Rating: 
Summary: A potboiler with a dark side
Review: The criticisms that others have posted here are unfortunately all too valid. The Conrad Stargard series seemed to have reached a satisfactory conclusion with Lord Conrad's Lady; it's a mystery to me why the author continued it. Conrad's Quest for Rubber reads like a rough draft that was abandoned for lack of new ideas. The main character, Josip Sobieski, is very ordinary. His diary lengthily rehashes main events of the previous five novels, but his viewpoint is curiously devoid of interest. His main contribution to civilization is discovering that he can do his laundry by towing it behind a steamboat in a leaky barrel. Meanwhile, out of sight, Conrad invents the submachine gun, which comes in handy in annexing the province of Brandenburg in retaliation for an invasion. Behind the scenes, he recreates the Gdansk shipyards and builds ocean-going steamships for explorer teams in search of raw materials to exploit and savages to civilize. However, Conrad's yearning for an extension cord doesn't quite seem to justify going to the ends of the earth for rubber. And it's simply an incredible stroke of idiocy that Conrad would forget all about European diseases' deadly impact on the peoples of the western hemisphere. The book is also disturbing in a bad sense. Throughout the Conrad series, Frankowski's female characters are not really women but an adolescent fantasy come true. In Rubber, the role of women becomes systematically degrading. The "wench" Maude, a "neohorse" in female form, begins to become somewhat human, but we're left to assume she'll progress somehow. Sobieski can never quite decide whether an Amazonian pygmy named "Booboo" is a wife or a pet cat. The character concept is not only gratuitous but downright repulsive. Finally, the estrangement of Sobieski's father is poorly motivated and irrelevant to the action, such as it is; it merely gives Sobieski the chance to dismiss the old man's attempt at reconciliation with a burst of cruelty. Lack of relevance in fiction implies a subtext outside the work; whether or not there is one, I don't want to hear about it. Conrad's uncle Tom, the deus ex machina in residence, shows up at the end to rescue a Conrad Stargard who has begun to outlive his usefulness. Would that he had rescued this novel, but that's beyond even his powers.
Rating: 
Summary: Great book with some problems
Review: The other day I picked up my copy of 'The High-Tech Knight' to read. I sped through this excellent book as well as the rest of the series. I decided to try to find out a way to email or snail mail the author to beg for a new novel. I was estactic to learn that I had already been beaten to it. I rushed out and purchased 'Conrad's Quest for Rubber' as fast as I could, and read it just as fast.
I was not disappointed. The book has the same high quality as the previous. It is extremely detailed and entertaining. The entire series has been responsible for my interest in medaevil history. The descriptions of life in 13th century Poland are wonderful and grisly. For the most part, I found the characters to be believable and interesting. There is more action in this book and less technical descriptions but the it does not lose from the lack. Saying all this, however, I did have three problems with the book. The first 80 pages of the novel were not much more then a rehash of the first five novels. I found this especially tedious as I had just reread these novels. It was, mind you, from a different view point of the situation, which helped. All the same, I was glad when the timeline caught up. For a man from the 20th century, I felt that Conrad was an oddity. I did not feel a technical man like him could have such adamant religious faith. I also felt his attitude towards women to be lacking. There were far too many naked young girls running about being compliant. The only strong female character who wasn't naked, Francine, was depicted in the last novel as a coniving harrian (and even she became compliant in the end). Finally, I did not think that the ending was in sync with the rest of the series. There was too much science fiction involved. By this I mean not the sort you could believe, but the magical godly sort which didn't seem real. I have to put it down to the author not being able to figure out a better solution. I do think, however, that this ending closed doors on more novels. It was just too final for my tastes. All in all, I liked to novel. I am very glad that another has finally been written. If Frankowski does another (even with my reservations mentioned above) I will be the first in line to read it.
Rating:
Summary: Not as good as "Cross-Time Engineer," but...
Review: This book is not as good as the other one I have read in this series, "The Cross-Time Engineer," but the so-called"rehash" in the first 50 pages WAS helpful to me... My main gripe about this book--aside from the gratuitously inserted sex scenes--is that most of it is not told from Conrad's viewpoint...
Rating:
Summary: OK, but not nearly as good as the first 5 books.
Review: This book was a bit of a disappointment. The first 5 focus on how a 20th century man fares in 13th Century poland. About 90% of this book focuses on how a 13th century Polish peasant fares in the new world created by the 20th century man. After loving the first 5, I found it difficult to care about this new character foisted upon us. Perhaps the part that bugged me the most was about the explorers contaminating the natives with disease. The series has established that Lord Conrad was an extremely well educated man who had even written manuals on sanitation. Any school kid knows the Europeans wiped out many people in the New World with diseases that hadn't existed there. Yet he seemed shocked and was ready to wall of Europe to prevent the same thing from happening to the Europeans. Hence the previously mentioned magical ending. Let's hope book 7 returns to the main character of Conrad
Rating: 
Summary: I'm so glad that this series has continued!!!
Review: This book was absolutely fabulous!!! It is a fine addition to an otherwise incredible series. Conrad himself may not speak that much in this book, but it's because he really doesn't need to. It's great that he's now interacting more with Tom. I really hope that there's a seventh book coming out soon, and that DelRey starts to republish the other 5 books, as mine are just about worn out.
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