Customer Reviews

Son of Man (Sf Collector's)

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

This is without a doubt my all-time favorite book, science-fiction or otherwise. I have read it about 10 times over the last 15 or so years. It is hard to describe. It's sci-fi, fantasy, allegory, philosopy, religion, all rolled into one. It's about a man named Clay who awakens in a strange Earth in a far, far distant future. In his travels through the land he encounters a wide variety of strange and remarkable versions of mankind throughout the ages. Some of these include fish- and goat-like beings, spheroid creatures enmeshed in wheeled cages, and saurian mud-dwellers - all evolutions of man! The best aspect of the story is Silverberg's incredible imagination, in his depiction of the ages of man, their daily lives and rituals, and the landscape of future Earth. I can't rave enough about this. PLEASE, PLEASE read it yourself and pass it on to someone else. If ever a book deserves to be awarded cult status, this is it!

Ten years ago I bought it second hand, read it (my first sci-fi book!), and fell in love with it. A few years later, I gave it to my brother, who may still have it, I don't know. I've been looking for another copy for the past 5 or 6 years, and today I just found it! Thank you, thank you, whoever it belonged to (and a first edition)! Without doubt a great book on its own, not just from the sci-fi point of view, worthy of not being obliterated by time.

Being a science-fiction reader for about 25 years there are very few books that touched me the way 'Son of Man' did. Silverberg has always been one of my favourites for his unique ability to address human issues. Together with 'Nightwings' and 'Downward to the Earth', 'Son of Man' is one of his masterpieces. Read this one if your mind is open for alternative perspectives on almost every aspect of being human. There is only one other comparable book I know of - also one of my all time favourites: it's 'A Voyage to Arcturus' from David Lindsay

This is hands down my favorite book. Silverberg takes a man (Clay) from the present and places him in the far, far distant future. While there he meets not only humans as they look at that time, but all forms humans have taken over the millenia (some of them not so pretty). From a psychological standpoint the different human forms and the way they think is extraordinary. Silverberg takes taday's personalities and magnifies them to create the future human forms. From a philosophical perspective the book follows Clay's thoughts as he tries to come to terms with what humanity was, what it has become and his place in it all.

This is not a "time travel" episode. One man ( Clay ) awakens so far into the future there are no similarities between now, and the Earth-time he finds himself in. The book holds the readers mind and feeds it with details of all the senses. Within the story are several mini adventures, each having it's own mind bending concepts. There is some sexual content, so the book is not for young kids. I've read it three times over the last ten years, and will read it again in a few more. This is the one that hooked me on Silverberg.

There are a number of SF books that explore the future of humanity long after our great-great-great-great grandchildren are all dust, the years when our history seems like nothing more than a strange dream the planet had when it was young, when the stars aren't the same as they were then, when the course of evolution and progress takes the very notion of humanity into places that we can't even properly imagine. Sometimes the journey reminds us that we are but blips in the face of the universe, like Stapleton's "Last and First Man", sometimes we find the earth abandoned and the previous history looked back with something akin to nostalgia (both Simak's "City" and Crowley's "Indian Summer"). Sometimes we find that things aren't that much different, but everyone has gained magic powers and taken on funny names (Vance's Dying Earth setting).

And then we have this. Silverberg was on fire on the seventies. There's no other way to put it. Each one of his books, compact and poised, shivering and passionate, seem to explode from the pen of a man possessed with so many ideas and drive that it was a race to get it all down in time before he burned up from the effort. Nothing is a sequel and everything explores a different aspect of SF that nobody had really been poking around into, or not quite his flair and fervor.

This one is interesting in that it doesn't seem so much plot-driven as experience driven. Clay (symbolism alert!) is deposited on the Earth in the far, far future via the accident of a time-flux. The flux is never explained properly, it's merely a vehicle to get him here, a whim of the universe that rips random people forward. When the novel starts it has already happened. Suddenly, everyone he knows is less than a memory. The Earth isn't anything like he knows it, either by sight or people. And yes, he runs into people soon enough. Over the course of eons humanity has changed type and shape several times, and thanks to the flux representatives of each form have been dumped on the planet as well. Clay hooks up with the latest versions, known as Skimmers, shallow and flighty individuals that are interested only in flitting about or exploring, or talking in hugely metaphorical terms. With them, and without them, he does his best to comprehend the world, not realizing that perhaps the world is also attempting to comprehend him, a remnant from a past further back than dinosaurs are to us. At least with dinosaurs we have fossils. For his version of humanity, they don't even have fragments of folktales.

What sets this book apart from other novels exploring this facet of SF is the sheer sensuality of it. The book practically reeks of it, taking the cold and clinical stance of Stapledon's future visions and immersing itself in the pure feel of it. Humanity isn't a history lesson in Silverberg's version of the future, but an entity that still needs and pines and explores and finds pleasure. Sex is had by the score, but never in the pornographic sense, Silverberg isn't out to get anyone turned on, instead it's used to question gender roles (much like LeGuin's "Left Hand of Darkness", these people change gender almost on a whim, though it barely seems to make a difference) and bring about a connection that mere talk can't create.

His prose takes on the fiery, feverish quality that often marks his books of this period, but also takes it one step further. This is literally an ocean of prose, a constant hail of imagery that doesn't so much border as plunge full on into a psychedelic experience. The world has become unrecognizable and metaphorical in some ways and the prose reflects that, with incidences losing all literal qualities and imbued with pure meaning. For those looking for a straightforward story, this probably isn't the place. It's easy to focus on the sexual aspect of all this, but at the same time it acts as an anchor for us. When everything else has changed, this remains the one constant over the course of the years, suggesting that a physical closeness is still necessary for understanding, for a connection. We can recognize it, and thus find a way in.

Thus, the story isn't so much about what happens as how it happens, as Clay finds his new friends, loses and finds them again, all the while encountering the slivers of this new world, the new fragments of old humanity, sometimes being changed by his encounters and sometimes changing them. He passes through zone of pure metaphor, and we aren't asked for complicated science to explain it, this far in the future, matters just exist as they are. He has to come to accept that before he can rail against it, because history can't be over for these people, there have to be future changes lurking somewhere down the ages. It's a singular experience, carried along by Silverberg's vision, a rush of words that you either find yourself diving into or recoiling from. It asks a lot from the reader, acceptance and puzzlement, to tease apart threads that aren't meant to be explained and to impose an explanation of sorts on a world where all the common elements have dissolved. Clay is struggling to find a clue as to what is going on, and so are we, and if the tools in his possession happen to be carnal, its up to Silverberg to make sure we understand it and feel it.

In other hands, this book could have been a total mess, drowning under the weight of its own pretensions. A less ambitious writer might have made the plot more concrete, a certain search for transcendence (something Silverberg would explore in "Downward to the Earth"), and a lesser stylist might have not been able to convey the sheer strangeness of the proceedings, while he gives us a type of solidity to grasp onto. It may not be his greatest book from that period, but it remains daring for what it demands of those who read it, a hazy dreamy trip that gives us a ground level view of what other writers prefer to only fly over in the name of history. Here, we're pushed under and the only choices are to black out, or take a deep breath and let it seep into your lungs.

This rates as one of the most significant books I've ever read. It's about what it means to be human, and how what we are now will effect what we are a million or a billion years down the road. A very worthwhile read that will leave you thinking long after you are finished with it.

You never know what to expect when you pick up one of Robert Silverberg's books. Will it be the mystical/fantasy adventures of Lord Valentine? The intense character studies of Book of Skulls or Dying Inside? The sprawling saga of The Alien Years? The alternative history of Roma Eterna?

Son of Man was none of the above. What commonalities it shares with the rest of Silverberg's catalog is wonderful prose and unlimited imagination. It was the longest 225 page book I have ever read. I mean that in a good way. While I sped through The Book of Skulls and The Masks of Time, Son of Man requires a little more effort. It's mostly narrative. There are many concepts and ideas crammed into its pages. It requires a lot of concentration but the payoff is worth it.

Not his best book and probably not the best place to start if you've never read RS, but it is a must for fans.

I was astonished to visit this page and see all the five star reviews here. I am a hardcore Silverberg fan, in my eyes he can almost do no wrong...except for this book. I rank it as the single worst thing I have ever read.In fact, at a time in my life when I *never* failed to finish a book, this is the only one I actually gave up on. Most of the people I know who tried to read it back then had the same experience...and we all stopped at *exactly* the same part of the book, with exactly the same thought -- "Why am I reading this?"

Back when this book was written, SF was struggling to redefine itself as "real literature," and a lot of writers like Silverberg who were master storytellers experimented with alternate narrative forms. Sometimes, as with Dying Inside, the result was genius. Sometimes it was so artificial and forced it gave you a headache to read it. This is the ice cream headache of novels.

Son of Man is the non-story of a man transported to the distant future, where he sees how much things have changed. The language is beautiful but the armature of the narrative is "oh, look, I'm not sure where I am, or why I"m here, but there's a cool creature over there. I think I'll contemplate it for a while. Maybe I'll transform into one and see how it feels to be that kind of creature. Or maybe I'll listen to someone tell me about it. Oh look, there's another creature. I think I'll go contemplate that one..."

Now, granted, I didn't make it to the end of the book, so maybe it gets better. I did get to the part where the male character becomes female, lies on his back, and discovers to his shock that his breasts kind of slide off to the side and wind up positioned a little under his arms. Apparently, as a man, he never noticed that breasts did that. Awesome insight! Well worth the effort of time travel.

At one point he is shown a creature called an Awaiter. It lies buried in the sand and....waits. You're never really sure what it's waiting *for*, but its entire existence is centered around waiting. (hence the name) So he shares in that experience. He learns what it is like to be buried in the sand and wait. And wait. And wait. Nothing happens. He goes on waiting. Still nothing happens. Pages pass. What incredible insight he is getting, into a life form which is so alien to mankind!

That's the point at which I asked myself "why am I reading this?" and dumped the book in the trash. Interestingly, all the people I've met who didn't finish the book either stopped on exactly the same page.

So...if what you are looking for is some magnificent writing and exotic imagery held together by no plot, no story, no greater concept than "wow, look at that!", whose purpose appears to be the author demonstrating his capacity to write great literary imagery ...maybe it's worth five stars in your book. I can't see it. Sometimes, when you go out of your way to prove "it's possible to write a book without relying on an arcane structure like a 'plot'" what you wind up proving instead is "books really need plots." In that sense, this will always be a classic of the genre.

I'm a Silverberg fan. So, what should be a two star book will be give three stars. Here is a basic overview.

The book starts with Clay, the main character, becoming awake in the future. Silverberg writes that Clay is caught in a time flux and is transported to the future sans clothing. Clay is quickly met by "Hanmer", a future human that can alternate between human and male at will. After the meeting with Hanmer the book is a story about Clay's journey across a future earth.

I honestly can't guess how far in the future this book is written and Silverberg writes it that way. The humans have all mutated or have been engineered into distinct breeds. Also, one gets the impression this is billions of years in the future. Even the stars have changed their position.

One reviewer on Amazon writes "I would have liked what Silverberg was smoking." That person has a point.

Clay's journey across the future Earth is with the Skimmers, a vastly changed "son of man" that can change their gender at will and have some matter transmutation powers. Also, the Earth has turned into sort of a perfect Garden of Eden, the animals are engineered for maximum color effects.

I never felt that much sympathy for Clay and never really felt he was ever in real danger in the story dispite meeting some future humans that are called "Destroyers" and look like a cross between a man and a wolverine with glowing eyes. Clay meets an immobile "god" on his journey. His journey is somewhat guided by the Skimmers under the advice of Hanmer. The only real point that I really enjoyed the book is when the Skimmers transmute Clay into a woman and want to breed with "him" (actually, her). Knowing Silverberg's writing I expected Clay to be taken by the Skimmers. Instead she (he) go into an area of Earth and - well - it gets really weird at this point and you've got to read the book to find out.

So, I would say the book is worth the time. I usually read history books and this book was read as a break from a vast historical narrative of World War One by G.J. Meyer A World Undone: The Story of the Great War, 1914 to 1918

Yes, that tie into WWI directly ties into this book. While Clay is seen as crude and primitive by the Skimmers, Destroyers, Breathers, and the rest of the evolved humans they are surprised at the raw internal nature of Clay. Clay is directly from the people who did WWI, WWII, the Roman Empire, and the rest of the absolutely brutal human history. That was what the future humans didn't count on, the raw nature of modern man and that provides the climax of the story.

It's a fair read.