Customer Reviews

World's Fair 1992

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I actually liked this book. It was from a boys point of view. And as is I think typical of Robert Silverberg, he takes a turning point in someones life, and makes a wonderfull book out of it. Not only does this boy get included in an alien incounter, but he gets to find more alien life forms. What person would not want to do all these things themselves.

An entertaining 'juvenile' (although I would class it more as YA) science fiction novel. Bill is the winner of a high school essay contest for which the prize is to work for a year at the 1992 World's Fair in the Martian Pavilion. The Fair is being held this year on a space station 50,000 miles up from Earth. There are real Martians in the Pavilion. Bill's essay suggested there might be life on Pluto, and explained what that might look like. Bill wants to be a xenobiologist when he grows up.
Despite the fact that, as of 2008, there are no Space Station Worlds Fairs, live Martians, or anything resembling nuclear space ships, this is a very believable work. It was written in 1963, just following the moon landing, when just about everybody believed that these things would all come to pass in the near future (besides, maybe, the live Martians thing).
The plot is enjoyable and Bill is a quite relatable character, although he does seem more intelligent and mature than your average 17 year old. I found the ending to be slightly abrupt and just a tad bit disappointing, so I would really enjoy reading reading more about Bill and what happens next with both the Martians and the Plutonians.

I read this book as a young teenager and loved it. Then 25 years later, I questioned if it still held that same sense of pure wonder and sci-fi fascination that it held for me at first. Therefore, I read it to my 9 year old son and both of us eagerly looked forward to going through each chapter to find out what happens next. Even my 4 year old daughter got into it as well.

If you are looking for good clean retro-sci-fi fun (since it's 1992) with relatively believable aliens, thoughts about the global scientific community, and youthful energy, this is for you.