Reception
Publishers Weekly calls the book a "light adventure of rescue and escape ... diverting pure entertainment, with comic sparkle and lots of dash."
Susan L. Nickerson, writing for Library Journal demurs, stating that while "Percy's halting progress across three primitive kingdoms is mildly amusing, ... his imprisonment with Alicia so that Khorosh can watch Terran sexual methods is a scenario full of unfulfilled potential. Not one of de Camp's best efforts, Prisoner verges on the tedious."
Robert Coulson in Amazing Science Fiction Stories, reviewing the book together with the a new edition of The Hand of Zei (which he considers "the first (and probably best) novel of the series") calls Prisoner "horter than Zei and less inventive, but sufficiently amusing to be well worth reading."
Don D'Ammassa notes that "though there is a strong flavor of humor in most of de Camp's fiction, this is the funniest of the Krishna stories, and one of the best." Addressing this and other late entries in the Viagens series, he writes "he quality of the series remains undiminished in volumes, which combine good-natured mayhem and a crisp, exciting narrative style.
Read more about this topic: The Prisoner Of Zhamanak
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