Customer Reviews

Tom O'Bedlam

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

One of the most beautiful, thought-provoking sci-fi novels ever written. To put it quite simply, this book is brilliant; easily ranks as one of Silverberg's best novels...

Written during Robert Silverberg's artistic/creative peak (the 1980's), this book deals with the complex issues of personal faith, spiritualism and religion... it is at times violent, passionate, poetic, sensual, symbolic & profound... and it will leave you speechless...

Silverberg also introduced some of his most sympathetic, likable characters here... anyone who has ever faced an obstacle or dealt with a disability (mental or physical) will surely find inspiration in the character of Tom.

I've had my hardback copy for 15 years; it's one of my all-time favorite novels and I would recommend this book to anyone interested in learning what GOOD sci-fi is all about.

Probably the best book Silverberg has written, in my opinion. Left me thinking for weeks about the nature of religion and humanity's relationship to the unknowable. It doesn't offer any easy answers, but rather poses the *real* questions better than almost any book I know of -- and knowing what the questions really are is the most important step in finding the answers.

This is a very different book by the science-fiction master, Robert Silverberg. It's set in a world that has been decimated by war and a declining civilization, peppered with abandoned cities and ruin countryside. The titular character wanders over California (including a destroyed 'great city' Sacramento, a case may be made that it's already well on its way to ruin...). He sees fantastic visions of a beautiful, but utterly alien landscape, peopled with haunting aliens.

I don't think this is Silverberg's best work (The Majipoor Chronicles, Nightwings, Sailing to Byzantium, Dying Inside), but that still puts it well above the norm.

Tom O'Bedlam refers to a famous poem about a wandering man, probably crazy, definitely a beggar, with a dangerous air about him, claiming to be late of Bedlam (the prototypical mental hospital in England). Mr. Silverberg took inspiration from the poem since he cites passages of said in the book.

In any case, the thing I liked best about the novel was the fantastic imagery of what appears to be a very advanced civilization that comes to Tom. The visions become more and more real and distinct as time goes on, and they appear to want to use Tom as a weird sort of liaison between the fantastic and the profane of Earth.

Recommended. It's a fresh concept with a few disturbing elements thrown in.

Two of my favorite genres mixed in one book. "Post Apocalyptic" and "first contact".

Tom, Poor Crazy Tom, has been haunted by visions of distant worlds his whole life. He tries to convey their communications as he wanders the devastated lands of america years after the "dust wars". Then others start having the dreams. Tom unwittingly goes from "madman" to messiah.

This book is a brilliant character study about how people survive in a post apocalyptic world and how they handle first contact with alien worlds. Some find their religious beliefs being strengthened or questioned. Others try to use the strange phenomena to their advantage. This book is a real "thinker". You'll find yourself pondering for days, especially personal faith and religion.

Here Robert Silverberg created a minor sci-fi masterpiece with a quite profound and moving look at how different people would handle the existence of aliens. For all his life, the main character Tom has been having visions of alien worlds and super-advanced beings that are infinitely beyond humans, but everyone just treated him like he was crazy. But eventually, other people start having the same dreams, and this is where Silverberg's treatment of the concept is most interesting. The establishment thinks that those receiving the visions are mental cases that should be heavily sedated, religious adherents think they're signs of God, and the downtrodden see them as inspiration to join a cult founded by charlatans for their own gain. It turns out that the visions are really broadcasts from godlike aliens inviting humans to drop their physical existence and join them. But even though poor crazy Tom emerges as the chosen one, it's impossible to convince all people of what's good for them. Silverberg utilized some relatively common sci-fi concepts, but constructed a stirring theme that encourages a surprising amount of deep thought for the philosophically minded reader. [~doomsdayeer520~]

Tom O'Bedlam is an example of a separate genre. Like the
Dune Series, Stranger in a Strange land and the Godmakers,
it is science fiction with a religious quality. It left me
feeling stunned.

Has anyone else noticed that what happens in this book is spookily like what actually happened in San Diego about 10 years later in the Heaven's Gate mass suicide? i.e. a cult that believes they will be transported to a distant planet if they kill themselves. I would suppose Silverberg himself must have noticed the similarity and I am wondering if anyone knows what comment he had on it.

Tom O'Bedlam is seen as a crazy person, raving about weird things like aliens and other planets and places and all sorts of other things that seem ludicrous to the people around him.

However, it is possible that Tom is really very sane, and the human race will need him and his abilities to communicate with and transport to other places.

That is if he isn't just really killing a bunch of people.

This story presents the characters an escape from their future, dystopian world. The theme includes other life forms whirling around distant stars. In his rather zany story Silverberg presents us with a rather [weak] cast of characters who become drugged with their dreams of other worlds. The character's dull, purposeless lives are overwhelmed by their visions. Within the story's parameters these dream worlds are said to exist in some objective manner as shown by photos returned from an extraterrestrial probe. The material can be interpreted in several ways: as positing the existence of parallel worlds, as merely subjective dream material of the characters, or as pure, naked fantasy. It seems that Silverberg uses a mere fig leaf of science to cover this naked fantasy.

Tom O'Bedlam is the most engaging and puzzling character. The author asks the reader to view Tom as possessing a telekinesis that enables him to transport people out of their bodies and into extraterrestrial worlds. Tom becomes the gateway or worm hole entrance to these dream worlds. Although Tom is portrayed as crazy or faking craziness, the reader is asked to accept Tom's killing of people as actually releasing them from the pain of their worldly life. The reader is asked to accept Tom's power to propel them to a kind of other world heaven. The willy nilly story becomes confusing when Tom transports both willing souls and unwilling souls out of their bodies-all types: a salvation seeker, a would be suicide and would be killer are all sent to a non human afterlife. All characters who Tom randomly touches are transported, leaving behind a corpse whose face is painted with a Crossing smile.