ex-Muslim and Benagur a devote Jew, throwing an odd slant into the mix, although not used very effectively. A lot of the time, it’s just a phrase dropped in from time to time, but it does reflect on any decisions he makes.
I wouldn’t put this book amongst Farmer’s best stories but he was prepared to experiment in his subject matter. If anything, this book borders on expressionism and how a small event has an effect across the multiple-universes, something which Farmer was interested in.
If you like Science Fiction on the weird side, you might get on with this book. If you can understand it better than me, please let me know. I’m leaving it in, mostly to show that not all books reach the spot.
GF Willmetts
July 2026
(pub: Granada Publishing, 1981. Price: varies. ISBN: 0-586-05647-5)
