Look into the Sun (Paperback)

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Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In Kelly's 1987 novella The Glass Cloud , architect Phillip Wing saw his grand vision of an immense floating cloud achieved in such a way that the project, and, he felt, much of his world, was co-opted by the aliens called messengers. This novel extends that story as Wing is convinced by the messengers to take a 50-year journey to the planet Aseneshesh to design the tomb for a dying goddess. Already suspicious of the messengers' New Age religion on Earth, Wing finds himself in a theocracy whose power struggles could easily come to focus on his own work. The characters and background remain vague but Kelly is sensitive to the dislocations Wing feels, from Earth--where his wife becomes a convert to the messenger's religion, to the spaceflight on which a genetically sculptured cancer physically restructures him into an alien.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

A disillusioned architect reluctantly accepts an offer from the alien Chani to travel to their world and undertake his most important commission--the construction of a monument to their "immortal" priestess. Kelly ( Planet of Whispers ) explores the literal and figurative boundaries of alienation in this evocative novel of a man's search for his own humanity. For large libraries.--
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 280 pages
• Publisher: Mandarin (July 5, 1990)
• ISBN-10: 0749303549
• ISBN-13: 978-0749303549
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #5,446,717 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars An earnest muddle, September 14, 2003

By	Mark Silcox (The American Southwest.) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Look into the Sun (Hardcover)

I really like Kelly's short stories, and I badly wanted to like this novel, but it just doesn't work. Two main problems: first, the protagonist is far too passive and mealy-mouthed, and an utterly unconvincing portrayal of a supposedly brilliant artist. And second, the alien civilization that he visits is very confusing, and facts about it are revelaed piecemeal and without enough context for the reader to be able to tell what really makes these creatures tick. Overall it reads like the first effort of a guy who might one day produce something really good - read Kelly's other stuff and ask for yourself if that promise has been fulfilled.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Wonderful Descriptiveness, Flat Characters, January 20, 2007

By	Judah (Terre Haute In USA) - See all my reviews

Overall, I found I disliked and could not identify with the majority of the characters. I could not relate to their emotional states, nor did I find the picture painted of civilization(s) at all coherent.

Two things rescued the novel for me: the inspiring descriptions of the Phillip Wing's two master works -- the Tomb of the Goddess and the Glass Cloud, and one passage.

This is the distilled and brilliant passage from p238:

"Immortality was simple... Essence consisted of viewpoint and structural memory. Viewpoint was each individual's unique style of processing experience; structural memories were those that composed viewpoint. All other memories were trivial, extraneous to existence.... Only structural memory, overwhelmingly the result of genetics and environment, was essential."

Never before I had I thought of self redux in such a fashion, though I found the author's embrace of behavioralism over free will annoying. It made the characters less real.

4.0 out of 5 stars Not Free SF Reader, September 8, 2007

By	Blue Tyson "- http://freesf.blogspot.com" - See all my reviews

Look into the Sun is an expansion of an earlier short story.

A human architect who does rather ambitious work is desired by a group of aliens to do a job for them.

This involves leaving his family, and a lot of physical and mental changes, along with getting stuck in the middle of at times incomprehensible alien politics.

A decent book, overall.


3.5 out of 5