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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Strength in Humility, 6 Oct 2003
The ability to fly like a bird is one of man's oldest dreams. In the far future, when man has risen to giddy heights of technological accomplishments and due to insufferable pride has fallen back again, where Guilds segment man into carefully disparate work and life styles, the Guild of the Flyers is the only one devoted to pure esthetic enjoyment. A product of gene tinkering during man's great Second Cycle, the flyers can fly only at night, with wings so delicate even the pressure of sunlight is too much for them. But the story is not about Flyers, or the Watchers who scan the universe with mentally enhancing machines looking for signs of the promised Invaders, nor even about the Dominator's rights to command material wealth and people for their own desires, but rather is almost a paean to what is best about the inner soul of man. Told from the viewpoint of one Watcher as he wanders a recognizable but very changed world from our own, from Roum to Perris to Jorslem, it is a voyage of self-discovery, of a delving into man's long past, while lust, greed, and acts of betrayal form signposts along his path towards redemption. A redemption for not just himself, but for all mankind, when it can recognize that all types of humans, including the most grossly misshapen Changelings as well as the most gorgeous Flyers, are part of man, and are all worthy. Silverberg populates his world with some very real people. The character of the Watcher, later given the name Tomis by the Rememberers, is finely drawn, that of a man somewhat distanced from the world, an observer, who none the less has to come to grips with the realities of living, and who can find true love if he looks hard enough. The Prince of Roum is immediately recognizable if not very likable. Avluela the Flyer embodies all the traditional traits of the fragile, mysterious, inconstant female until she is revealed to have more depth and strength than is readily apparent. There is something of a baroque and romantic feel to the style, ornate yet conveying its meaning quite directly. Silverberg went from being something of a wordsmith-for-hire in his early years as a writer to a consummate tale spinner with a near poetic drive to his language, and this work shows that talent. In this work, he reminds me somewhat of Arthur C. Clarke's The City and the Stars, as both works deal with a very far future where mankind that has fallen from great heights, and they both have an aura of the immense pressure of millennia of history pressing on their stories. Dominating the book is Silverberg's theme, against which his characters play and help illuminate. Normally this theme is gradually, almost imperceptibly developed, but perhaps the very last section of the book develops too much of a missionary fervor, about the only real miscue in this entire work. With the first section of this book the winner of 1969 Hugo Award, this is a rich read, one to savor for its strangeness and yet its link to the commonplace, finely crafted to make believable the incredible, with emotional power and indelible images. --- Reviewed by Patrick Shepherd (hyperpat)
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