Helpful Score: 1
Farmer has always been one of my favorite sci-fi authors. I loved his Riverworld series, especially "To Your Scattered Bodies Go" which I have read at least 3 times. "Dare" started off with a great premise that the lost colony of Roanoke, Virginia (including Viginia Dare and her family), along with some other strange disappearances of the 16th century, were transported to another planet by an alien race called Arra as part of some kind of extraterrestrial experiment. On the planet Dare there are several sentient races including humans and horstels -- a race of myth-like near humans that resemble satyrs and sirens. Jack, the main character of the novel, falls in love with one of these "sirens" which is strictly forbidden by his society. The story goes on to become an allegory of war, race relations, and inhumanity. It includes a group called the HK (obviously derived from the KKK) bent on eliminating all of the horstels. The last part of this brief novel includes a visit from a spaceship from Earth. The novel then ends rather abruptly and unsatisfactorily. Overall, I was rather disappointed in this weak story which could have been more fully fleshed out and developed by Farmer.
