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Inquestor / Chronicles of the High Inquest
Utopia Hunters
S.P. Somtow's UTOPIA HUNTERS is an introduction to one of the most far-flung galactic civilizations ever created, In the words of Theodore Sturgeon, Somtow's CHRONICLES OF THE HIGH INQUEST deal with "the greatest magnitude of spectacle and color since Stapledon." UTOPIA HUNTERS can be read out of sequence.
- GenresScience FictionFantasy
272 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1984
6 people are currently reading
49 people want to read
About the author
S.P. Somtow
172 books152 followersCalled by the Bangkok Post "the Thai person known by name to most people in the world," S.P. Somtow is an author, composer, filmmaker, and international media personality whose dazzling talents and acerbic wit have entertained and enlightened fans the world over.
He was Somtow Papinian Sucharitkul in Bangkok. His grandfather's sister was a Queen of Siam, his father is a well known international lawyer and vice-president of the International Academy of Human Rights. Somtow was educated at Eton and Cambridge, and his first career was in music. In the 1970s (while he was still in college) his works were being performed on four continents and he was named representative of Thailand to the Asian Composer's League and to the International Music Commission of UNESCO. His avant-garde compositions caused controversy and scandal in his native country, and a severe case of musical burnout in the late 1970s precipitated his entry into a second career - that of author.
He began writing science fiction, but soon started to invade other fields of writing, with some 40 books out now, including the clasic horror novel Vampire Junction, which defined the "rock and roll vampire" concept for the 80s, the Riverrun Trilogy ("the finest new series of the 90's" - Locus) and the semi-autobiographical memoir Jasmine Nights. He has won or been nominated for dozens of major awards including the Bram Stoker Award, the John W. Campbell Award, the Hugo Award, and the World Fantasy Award.
Somtow has also made some incursions into filmmaking, directing the cult classic The Laughing Dead and the award winning art film Ill Met by Moonlight.
He was Somtow Papinian Sucharitkul in Bangkok. His grandfather's sister was a Queen of Siam, his father is a well known international lawyer and vice-president of the International Academy of Human Rights. Somtow was educated at Eton and Cambridge, and his first career was in music. In the 1970s (while he was still in college) his works were being performed on four continents and he was named representative of Thailand to the Asian Composer's League and to the International Music Commission of UNESCO. His avant-garde compositions caused controversy and scandal in his native country, and a severe case of musical burnout in the late 1970s precipitated his entry into a second career - that of author.
He began writing science fiction, but soon started to invade other fields of writing, with some 40 books out now, including the clasic horror novel Vampire Junction, which defined the "rock and roll vampire" concept for the 80s, the Riverrun Trilogy ("the finest new series of the 90's" - Locus) and the semi-autobiographical memoir Jasmine Nights. He has won or been nominated for dozens of major awards including the Bram Stoker Award, the John W. Campbell Award, the Hugo Award, and the World Fantasy Award.
Somtow has also made some incursions into filmmaking, directing the cult classic The Laughing Dead and the award winning art film Ill Met by Moonlight.
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
August 6, 2020
This is the hardcover version (not yet listed here).
According to one of the two introductions, this series was originally intended to be a trilogy and this particular book only existed because the previous two in the series were out of print (and presumably, bringing them back into print wasn't an option). So this third book was created so the fourth and final one would make sense to anyone who hadn't read the first two. Of course the fourth book isn't the final one anymore since more started coming out recently.
This is a fixup including short stories, some of which appeared before the first novel. The way this works is that these short stories are incorporated as prequels told by a historian to a young artist newly taken under the wing of the Inquest.
Somtow says that he has come to believe that this is a better introduction to the series but I vehemently disagree. It is perfectly possible I would have fallen in love with this book if it had been my first and maybe I'm being slightly precious about the way I first experienced the series, but I think the more gradual reveal of Light On The Sound and Throne Of Madness was more powerful and had far more emotional impact. I beg you to read them in the original publishing order.
The new introduction says some more sexual content was newly added that wouldn't have been allowed when the short stories appeared in magazines but there was only one scene that stood out in that way and it was extremely brief.
The key elements from the previous novels are reintroduced in a new way and I don't think any of it was done better this time around. The overexplaining was beginning to be a problem in Throne Of Madness but now it's even more persistent, especially when talking about the ways of the Inquest. And I felt quite a number of the images were underexplained.
I was wondering if this was going to be an skippable/optional book but enough new concepts and characters are introduced that I'm guessing it might be essential. A creation story is involved and as stunning as one of its revelations is, the telling of it was surprisingly underwhelming considering how operatic the series is.
Thankfully there's quite a few novelties we hadn't seen before, including a planet where life rapidly emerges and dies (similar to some early Clark Ashton Smith stories); the continual amusingly creative disrespectful way corpses are treated and now we have similar situations with people in stasis and child soldiers having strange ambitions for their deaths. The story of the rope dancer is enjoyably convoluted, in a similar way to Darktouch's origin from the first book. The story of the dust sculptress was the best section of the book and the added depth to Sajit and Elloran's relationship was probably the thing of greatest value.
Why "must" Jenjen combine approaches to art that seemingly can't be reconciled?
The appendix at the end about the rules of the highspeech are incredibly impressive but most of it went straight over my head. Among many other things it explains how an ironically polite command works.
This might seem like a a fairly negative review but it's just disappointing for something I love so much, there's still plenty to like and given why it even exists, it's more understandable why it doesn't reach the previous levels.
A word about the different reissues: a lot of the earlier print on demand (Diplodocus Press) Somtow reissues were image scanned from the original books and the more recent ones are scanned into word files with the overt gibberish removed that accompanies that process. But since Somtow is mostly doing these reissues by himself, lots of errors are still there, including missing punctuation, occasional wrong spellings but more frequently than anything were gaps in the middle of words. It's not as bad as I've seen this scanning method before but you might consider getting the image scanned Inquestor reissues from 2013 (which I find quite charming). I think the main reason Somtow scanned all his books into word files is because they work better as ebooks than image scans do.
You'll have to weigh up whether slightly revised texts with new additional introductions or a smoother print reading experience are more important to you. The new ones should make better ebooks though.
I've got some other recent Somtow reissues and at a glance I can't see any mistakes but I'll see how they stand up soon-ish.
According to one of the two introductions, this series was originally intended to be a trilogy and this particular book only existed because the previous two in the series were out of print (and presumably, bringing them back into print wasn't an option). So this third book was created so the fourth and final one would make sense to anyone who hadn't read the first two. Of course the fourth book isn't the final one anymore since more started coming out recently.
This is a fixup including short stories, some of which appeared before the first novel. The way this works is that these short stories are incorporated as prequels told by a historian to a young artist newly taken under the wing of the Inquest.
Somtow says that he has come to believe that this is a better introduction to the series but I vehemently disagree. It is perfectly possible I would have fallen in love with this book if it had been my first and maybe I'm being slightly precious about the way I first experienced the series, but I think the more gradual reveal of Light On The Sound and Throne Of Madness was more powerful and had far more emotional impact. I beg you to read them in the original publishing order.
The new introduction says some more sexual content was newly added that wouldn't have been allowed when the short stories appeared in magazines but there was only one scene that stood out in that way and it was extremely brief.
The key elements from the previous novels are reintroduced in a new way and I don't think any of it was done better this time around. The overexplaining was beginning to be a problem in Throne Of Madness but now it's even more persistent, especially when talking about the ways of the Inquest. And I felt quite a number of the images were underexplained.
I was wondering if this was going to be an skippable/optional book but enough new concepts and characters are introduced that I'm guessing it might be essential. A creation story is involved and as stunning as one of its revelations is, the telling of it was surprisingly underwhelming considering how operatic the series is.
Thankfully there's quite a few novelties we hadn't seen before, including a planet where life rapidly emerges and dies (similar to some early Clark Ashton Smith stories); the continual amusingly creative disrespectful way corpses are treated and now we have similar situations with people in stasis and child soldiers having strange ambitions for their deaths. The story of the rope dancer is enjoyably convoluted, in a similar way to Darktouch's origin from the first book. The story of the dust sculptress was the best section of the book and the added depth to Sajit and Elloran's relationship was probably the thing of greatest value.
Why "must" Jenjen combine approaches to art that seemingly can't be reconciled?
The appendix at the end about the rules of the highspeech are incredibly impressive but most of it went straight over my head. Among many other things it explains how an ironically polite command works.
This might seem like a a fairly negative review but it's just disappointing for something I love so much, there's still plenty to like and given why it even exists, it's more understandable why it doesn't reach the previous levels.
A word about the different reissues: a lot of the earlier print on demand (Diplodocus Press) Somtow reissues were image scanned from the original books and the more recent ones are scanned into word files with the overt gibberish removed that accompanies that process. But since Somtow is mostly doing these reissues by himself, lots of errors are still there, including missing punctuation, occasional wrong spellings but more frequently than anything were gaps in the middle of words. It's not as bad as I've seen this scanning method before but you might consider getting the image scanned Inquestor reissues from 2013 (which I find quite charming). I think the main reason Somtow scanned all his books into word files is because they work better as ebooks than image scans do.
You'll have to weigh up whether slightly revised texts with new additional introductions or a smoother print reading experience are more important to you. The new ones should make better ebooks though.
I've got some other recent Somtow reissues and at a glance I can't see any mistakes but I'll see how they stand up soon-ish.
May 25, 2013
I can't even tell you how many times I've read this book, I love it so much. Perhaps my second favorite book ever written. I reread it every few years. It's the first book I ever read by Somtow Sucharitkul (aka S. P. Somtow) and it opened me up to a whole new way of telling a story. A perfect blend of fantasy and sci-fi. Also, I love the richness of his descriptions of fantastical places and the depth of the characters. I truly feel I'm there immersed in his world whilst reading. I wish someone would turn the Inquestor Series into films. Going to donate my extra copy to a local mini community library to introduce Somtow to more readers.
January 31, 2011
I liked this better than the first two books.
I think partly because Somtow is focusing a bit more on more ordinary humans and not the nearly omnipotent Inquestors and he's become a more subtle writer. The first books had a bad tendency to hit you over the head with the points Somtow was trying to make and too self-consciously symbolic.
I'm enjoying the final book so far and for much the same reasons.
I think partly because Somtow is focusing a bit more on more ordinary humans and not the nearly omnipotent Inquestors and he's become a more subtle writer. The first books had a bad tendency to hit you over the head with the points Somtow was trying to make and too self-consciously symbolic.
I'm enjoying the final book so far and for much the same reasons.
May 16, 2025
I found this again as an AI audiobook, and couldn't be happier. The 14-year-old me loved it beyond measure, and the 53-year-old me still finds it refreshing and wonderful. It's less time-worn than any other science fiction book from my past. Usually, science fiction/fantasy from my youth has me cringing from seeing how much misogyny we took in without realizing it. This has none of that. LGBTQA+ friendly.
Mental health friendly.
The AI voice was pleasing and an acceptable alternative. I was pleasantly surprised.
Mental health friendly.
The AI voice was pleasing and an acceptable alternative. I was pleasantly surprised.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews