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The Longest Way Home by Robert Silverberg check out website: www.orionbooks.co.uk
A book without chapters is also one that is going to take some determining when to take a natural break.
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
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OTHER REVIEWS - August 2003
Books Cities edited by Peter Crowther Language In Thought And Action by SI Hayakawa The Space Merchants by Frederick Pohl The Longest Way Home by Robert Silverberg The Light Ages by Ian R. Macleod Latro In The Mist by Gene Wolfe Righteous Blood by Cliff Burns The Other Side Of The Sky by Arthur C Clarke Looking For Mr Nobody by Sue Rann The Wood Wife by Terri Windling Kushiel’s Avatar by Jacqueline Carey Hidden Empire by Kevin J Anderson Infinity Plus Two edited by Keith Brooke and Keith Gevers T2 Book 3: The Future War by SM Stirling Cowboy Feng’s Space Bar And Grille by Steven Brust Videos and DVDs Crime Traveller Volume 1 and 2
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First impressions might some impact when
you pick up a book. A recognised author. 
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. 
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