Rating: 
Summary: Begins interesting enough, then falls appart
Review: Begins with interesting characters and compelling intrigue. Ends a total mess. It had great potential, but the author just wasn't able to make anything of it.
Rating: 
Summary: One of the better sci-fi books in quite a while
Review: While this book might not appeal to some readers, to me it was wonderful. It was creepy, intelligent, and very hard to put down. It has echoes of Arthur C. Clarke's "Rama" series, Alastair Reynolds' "Chasm City", and Peter F. Hamilton's "Reality Dysfunction" series. The characters are likable but flawed, and the science is better than most. I am anxious to read the sequel.
Rating: 
Summary: Disappointing, unresolved, frustrating
Review: I was surprised when I checked the reviews for this book and read some that raved about how wonderful it was. My reaction, when finishing the book, was to say out loud "WHAT A WASTE OF TIME." I read through the reviews praising the book, because I'm wondering what I missed. I'm an avid reader, and have enjoyed "realistic" novels that explore character, and even occasionally leave plot threads hanging. Russo in this novel doesn't leave just a few threads hanging. Nearly every chapter introduces characters and incidents with great fanfare and foreshadowing, and then . . . never mentions them again. The novel reads much as genuine journal would read, written by someone who doesn't know much, if anything, about what was really happening. But why would I want to read such a thing, especially since it's NOT a genuine journal? I didn't find the character development, dialoge, theological explorations, or anything else about this book strong enough to overshadow the fact that it's a disappointing, plotless novel that reads remarkably as if the author wrote two or three similar books, attached chapters together randomly, and then lost the last half of the novel altogether. Frankly, I'm surprised this one got past the publisher, and I'm still annoyed that a few hours of my time was wasted reading the darn thing.
Rating:
Summary: One of the best books I have ever read!!!
Review: Ship of Fool is no doubt one of the best books I have read. I delivers a great plot, very belivable and likable characters and much more. Above all else I loved the idea of a ship sailing aimlessly through space carying a population of several thousand people. Reading this book almost felt like reading a mystery novel. When the alien vessel is found and investigation of it is started it gets even more intense. I knew that something is going to happen and when it finally did I could not put the book down.
This book reminded me of the movie Event Horizon more than anything else. Obviously, Event Horizon's main weakness was extreme amount of bloodshed. The idea of the movie was great nevertheless. The Ship of Fool does not make the same mistake and it keeps us wondering up until the end.
I have to agree with other reviews written here... the book does leave some loose ends and some things are left unexplained. However, life is full of loose ends and their presence simply makes the book more realistic. Being bombarded with books movies and messages that have an answer to every plot twist, it is getting much harder to appreciate the complexities of the unexplained.
Rating:
Summary: Am I missing something...?
Review: Reading Russo's "Ship of Fools" is one of the most regrettable reading experiences I've had in years. This book reads like a novelization of some deservedly straight-to-video "Aliens" knock-off. The author tries to spook us, and subscribes heavily to the "what you don't see is scarier than what you do" school of the macabre. Unfortunately, Russo winds up showing the readers nothing of interest or originality, leaving us stranded aboard the dingy corridors of his fanciful generation ark hoping against hope that something interesting will happen. Be afraid. Be very afraid.
Rating: 
Summary: who are the real fools ? the readers
Review: this book promise a lot - combination of horror and science fiction, but it miss both. what we have here is a plot about unknown aliens who are very soffisticate, and because of that, all they want to do is to ambush a 1000 years in space for human starships, and kill and torture all it's crew. the story hence is very unconvincing and not thrilling. because of that the end is very predictable, and disappointing.
Rating: 
Summary: An incredible book.
Review: This was an incredibly engrossing and exciting book. It's been a while since I've read a book that I really could not stop reading. The ending was a bit enigmatic - it leaves a lot to your imagination, a lot of mysteries go unexplained. But I think some of the more important points of the book regarding evil and free will still work. It reminded me in many ways of the movie Event Horizon, but with a lot more character and substance.
Rating:
Summary: Life is not always tidy
Review: I am a big fan of Russo's past works, and so I know he is a talented writer. Using that as a starting point helps understanding this novel as I know the type of narrative, story development, and situations have been created very carefully by the author for a reason. The story is told from the first person point of view, and therefore can only represent what that person feels and believes. He is not all-knowing, and therefore does not always have a good explanation of why some of the inexplicable things happen.
Some people have complained about loose threads not being tied up and the ending being rather sudden...well, that is what life is really like and the novel simply follows one persons intrepretation of events. Encounters with aliens aren't always going to make sense because they are ALIEN! There is no common frame of reference, and the story is ongoing just like the long history of the Argonos itself.
I enjoyed the suspense, mystery, and religious explorations that this novel presented and really enjoyed spending time with these characters and ideas. I recommend this book, and really any other from Richard Paul Russo.
Rating:
Summary: fooled by the ship of fools
Review: I was fooled by the "ship of fools". I must say this is one of the weirdest books i've read, not because it has strange ideas - it hasn't - and not because of the plot - it doesn't exist - but because I've finished reading it and I asked myself what? What did Mr. Russo want to say? and if indeed want he did - where did it go wrong? The book is very readable, you can read it cover to cover in a couple of hours, but in the end, I'm sure you would wonder yourself: why? Reading it through I feel like opening layer after layer of gift-wrappings, only to discover there's no present inside. Very very disappointing.
Rating:
Summary: Middle Ground
Review: I have read the good and not-so-good reviews of this novel that have preceded me, and I agree with them both.
First, my complaints.
The ending serves only as a point at which the pages stop, because it does not capitalize on ANYTHING that the novel set up prior to that point. This book should have been at least 550 pages to follow through on its potential appropriately. Without giving anything away, I shall make a quick list of things that are not properly elaborated on in the novel:
- David
- Father Veronica
- The aliens
- The alien ship
- The "old woman"
- Antioch
- The novel's theological veins
- Leona Frip and her catatonicality
- Starlin and Winton, and
- Every other point in the entire book! In fact, the Ship of Fools ends in a completely unexpected manner, simply because when reading it one figures there is no way in Heaven it could end so expectadly. ...
The dialogue in Ship of Fools is very inconsistent, though it always retains a stripped-down feel that is appropriate at many points. At others, it reads like the work of an inexperienced writer who tries to be overdramatic and tends to be repetitive. Russo often leads into scenes of council or discussion that should go far deeper than they do, but are stopped short by poor dialogue. The beginning of the novel abounds especially with these instances, to the point where I was harboring serious thoughts of forgetting the book entirely.
I had read the back cover, however, and was determined to at least reach the point at which "the grisly remains of a former colony" showed up.
So I'm trudging steadily along, alternately grimacing or nodding hopefully as the novel hits high points and low. And then "the grisly remains" show up, and there is no way in hell that I'm not going to finish this book.
I cannot recall whether the scene was particularly well written or not, mostly because I can recall no words at all. The enormity and suddenness and strangeness of it lent a tension to the rest of the novel which was, unfortunately, never aleviated. But for its promise, its subtle edginess, and the sheer power of that one scene (it's not often one image can hold a reader's interest throughout an entire book), I give it three stars.
I just wish that Russo had explained that SCENE!!
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