- Paperback: 224 pages
- Publisher: Gollancz; New edition edition (4 Dec 2000)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 057507146X
- ISBN-13: 978-0575071469
- Product Dimensions: 22.4 x 14 x 2.2 cm
- Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (1 customer review)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 1,533,598 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
Thorns (Gollancz S.F.)
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More About the Author
Product Description
Product Description
Duncan Chalk is a monstrous media mogul with a vast appetite for other people's pain. He feeds off it, and carefully nurtures it in order to feed it to the public. It is inevitable that Chalk should home in on Minner Burris, a space traveller whose body was taken apart by alien surgeons and then put back together again - differently. Burris' pain is constant. And so is that of Lona Kelvin, used by scientists to supply eggs for 100 children and then ruthlessly discarded. Only an emotional vampire like Chalk can see the huge audience eager to watch a relationship develop between these two damaged people. And only Chalk can make it happen.
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 and among his many fine novels are Dying Inside, Downward to the Earth, The Stochastic Man and Shadrach in the Furnace.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
Format:Paperback
Thorns is Robert Silverberg's first Hugo- and Nebula-nominated novel and stands at a creative turning point in his science fiction that saw him become one of the genre's most respected authors. I'm a big fan of Silverberg, but this isn't really my favourite novel of his.
The villain is Duncan Chalk, a hugely powerful, and hugely huge, media mogul whose propensity for sadism has made him a fortune in reality TV. His victims are a spaceman whose encounter with experimenting aliens has left him bizarrely altered and in constant pain and a girl who donated ova that have created a hundred babies, but cannot see any of them. These two tortured individuals are brought together by Chalk, knowing that their mutual attraction is inevitable, but inevitably short-lived; Chalk stands to gain ratings from the footage, but also seems to be able to feed off their pain...
This is a very odd conceit, and while an enjoyable read, never fully convinces. The process of in vitro fertilisation and surrogacy by which Lona becomes the mother of 100 babies was daring at the time, but describes fertility techniques that are common today, but out-of-date science is to be expected in a 40-year-old book. The main problem is simply that the story itself is so bizarre that at no point do you really believe it, although in many ways, you can put on your TV and see that the fearful future Silverberg predicted is already becoming real.
The villain is Duncan Chalk, a hugely powerful, and hugely huge, media mogul whose propensity for sadism has made him a fortune in reality TV. His victims are a spaceman whose encounter with experimenting aliens has left him bizarrely altered and in constant pain and a girl who donated ova that have created a hundred babies, but cannot see any of them. These two tortured individuals are brought together by Chalk, knowing that their mutual attraction is inevitable, but inevitably short-lived; Chalk stands to gain ratings from the footage, but also seems to be able to feed off their pain...
This is a very odd conceit, and while an enjoyable read, never fully convinces. The process of in vitro fertilisation and surrogacy by which Lona becomes the mother of 100 babies was daring at the time, but describes fertility techniques that are common today, but out-of-date science is to be expected in a 40-year-old book. The main problem is simply that the story itself is so bizarre that at no point do you really believe it, although in many ways, you can put on your TV and see that the fearful future Silverberg predicted is already becoming real.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
6 reviews
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Blech.
11 Mar 2011
Format:Paperback
This book was well written and quite interesting with a good, solid premise and believable, dynamic characters. So, why didn't I like it? First of all, I didn't really like any of those characters, no matter how well-developed and genuine they were. The premise, which is that an unbelievably fat, disgustingly rich emotional vampire pairs up two very damaged people so that he can get a thrill off it when their relationship implodes, made me mildly queasy. The world-building was excellent, probably the best part of the book, but each of the disparate scenes (a low-rent tenement, a high-class restaurant built on the outside of a dome, the South Pole resort, the Moon Carnival, the high-class hotel on Titan) seemed cold and sterile, despite being imaginatively described. All in all, not Silverberg's best.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Dark and Gloomy Silverberg Tale
27 Jan 2011
Format:Paperback
1968, Best Novel Hugo Award Nomination; 1968, Best Novel Nebula Award Nomination
Silverberg's brooding, post-utopian, rumination has the makings of a great science fiction novel. This horrifically dark vision follows two psychologically devastated characters who are set up to fall in love for the entertainment of the world. The cracks in the work's delivery appear about a third of the way through when the two characters meet -- the uncanny edge of the situation and its players loses some of its precision and verges into a somewhat soap opera infused interplanetary meandering which reveal the tensions and growing dislike between the main characters. There's nothing wrong with this per se since it's definitely the object of the book to pastiche (somewhat) Beauty and the Beast, but, the first third is definitely superior in every regard. I also found the heavy "sleaze" undercurrents that crop up every now and then frustrating and distracting...
Brief Plot Summary
Minner Burris, a spaceman, returns to Earth after captivity among a group of aliens -- whose motives are never uncovered -- horribly disfigured and modified. His body chemistry has been changed, he has extra joints, peculiar eyes, a tentacle attached to his hand... He hides in his room afraid that the world might see his face.
Lona Kelvin, a 17-year old young woman, is psychologically scarred after a fertility experiment (I guess in the 60s in vitro fertilization was a shocker) that made her a mother of one hundred children yet still a virgin. She never sees her children... After the brief media sensation she retreats away from the world and attempts to commit suicide.
Enter, Duncan Chalk, a massively obese man who peddles pleasure and pain for the entertainment of millions. He arranges for the two characters to meet and fall in love -- bribing each with vague promises: Burris will receive a new body and Lona will have at least some of her children back.
Final Thoughts
The first third of the novel is masterful. And the rest, well, somewhat laborious. It's inevitable that the relationship will eventually fracture -- the characters are so drastically different from each other. Lona acts like a child. Burris, a 40-year-old man, definitely wants an intellectual equal. However, what is so impressive is that Silverberg never indulges in the more obvious sorts of clichés. The visceral realism of the relationship is maintained throughout.
My main complaint is a rather minimal one. Duncan Chalk's role in peddling their suffering to the populace is never made explicit. And here, I find the disturbing/creepy edge so prevalent in the first third could have been highlighted.
That said, this is a worthwhile read which rambles along a dark path... Well done.
Silverberg's brooding, post-utopian, rumination has the makings of a great science fiction novel. This horrifically dark vision follows two psychologically devastated characters who are set up to fall in love for the entertainment of the world. The cracks in the work's delivery appear about a third of the way through when the two characters meet -- the uncanny edge of the situation and its players loses some of its precision and verges into a somewhat soap opera infused interplanetary meandering which reveal the tensions and growing dislike between the main characters. There's nothing wrong with this per se since it's definitely the object of the book to pastiche (somewhat) Beauty and the Beast, but, the first third is definitely superior in every regard. I also found the heavy "sleaze" undercurrents that crop up every now and then frustrating and distracting...
Brief Plot Summary
Minner Burris, a spaceman, returns to Earth after captivity among a group of aliens -- whose motives are never uncovered -- horribly disfigured and modified. His body chemistry has been changed, he has extra joints, peculiar eyes, a tentacle attached to his hand... He hides in his room afraid that the world might see his face.
Lona Kelvin, a 17-year old young woman, is psychologically scarred after a fertility experiment (I guess in the 60s in vitro fertilization was a shocker) that made her a mother of one hundred children yet still a virgin. She never sees her children... After the brief media sensation she retreats away from the world and attempts to commit suicide.
Enter, Duncan Chalk, a massively obese man who peddles pleasure and pain for the entertainment of millions. He arranges for the two characters to meet and fall in love -- bribing each with vague promises: Burris will receive a new body and Lona will have at least some of her children back.
Final Thoughts
The first third of the novel is masterful. And the rest, well, somewhat laborious. It's inevitable that the relationship will eventually fracture -- the characters are so drastically different from each other. Lona acts like a child. Burris, a 40-year-old man, definitely wants an intellectual equal. However, what is so impressive is that Silverberg never indulges in the more obvious sorts of clichés. The visceral realism of the relationship is maintained throughout.
My main complaint is a rather minimal one. Duncan Chalk's role in peddling their suffering to the populace is never made explicit. And here, I find the disturbing/creepy edge so prevalent in the first third could have been highlighted.
That said, this is a worthwhile read which rambles along a dark path... Well done.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
The turning point for Robert Silverberg
9 Sep 2010
Format:Paperback
After making his mark with a series of clever but callow science fiction novels, Robert Silverberg set out to transform his work (and, by example, the entire genre) by holding himself to higher literary standards. Thorns was the first Silverberg novel to reflect this renewed dedication, and while parts of it have aged badly -- the science behind Lona Kelvin's fertility experience is no longer novel -- it remains a bracing, hard-nosed read. The idea of using mass media to manipulate weak and vulnerable people has, if anything, become more timely with the rise of "reality" shows. A watershed novel in Silverberg's career, and a must-read for anyone interested in seeing the best SF has to offer.
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