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Product Description
Product Description
For more than a thousand years, society on Homeworld has remained rigidly stratified. The Great Houses rule, peace between them enforced by unbreakable webs of kinship. The Folk accept the benefits of the system: stability, prosperity and peace. The Indigenes -- their world occupied for thousands of years by settlers from Old Earth -- are placid. Then, on one night of worldwide rebellion, everything changes, as the Folk turn against the ruling Houses and annihilate them. Joseph -- scion of one Great House, visiting another -- is one of the few survivors at House Getfen. His home is ten thousand miles away. The infrastructure which he has taken for granted all his life -- communications, transport -- has been swept away. For all he knows his family has been wiped out as thoroughly as the members of House Getfen. But his only hope lies in finding his way home, across ten thousand miles of a world turned suddenly strange and hostile. To succeed, he must set aside all his old beliefs and assumptions and learn the truth about the world he lives in. Robert Silverberg's newest novel is a masterful portrayal of a society and turned upside-down, and a colourful and highly imaginative depiction of an alien world.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
About the Author
Robert Silverberg was born in 1935 and began to write while studying for his BA at Columbia University. He is one of the most prolific of all sf writers.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
Format:Paperback
The premise of the book is simple: fifteen year old Joesph is visiting a family friend's house when almost everyone there is massacred in an uprising by the Folk - the planet's earlier invaders who are now little more than servants to the Masters, of whom Joesph is one. Helped out of the house and into the forest, Joseph starts his long trek home, encountering the planet's indigenous peoples on the way.
There are no chapters, and no breaks in the text. Few writers could sustain interest over 250 pages of unbroken prose, but Robert Silverberg does. The story is engrossing, and one of the best accounts of a journey through an alien world I've read in a long time.
There are no chapters, and no breaks in the text. Few writers could sustain interest over 250 pages of unbroken prose, but Robert Silverberg does. The story is engrossing, and one of the best accounts of a journey through an alien world I've read in a long time.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
15 reviews
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Good Read, Though Minor Silverberg
14 Aug 2003
Format:Mass Market Paperback
Most of the reviews here pretty much describe this book's impact. It's exceedingly well-written, very well paced, and richly envisioned. It's also a bit underachieved for the Silverberg most of us know and love whose masterpieces of SF in the Sixties and Seventies still resonate in out minds.
On the other hand, as a stand-alone novel (and boy do we need more of these), this book is a very pleasant read and for readers new to Silverberg, THE LONGEST WAY HOME is a good place to start. (I gave this book only three stars because I know that Silverberg can do much better.)
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
One of Silverberg's best.
2 Jun 2003
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase
I'm puzzled by the mixed reaction to this novel. Perhaps some readers were expecting more of the "epic" Silverberg of the new Majipoor trilogy and Alien Years. However, many long-time Silverberg fans feel that his very best novels, published between 1967 and 1976, were-like this one-short, tight, and intense. This book is an enjoyable and entertaining read, yes, but it also feels more personal and philosophical than those vast volumes that the market seems to pressure Silverberg to produce. I for one hope he skips the sequels and epics from now on out, and produces more novels of this length and excellence.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
SIlverberg on Autopilot
28 Aug 2002
Format:Hardcover
Amiable but over simple SF novel of an young aristocrats enforced trek back to his ancestral home after a revolt overthrows the status quo on a distant semi-feudal planet, the author appears to become bored with his creation and terminates it very abruptly. Not too much of interest in any of the characters or indigenous fauna, save perhaps the Noctambulo. Way, way below Silverbergs epic best, but an easy, empty read.
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