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First impressions might some impact when you pick up a book. A recognised author.

A book without chapters is also one that is going to take some determining when to take a natural break.

The latter wasn't helped when I though Silverberg had gotten into a fantasy quest style novel instead of his usual SF. Actually, this is SF.

You're just thrown in at the deep end and have to go a little way in before you get the details about the background of the story.

Mankind arrives on a planet a thousand years ago and through one means or another, indoctrinates the native population to do their menial or labour tasks for them. In the current time, they eventually rebel and kill the humans in the northern continent.

A visiting adolescent human from the south, Joseph Master Keilloran, is helped to escape the carnage and we follow his journey home as he attempts to avoid the rebels and other dangers alike.

In many respects, this still holds to my first impression that this is essentially a quest plot with all its trappings. Saying that, there is also an under-current of seeing Keilloran grow quickly as a character into adulthood.

It's a shame that Silverberg didn't develop this further towards the end as an indication as to the effects the journey would have when Keilloran begins his own rule. With someone of Silverberg's standing, one would have thought he might have caught on to his own metaphors, especially as how humans had subjugated a species in much the same fashion as the Blacks as slaves in America's past history.

Having said that, the story itself is still gripping and you will keep reading to the end to see if Keilloran gets to safety.

It might not be vintage Silverberg but it's still Silverberg.

GF Willmetts