To the Vanishing Point

Rating:
Summary: Foster's best
Review: I remember picking up this book on a whim in the grocery store one day. I tore through it in a couple of days, never failing to laugh all the way through. I have read about a dozen ADF novels (mostly his movie novelizations and his sci-fi comedies) and this is easily the best ever. Attempts to recapture the spirit of this novel (Glory Lane, Codgerspace, Cat-O-Lyst) have been readable, but if you liked those and haven't read To the Vanishing Point yet, are you in for a treat if you find it.

Rating:
Summary: If only this manuscript would have vanished. . .
Review: In all honesty, I found this book to be badly written and less than compelling. The dialogue between the characters, particularly that between the adults and the children (a sixteen-year old girl and ten-year old boy), was forced and often painfully artificial. The family is traveling to Las Vegas in a motor home because the father thinks a trip through the desert will be educational for his kids. They naturally are bored out of their minds. Then they pick up a hitchhiker, a girl who calls herself Mouse, who tells them that she is a millennium-old singer who must find her way to the Spinner and sing to him in order to keep reality from falling apart. The minions of Evil and Chaos remain dangerously close behind them as they journey through a myriad of horrible reality threads on their way to the Vanishing Point where the Spinner resides. Along the way, they pick up the janitor from Hell (literally) and a dwarfish chef who wandered into a post-Apocalyptic Salt Lake City. Will the group survive and get Mouse to the Spinner before reality snaps? Does the reader even care?

When Foster is describing action and crisis events, he does a pretty good job. Unfortunately, there are far too many sections of dialogue which ruin the whole book. The communication between the parents and kids in particular is wooden; the author seems to be trying too hard to mimic real intergenerational communication. The adults, especially the father, behave irrationally at times. One minute the father is threatening to dump Mouse on the side of the road, and the next he is ogling her beauty and promising to stay with her until the end. Whenever the family escapes one crisis, everyone behaves as if everything is normal again; when their son disappears, they forget about him rather quickly and even manage to go to sleep that night. The father constantly tells us how brave he is for having started his own business, yet he bemoans his own rampant cowardice just as often. Foster even seems to forget or ignore important plot points--for example, the father grows four extra arms at one point, and then the topic is never addressed again.

The story itself is weak enough without being cursed with such bad characterization and dialogue. I was unable to like a single character, and I could not help but wince during several sections as I watched these puppetlike characters go about their mission. I know that Foster has written and sold many books, but bad is the only word I can use to describe To the Vanishing Point.

Rating:
Summary: If only this manuscript would have vanished. . .
Review: In all honesty, I found this book to be badly written and less than compelling. The dialogue between the characters, particularly that between the adults and the children (a sixteen-year old girl and ten-year old boy), was forced and often painfully artificial. The family is traveling to Las Vegas in a motor home because the father thinks a trip through the desert will be educational for his kids. They naturally are bored out of their minds. Then they pick up a hitchhiker, a girl who calls herself Mouse, who tells them that she is a millennium-old singer who must find her way to the Spinner and sing to him in order to keep reality from falling apart. The minions of Evil and Chaos remain dangerously close behind them as they journey through a myriad of horrible reality threads on their way to the Vanishing Point where the Spinner resides. Along the way, they pick up the janitor from Hell (literally) and a dwarfish chef who wandered into a post-Apocalyptic Salt Lake City. Will the group survive and get Mouse to the Spinner before reality snaps? Does the reader even care?

When Foster is describing action and crisis events, he does a pretty good job. Unfortunately, there are far too many sections of dialogue which ruin the whole book. The communication between the parents and kids in particular is wooden; the author seems to be trying too hard to mimic real intergenerational communication. The adults, especially the father, behave irrationally at times. One minute the father is threatening to dump Mouse on the side of the road, and the next he is ogling her beauty and promising to stay with her until the end. Whenever the family escapes one crisis, everyone behaves as if everything is normal again; when their son disappears, they forget about him rather quickly and even manage to go to sleep that night. The father constantly tells us how brave he is for having started his own business, yet he bemoans his own rampant cowardice just as often. Foster even seems to forget or ignore important plot points--for example, the father grows four extra arms at one point, and then the topic is never addressed again.

The story itself is weak enough without being cursed with such bad characterization and dialogue. I was unable to like a single character, and I could not help but wince during several sections as I watched these puppetlike characters go about their mission. I know that Foster has written and sold many books, but bad is the only word I can use to describe To the Vanishing Point.

Rating:
Summary: Alan Dean Foster is the man!
Review: Mr. Foster has an incredible talent to mix sci-fi/ Fantasy with humor. Who else could write about taking a drive through hell!

Rating:
Summary: Alan Dean Foster is the man!
Review: Mr. Foster has an incredible talent to mix sci-fi/ Fantasy with humor. Who else could write about taking a drive through hell!

Rating:
Summary: An Escape From Reality Tale
Review: This is my second ADF book. In both cases it appears that Mr. Foster starts out with a great idea...then runs out of steam half way through and flounders about until he reaches his page quota for the publisher.

To The Vanishing Point is a book in the grand penny press tradition of "write 'em cheap & write 'em fast."

The books is a good escape from reality tale. The characters are interesting and the writing style is intriguing. Note...the book did not make it into the mass paperback. The work is a little short of compelling. But if you are in the mood to read a plotless book totally detached from the world, you will enjoy getting close to the vanishing point.

Don't buy the book, if you are looking for more. I would not put it in a recommendation list.