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The Continent of Lies
Quinjin, a reviewer of the dreams produced by dreambeans, hallucinogenic apples, discovers that someone has developed a fruit that drives it victims to madness
281 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1984
23 people are currently reading
351 people want to read
About the author
James K. Morrow
102 books327 followersBorn in 1947, James Kenneth Morrow has been writing fiction ever since he, as a seven-year-old living in the Philadelphia suburbs, dictated “The Story of the Dog Family” to his mother, who dutifully typed it up and bound the pages with yarn. This three-page, six-chapter fantasy is still in the author’s private archives. Upon reaching adulthood, Jim produced nine novels of speculative fiction, including the critically acclaimed Godhead Trilogy. He has won the World Fantasy Award (for Only Begotten Daughter and Towing Jehovah), the Nebula Award (for “Bible Stories for Adults, No. 17: The Deluge” and the novella City of Truth), and the Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award (for the novella Shambling Towards Hiroshima). A fulltime fiction writer, Jim makes his home in State College, Pennsylvania, with his wife, his son, an enigmatic sheepdog, and a loopy beagle. He is hard at work on a novel about Darwinism and its discontents.
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Displaying 1 - 20 of 20 reviews
August 15, 2016
3 ½ stars - In the future, dreams will grow on trees. That’s the premise of this novel, where, in an unspecified future time, bio-engineered, sentient trees grow fruit called cephapples that give anyone eating them vivid, programmed hallucinations. Think of a cephapple as a designer drug that plunges whoever eats it into a virtual reality world. Eat a cephapple and you can spend a few hours strapped to a couch while your mind lives the story that the cephapple contains. In this future, cephapples (or dreambeans, as they are popularly called) and the “dreams” they create, become the most popular form of entertainment. Until someone creates a cephapple that plunges it’s user into a nightmare instead. A nightmare that drives them insane.
The novel melds elements of detective fiction with a big helping of fantasy, horror, and myth (with more than a little dark edged humor and satire thrown into the mix). The main character, Quinjin, is a dream critic, a reviewer of the dreambean adventures that people are flocking to experience. He’s hired to find the tree and whoever has made the “bad” apple before the anti-dreambean movement discovers it’s existence and tries to get the technology banned. While the story eventually ends up being a satirical skewering of religion, in-between the religious imagery and symbolism, it is also a meditation on the bonds between parent and child. Quinjin has a teenage daughter and his love for his daughter is the “frenzied, fretting, for-God’s-sake-be-careful sort.” Their relationship gives the story poignancy as the plot progresses.
The novel is fast paced and entertaining. However, if you like science fiction that emphasizes the science aspect, then this wouldn’t be the book for you. There’s plenty of sci-fi elements in the book: matter transporters, interstellar flight, etc, but the fantasy elements take more of a central role in the story. Morrow isn’t interested in world building or creating a believable future, he is primarily a satirist in the mold of Kurt Vonnegut and the sci-fi aspects are just a means to drive the story. Honestly, the book probably would have been just as good, or even a little better, if Morrow had placed the story in a near future Earth setting, instead of having it take place on several distant planets.
Morrow is a witty writer and while there isn’t many laugh out loud moments in the book, there’s more than enough subtle (and sometime unsubtle) satire to make it amusing at times and the book serves as a good introduction to the author and his style.
Recommended books by this author:
This Is the Way the World Ends – poignant and satirical. After a devastating nuclear war, the last man left alive is tried by all the future generations of humanity who will never be born.
Only Begotten Daughter – a man comes to realize that his daughter is the new Messiah.
The novel melds elements of detective fiction with a big helping of fantasy, horror, and myth (with more than a little dark edged humor and satire thrown into the mix). The main character, Quinjin, is a dream critic, a reviewer of the dreambean adventures that people are flocking to experience. He’s hired to find the tree and whoever has made the “bad” apple before the anti-dreambean movement discovers it’s existence and tries to get the technology banned. While the story eventually ends up being a satirical skewering of religion, in-between the religious imagery and symbolism, it is also a meditation on the bonds between parent and child. Quinjin has a teenage daughter and his love for his daughter is the “frenzied, fretting, for-God’s-sake-be-careful sort.” Their relationship gives the story poignancy as the plot progresses.
The novel is fast paced and entertaining. However, if you like science fiction that emphasizes the science aspect, then this wouldn’t be the book for you. There’s plenty of sci-fi elements in the book: matter transporters, interstellar flight, etc, but the fantasy elements take more of a central role in the story. Morrow isn’t interested in world building or creating a believable future, he is primarily a satirist in the mold of Kurt Vonnegut and the sci-fi aspects are just a means to drive the story. Honestly, the book probably would have been just as good, or even a little better, if Morrow had placed the story in a near future Earth setting, instead of having it take place on several distant planets.
Morrow is a witty writer and while there isn’t many laugh out loud moments in the book, there’s more than enough subtle (and sometime unsubtle) satire to make it amusing at times and the book serves as a good introduction to the author and his style.
Recommended books by this author:
This Is the Way the World Ends – poignant and satirical. After a devastating nuclear war, the last man left alive is tried by all the future generations of humanity who will never be born.
Only Begotten Daughter – a man comes to realize that his daughter is the new Messiah.
February 26, 2017
My fourth read by the author and by far my least favorite. I've been trying to figure out what this book didn't work for me...it did, after all, had classic Morrow traits of good humor, original plotting and wild imagination. Maybe it's because despite his intentions as outlined in the author's afterword this one didn't really come across as a something with strong sociopolitical message, but more as a sort of space opera on an acid trip. It's a great premise, dream inducing fruit (cephapples) that essentially isolates the dreamer and thus can leave them amenable to certain things like mind control. They might even find themselves enslaved by an evil megalomaniac with delusions of grandeur. Though not if our intrepid(ish) hero and his motley gang have their way. The story dragged, particularly in the middle and came across too trippy for its own good, very difficult to get into or stay engaged in. Certainly an underwhelming sophomore effort from a very talented author. Don't let this be your introduction to Morrow. It's decent enough, but, given the author's potential, disappoints. The moral is there, though, individual entertainment screws up the fabric of society. Something to think about, if one can put their phone down for long enough.
January 5, 2020
2.5 stars, Metaphorosis Reviews
Decades ago, I read This is the Way the World Begins, by J.T. McIntosh, which I quite liked, mainly on the strength of the characterization. More recently, I saw an opportunity to download some free books, including This Is the Way the World Ends, by James Morrow. Aged as I am, I confused the names, and thought, "This must be a sequel, or I remembered the title wrong." I downloaded a bunch of James Morrow books. All unsuspecting, I started in on this one.
Obviously, it wasn't what I was expecting. McIntosh and Morrow have different styles. Equally obviously, different doesn't mean bad. The book kept my interest, though I wish it had been stronger. Overall, it reminded me of a Jack Vance mystery, with its baroque atmosphere and odd characters. Unfortunately, while Vance pulls that off through whimsy, verbal acrobatics, and no real pretense at depth for supporting characters, The Continent of Lies tended to bog down in its own conceits. I followed along, but was neither drawn in enough by the environment to be swept away, nor engaged enough by the characters to follow in their wake.
The protagonist is engaging enough, though his backstory consists of only a few layers, and his interactions with other characters are hindered by those characters' shallowness. The plot is plenty baroque, and interesting in its own way, though it dispenses a little too readily with reality and logic, without humor to paper over the cracks. The tone is dry, but too clever for its own good without being funny.
Some of the settings, while gothic and extreme, aren't as clearly described as they might be, and the mechanics are sometimes vague. At least one of the subquests feels like a long and fairly pointless detour. While there are hints of the Odyssey mixed in, Morrow never really makes enough of it to matter. While the dream apples (cephapples/dreambeans, if you want to be correct) are intended to take the user through a carefully designed dream setting, Morrow seems to forget some of that when it comes to the resolution, creating a need for props and tools that were otherwise unmentioned. More worryingly, the creation of the dangerous fruit is strikingly simple - something that Morrow acknowledges late, and which undermines the story as a whole. The title is clever, but has little to do with the plot.
Overall, the book was interesting, but came across as a less charming Vance.
Decades ago, I read This is the Way the World Begins, by J.T. McIntosh, which I quite liked, mainly on the strength of the characterization. More recently, I saw an opportunity to download some free books, including This Is the Way the World Ends, by James Morrow. Aged as I am, I confused the names, and thought, "This must be a sequel, or I remembered the title wrong." I downloaded a bunch of James Morrow books. All unsuspecting, I started in on this one.
Obviously, it wasn't what I was expecting. McIntosh and Morrow have different styles. Equally obviously, different doesn't mean bad. The book kept my interest, though I wish it had been stronger. Overall, it reminded me of a Jack Vance mystery, with its baroque atmosphere and odd characters. Unfortunately, while Vance pulls that off through whimsy, verbal acrobatics, and no real pretense at depth for supporting characters, The Continent of Lies tended to bog down in its own conceits. I followed along, but was neither drawn in enough by the environment to be swept away, nor engaged enough by the characters to follow in their wake.
The protagonist is engaging enough, though his backstory consists of only a few layers, and his interactions with other characters are hindered by those characters' shallowness. The plot is plenty baroque, and interesting in its own way, though it dispenses a little too readily with reality and logic, without humor to paper over the cracks. The tone is dry, but too clever for its own good without being funny.
Some of the settings, while gothic and extreme, aren't as clearly described as they might be, and the mechanics are sometimes vague. At least one of the subquests feels like a long and fairly pointless detour. While there are hints of the Odyssey mixed in, Morrow never really makes enough of it to matter. While the dream apples (cephapples/dreambeans, if you want to be correct) are intended to take the user through a carefully designed dream setting, Morrow seems to forget some of that when it comes to the resolution, creating a need for props and tools that were otherwise unmentioned. More worryingly, the creation of the dangerous fruit is strikingly simple - something that Morrow acknowledges late, and which undermines the story as a whole. The title is clever, but has little to do with the plot.
Overall, the book was interesting, but came across as a less charming Vance.
December 17, 2017
The first part of this book was promising. The ending part was quite good. The part in the middle? Needed to be cut down by at least half, if not two thirds. Heck, maybe even 90%. That section just dragged on and on and on and on and on until I considered giving up on the book entirely. I was very surprised when, somewhere around the 80% mark, it actually became engaging and interesting.
Other reviewers indicate that this book is atypical of Morrow, and I do have another of his works on Kindle to see if I agree, but this one really needed to be cut down a lot to be workable. The best way I can recommend it is to read Part I, find an online summary of Part II, then go to Part III. In that way, you would skip over the worst part of the book and get the good parts.
A few other comments:
One of the more bizarre things was the choice of names for far-future things. The names are mostly comical, leading one to expect something on the order of a Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy style romp. If it was intended to be this, it did not work at all for me. There were occasional amusing snippets, surrounded by lengthy diatribes and nonsensical action.
Another bizarre thing was in the author's afterword, where he claims that the book was to caution against the danger of nuclear weapons. I've been trying to wrap my head around that for half a day now, with no real luck. My best guess is that they are a sort of, oh, bad dream of reality. Even that doesn't really work. So... yeah.
Other reviewers indicate that this book is atypical of Morrow, and I do have another of his works on Kindle to see if I agree, but this one really needed to be cut down a lot to be workable. The best way I can recommend it is to read Part I, find an online summary of Part II, then go to Part III. In that way, you would skip over the worst part of the book and get the good parts.
A few other comments:
One of the more bizarre things was the choice of names for far-future things. The names are mostly comical, leading one to expect something on the order of a Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy style romp. If it was intended to be this, it did not work at all for me. There were occasional amusing snippets, surrounded by lengthy diatribes and nonsensical action.
Another bizarre thing was in the author's afterword, where he claims that the book was to caution against the danger of nuclear weapons. I've been trying to wrap my head around that for half a day now, with no real luck. My best guess is that they are a sort of, oh, bad dream of reality. Even that doesn't really work. So... yeah.
July 5, 2024
(FYI I tend to only review one book per series, unless I want to change my scoring by 0.50 or more of a star. -- I tend not to read reviews until after I read a book, so I go in with an open mind.)
I'm finally going through my physical library owned book list, to add more older basic reviews. If I liked a book enough to keep then they are at the least a 3 star.
I'm only adding one book per author and I'm not going to re-read every book to be more accurate, not when I have 1000s of new to me authors to try (I can't say no to free books....)
First time read the author's work?: Yes
Will you be reading more?: Yes
Would you recommend?: Yes
------------
How I rate Stars: 5* = I loved (must read all I can find by the author)
4* = I really enjoyed (got to read all the series and try other books by the author).
3* = I enjoyed (I will continue to read the series)
or
3* = Good book just not my thing (I realised I don't like the genre or picked up a kids book to review in error.)
All of the above scores means I would recommend them!
-
2* = it was okay (I might give the next book in the series a try, to see if that was better IMHO.)
1* = Disliked
Note: adding these basic 'reviews' after finding out that some people see the stars differently than I do - hoping this clarifies how I feel about the book. :-)
I'm finally going through my physical library owned book list, to add more older basic reviews. If I liked a book enough to keep then they are at the least a 3 star.
I'm only adding one book per author and I'm not going to re-read every book to be more accurate, not when I have 1000s of new to me authors to try (I can't say no to free books....)
First time read the author's work?: Yes
Will you be reading more?: Yes
Would you recommend?: Yes
------------
How I rate Stars: 5* = I loved (must read all I can find by the author)
4* = I really enjoyed (got to read all the series and try other books by the author).
3* = I enjoyed (I will continue to read the series)
or
3* = Good book just not my thing (I realised I don't like the genre or picked up a kids book to review in error.)
All of the above scores means I would recommend them!
-
2* = it was okay (I might give the next book in the series a try, to see if that was better IMHO.)
1* = Disliked
Note: adding these basic 'reviews' after finding out that some people see the stars differently than I do - hoping this clarifies how I feel about the book. :-)
July 26, 2017
For the most part, I love James Morrow's books and this one is really, really good. Morrow's ideas are always fascinating and unique, his characters are believable and well developed. This one is an adventure/quest kind of story, in a world where instead of movies or TV people use cephapples for entertainment. The cephapples are the fruit of noostrees that have been programmed with dreams, so that when you eat the fruit you are immersed in the dream. And it's all fun and games until someone develops a cephapple that can change the psyche of the user.
June 18, 2017
I was dissatisfied with this book compared to his other books. It read more like a cheap pulp novel. The premise is that you can eat the fruit of a specific tree which will cause you to live the dream that was programmed into the tree. Someone has produced fruit which is extremely dangerous. A critic of the dreams is recruited to find the mastermind behind the evil fruit and destroy the crop. It just didn't work as well as Towing Jehovah or Only Begotten both of which I liked a lot.
October 23, 2023
Although it is fascinating to see the inventive James Morrow work the science fiction beat, this is a vastly disappointing novel. The promising premise involves an entire specialization field of dream critics and interpreters and, while it starts off promisingly (complete with a version of Proust in this universe), it quickly goes off the rails -- even more so than the "off the rails" approach we've come to expect from Mr. Morrow.
January 3, 2026
This is one of those books which I feel is quite different to most other books in idea space... Sure, replace the zeph apples with cyberspace or virtual reality and you are there, but if we go that far then it all comes down to a handful of ideas...
Anyways, for me, this is one of the great books everyone interested in SF / FF should read...
Anyways, for me, this is one of the great books everyone interested in SF / FF should read...
October 3, 2024
The first chapter of The Continent of Lies is a fantastic piece of science fiction writing: full of atmospheric neologisms that really set the scene for a tale of surreal dreaming technology. But the rest of the novel does not build on this start and becomes disappointingly boring.
December 25, 2021
I love a good mix of creative world building, comedy and strange social commentary. This book had it all!
February 22, 2025
I enjoyed my time with this book
March 10, 2017
This book is... odd. It starts off as a straight noir-ish SciFi tale, about a future world where movies have been replaced by cephapples - an organically grown fruit that sends you in a hallucinatory state upon consumption, experiencing an artificially created dream. That's a fine starting point for your average SciFi book, but then the plot suddenly veers off-track as the main character uncovers the plot of a dark mastermind who intends to drive people insane using the cephapples. The result is troubling and foreboding, in a Heart of Darkness kind of way.
September 14, 2017
A curious book. At the start, I was unimpressed and indeed quite put off by the invented words (so dear to SF authors) to explain strange concepts. They seemed stilted and contrived, quite unlike say, Neal Stephenson’s Anathem (a recent read). And the style was quite florid and overdone. And the allegories and metaphors seemed strained and sophomoric. However, about halfway through, the story developed decently and I would end up awarding it 3 stars. A bit grudgingly.
December 30, 2022
What a dense tangle of interesting and discordant plot threads, layered with indecipherable allegoric knottiness in a space opera of a synthetic tapestry. That said I did like much of it, if only as a sampling of Morrow's earlier biblical-psychedlic work.
Note, I was ever expecting the final line to be something along the lines of "...and that is the cephapple titled Continet of Lies now in wide distribution."
Note, I was ever expecting the final line to be something along the lines of "...and that is the cephapple titled Continet of Lies now in wide distribution."
August 10, 2014
This would be a 3-star review if the book had to stand on its own merits, but I got extra enjoyment from this as a history lesson on Morrow's writing style. Morrow remains one of my favorite authors, but, eesh, his older stuff is kind of rough. There's just so much gratuitous cruft. This doesn't need to be a science-fiction novel with spaceships, star-sphincters, random planets, or laser scalpels. It especially doesn't need to be the kind of sci-fi that includes a bunch of made-up words like "jungjelly", "incubibers", or (ugh) "thoughtwriter".
It would have worked great as a piece of historical fiction where film is the medium in question. More recent Morrow books have followed that track: taking a realistic world and changing just enough take make the premise work. For added benefit, doing so would have made the disappointing Shambling Towards Hiroshima unnecessary.
All that said: I enjoyed the book plenty. Despite the first chapter "spoiling" the ending, I remained in suspense, in part because I know Morrow has a black heart and no soul and will torture his characters as needed. The characters were rather predictable but entertaining. And the imagery worked. And I miiiiight be channeling the main character as I write this review.
It would have worked great as a piece of historical fiction where film is the medium in question. More recent Morrow books have followed that track: taking a realistic world and changing just enough take make the premise work. For added benefit, doing so would have made the disappointing Shambling Towards Hiroshima unnecessary.
All that said: I enjoyed the book plenty. Despite the first chapter "spoiling" the ending, I remained in suspense, in part because I know Morrow has a black heart and no soul and will torture his characters as needed. The characters were rather predictable but entertaining. And the imagery worked. And I miiiiight be channeling the main character as I write this review.
October 3, 2019
I read this book when it was published in 1984, thanks to a friend thrusting it into my hands on one of our trips to a bookstore. Or he extolled it's virtues so highly I had no choice but to get it. Or it magically appeared on my bookshelf bearing a small, yet obtrusive tag pleading "READ ME." Or otherworldly creatures were involved. However it came to me then, it's rediscovery in a box while I was packing to move brought me great joy. I was briefly worried that it had not aged well, that the heady wine it had been could have aged to vinegar. Fortunately, it hadn't. It reads as well now, as it did then. The story has a lot of elements. Horror, mystery, intrigue, humor. A hero's quest, a romance, a coming of age story, and a tale of revenge. Lie back, chew the bean, and let it wash over you. It's not what you were expecting, at any part of the story. And I still laugh out loud at the description of the VulcanBomber. Every single time.
James Morrow is a more acerbic, American version of Douglas Adams.
James Morrow is a more acerbic, American version of Douglas Adams.
January 14, 2017
A friend recommended this book, and after seeing the horribly cheesy artwork on the front, I did not expect much. However, once I started reading it, the story grabbed me. The idea is unique and the author turns into a really good story. I liked the characters, and when I started to doubt the book, it delivered a good ending.
November 2, 2013
This novel had an interesting premise and was strange in parts, but I felt the writing fell flat, the plot was bland and thematic. The characters were quite plain and the book focused on the action and little else.
March 30, 2017
This came up on Book Bub with a nice review from none other than Arthur C. Clarke, so I went for it. I'd never heard of the author before and I didn't even know when it was written, I just plunged right in. Now, there are writers, and then there are writers. Some tell a story with regular everyday English, mundane and often (lazily, if you ask me) profane. The stories can still be engaging, suspenseful and fun to read. In contrast, some writers have a facility with English that is well above average. Their books may deal with the mundane or profane, but the vocabulary and phrasing are nothing but. This book was like that. I love when writers strut their stuff. James K. Morrow strutted with this book.
The characters in the book did take part in some, frankly, vulgar and profane forms of entertainment but none of it was described with vulgar language and the vast majority of the gory details were left up to your imagination. It still wore on me a bit and I almost gave up on the book because of it. That's your fair warning. I was glad I stuck it out to the end. The author was making a point, I believe, in this work of speculative fiction that if you extrapolate from where we are going (from his starting point of about the year 1984, it turns out), that's where you get. Kind of sad.
The author didn't once slow the story down to explain this futuristic world to us. It was all show. The story moved form the first page and you have to pick up terms like phreneseed and dream parlor as you go. Reading the kindle version made it easy, thankfully, to highlight words and get definitions or find out that they are references to Greek literature, for example, or to discover that this is something completely made up. I like when a good book references other great books. Also, I couldn't believe I didn't catch the biblical references earlier.
The story itself is a bit of a psychological horror story, some mystery thriller, and a fantastic quest through the galaxy all thrown into one. The main character is not the typical hero of any of those sorts of stories. He's a film critic. One that doesn't take any of the films or himself too seriously, if he can help it. It's a little hard to explain, but it works in the end. I don't want to spoil anything (else?).
The characters in the book did take part in some, frankly, vulgar and profane forms of entertainment but none of it was described with vulgar language and the vast majority of the gory details were left up to your imagination. It still wore on me a bit and I almost gave up on the book because of it. That's your fair warning. I was glad I stuck it out to the end. The author was making a point, I believe, in this work of speculative fiction that if you extrapolate from where we are going (from his starting point of about the year 1984, it turns out), that's where you get. Kind of sad.
The author didn't once slow the story down to explain this futuristic world to us. It was all show. The story moved form the first page and you have to pick up terms like phreneseed and dream parlor as you go. Reading the kindle version made it easy, thankfully, to highlight words and get definitions or find out that they are references to Greek literature, for example, or to discover that this is something completely made up. I like when a good book references other great books. Also, I couldn't believe I didn't catch the biblical references earlier.
The story itself is a bit of a psychological horror story, some mystery thriller, and a fantastic quest through the galaxy all thrown into one. The main character is not the typical hero of any of those sorts of stories. He's a film critic. One that doesn't take any of the films or himself too seriously, if he can help it. It's a little hard to explain, but it works in the end. I don't want to spoil anything (else?).
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