The Longest Way Home
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5.0 • 1 Rating
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- $11.99
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
A New York Times Notable Book: A far-future coming-of-age tale from the SF Grand Master, “one of the world’s finest stylists and storytellers” (San Antonio Express-News).
“What wonders and adventures he has to tell us,” is how Ursula K. Le Guin characterized the work of Robert Silverberg, and in The Longest Way Home, he takes readers on another dazzling odyssey.
Joseph, fifteen and separated from his family in the land known as Getfen, awakens to an attack on the Great House in which he is visiting. Narrowly escaping with his life but still pursued by enemies who wish to see him killed, Joseph must journey across a dark, unfamiliar world on his quest to return to his home of Helikis and his father. He has thousands of miles to travel and much to learn about this perilous alien world in transition—and about himself.
“What the greatly changed Joseph might find at the end of his journey, and how he might react, are questions that I came to care deeply about.” —The New York Times Book Review
“The Longest Way Home recalls, in a lot of ways, the old-time frontier adventures, not the ones with the cowboys and the Indians, but the ones where people have to learn to survive in the wilderness or along the prairie. [Joseph’s] adventures in survival are exciting, and the travels along this world are a pleasant escape.” —SF Site
“This engaging, entertaining book is a fast read with many thoughtful themes.” —School Library Journal
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
The prolific Silverberg (Starborne, etc.) offers a familiar odyssey spanning half a planet, two years and the gap between a child who knows everything about how his world works and a man who knows how to question it all. Destined to rule over an estate of Folk a race he knew to be gentle, hardworking and not overly bright 15-year-old Joseph, one of the noble race of Masters, has left his home in the south to visit cousins in the north continent, High Manza, of a future Earth known as the Mother World. When the Folk of the north unexpectedly rebel, they kill all Masters and loyal servants they can find. Thrust out into the wilderness and forced to survive by his wits, Joseph tries to get home. Along the way he's loved, despised, held captive, educated and traded as a commodity. While neither the protagonist of this bildungsroman nor his transformation is remarkable, the land that our young hero journeys through and the exotic creatures that inhabit it testify to the author's rich imagination. The solid presence of the noctambulo, a being with different personalities by day and by night who leads Joseph for a time, establishes the otherness of the Mother World. As Joseph passes through many villages of the alien Indigenes, with their puzzling philosophy of indifference, their behavior toward him evolves, subtly demonstrating the distance Joseph has traveled toward maturity. Fans won't find much that's new or challenging, but they should enjoy the ride. FYI:Silverberg's previous novel was the concluding volume of his Majipoor cycle,The King of Dreams: Book Three of the Prestimion Trilogy (Forecasts, Apr. 30, 2001).
