Status
Available
Call number
Collection
Publication
Del Rey (1979), Mass Market Paperback
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 traveler 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 one hundred 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.
User reviews
LibraryThing member JudithProctor
A disappointing book. A romance is set up between two people who have been badly scarred by their experiences. The man benefiting is an eater of emotions who feeds on human pain.
The first character was surgically altered by aliens, but we never learn anything of real value about the aliens or why
The second character was used as an egg donor for 100 babies, but we get little understanding of why she consented to this or why she was chosen for the experiment.
The book seems to exist mainly to allow for a tour of the Moon and of Titan, but this doesn't really advance the plot. The whole novel would probably have worked better as a short story.
Sex scenes are laughable - women climax immediately without any need for foreplay...
I'd expected a more interesting story from a book in the Gollancz SF reprints series.
The first character was surgically altered by aliens, but we never learn anything of real value about the aliens or why
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they did this to him.The second character was used as an egg donor for 100 babies, but we get little understanding of why she consented to this or why she was chosen for the experiment.
The book seems to exist mainly to allow for a tour of the Moon and of Titan, but this doesn't really advance the plot. The whole novel would probably have worked better as a short story.
Sex scenes are laughable - women climax immediately without any need for foreplay...
I'd expected a more interesting story from a book in the Gollancz SF reprints series.
Show Less
LibraryThing member Deadron
Excellent beginning, up there with the poetry of the novella that makes up the first section of Nightwings, that falters when the two main characters actually meet. It's hard to care much about their relationship, but the concept of the novel -- bringing two damaged people together in order to
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enjoy their pain as they develop mutual hatred, is an excellent one and this is a must-read for Silverberg fans. Show Less
LibraryThing member EmScape
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,
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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. Show Less
LibraryThing member bragan
This odd little 1960s SF novel has three main characters: Burris, a space traveler who was kidnapped and experimented on by aliens who made surgical "improvements" to his body that have left him grotesque-looking and frequently in pain. Lona, a seventeen-year-old girl who was the subject of a
My feelings about this one are extremely mixed. To begin with Silverberg is much more of a stylist than most SF authors, and in general I like his writing, but this one feels as if it's balancing precariously between "well written" and "pretentiously written." For me, it mostly comes down on the right side, but some of the euphemisms he uses in the sex scenes are pretty laughable.
As for characterization... Burris is a well-drawn, complex character, and his relationship with Lona at times feels almost painfully realistic as it deteriorates. But Lona herself feels less like a real, human woman and more like a man's idea of a certain type of woman viewed from the outside, even thought parts of the story are told from her point of view. And while Burris' relationship to his new body and his personal pain are decently explored, Lona's reactions what was done to her are rather shallowly rendered and never examined too closely. It's like it's just sort of naturally taken for granted that, well, she's a woman and of course she's emotionally devastated by the thought that she can't nurture her own babies, and how much examination does that idea really need? Which thought makes me roll my eyes. A lot.
Then there's the ending, which is thematically satisfying, I suppose, but feels implausible and tacked-on, in terms of plot logic.
All of which sounds really, really negative, but the truth is, it was at least an interesting read, and it did hold my attention. It's also true, though, that this is definitely not the first Silverberg novel I would recommend.
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medical experiment in which a hundred egg cells were taken from her and used to create a hundred babies she's never seen. And Chalk, an obscenely wealthy man who psychically feeds off the physical and emotional pain of others, and who hatches a plan to get Burris and Lona together and then watch their relationship self-destruct, for the entertainment of the masses and his own personal gratification.My feelings about this one are extremely mixed. To begin with Silverberg is much more of a stylist than most SF authors, and in general I like his writing, but this one feels as if it's balancing precariously between "well written" and "pretentiously written." For me, it mostly comes down on the right side, but some of the euphemisms he uses in the sex scenes are pretty laughable.
As for characterization... Burris is a well-drawn, complex character, and his relationship with Lona at times feels almost painfully realistic as it deteriorates. But Lona herself feels less like a real, human woman and more like a man's idea of a certain type of woman viewed from the outside, even thought parts of the story are told from her point of view. And while Burris' relationship to his new body and his personal pain are decently explored, Lona's reactions what was done to her are rather shallowly rendered and never examined too closely. It's like it's just sort of naturally taken for granted that, well, she's a woman and of course she's emotionally devastated by the thought that she can't nurture her own babies, and how much examination does that idea really need? Which thought makes me roll my eyes. A lot.
Then there's the ending, which is thematically satisfying, I suppose, but feels implausible and tacked-on, in terms of plot logic.
All of which sounds really, really negative, but the truth is, it was at least an interesting read, and it did hold my attention. It's also true, though, that this is definitely not the first Silverberg novel I would recommend.
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LibraryThing member burritapal
Chalk is an entertainment mogul. Burris is a retired spaceman who was irreparably altered by alien surgeons. Lona is a teenager who had hundreds of her eggs removed. Scientists then fertilized the viable ones, all from the same sperm donor, and a dozen women and 88 artificial wombs brought her
Chalk decides to bring the two together, and publicize their romance, making revenue from it. But he is an emotional vampire and he grows fat on negative emotions, so Burris and Lona are in for bad times.
Hardback edition
P.65:
"Hooded once more, he let himself be swept along a network of pneumatic tubes until he found himself gliding into an immense cavernous room studded with various levels of activity points. Just now there was little activity; the desks were empty, the screens were silent. A gentle glow of thermal luminescent fungi lit the place. Turning slowly, Burris panned his gaze across the room and up a series of Crystal rungs until he observed, seated thronewise near the ceiling on the far side, a vast individual.
Chalk. Obviously.
Burris stood absorbed in the sight, forgetting for a moment the million tiny pricking pains that were his constant companions. So big? So enfleshed? The man had devoured a legion of cattle to gain that bulk."
P.67:
" 'your rating must have been good. you were given a tough assignment. first landing on a world of intelligent beings – never a cinch. how many in your team?'
'Three. we all went through surgery. Prolisse died first, then Malcondotto. Lucky for them.'
'you dislike your present body?'
'it has its advantages. The doctors say I'm likely to live 500 years. But it's painful, and it's also embarrassing. I was never cut out to be a monster.'
'you're not as ugly as you may think you are,' chalk observed. 'oh, yes, children run screaming from you, that sort of thing. But children are conservatives. They loathe anything new. I find that face of yours quite attractive in its way. I dare say a lot of women would fling themselves at your feet.' "
P.83:
" '... It's a dry world. Pluvial belts about the poles, then mounting dryness approaching the equator. it rains about every billion years at the equator and somewhat more frequently in the temperate zones.'
'Homesick?'
'hardly. But I learned the beauty of thorns there.'
'thorns? They stick you.'
'That's part of their beauty.'
'you sound like chalk now,' Aoudad muttered. 'pain is instructive, he says. Pain is gain. and thorns are beautiful. Give me a rose.'
'rose bushes are thorny, too,' Burris remarked quietly.
AOudad looked distressed. 'tulips, then. Tulips!'
Burris said, 'The Thorn is merely a highly evolved form of leaf. an adaptation to a harsh environment. Cacti can't afford to transpire the way leafy plants do. So they adapt. I'm sorry you regard such an elegant adaptation as ugly.' "
P.134-5:
"the glass was translucent quartz. It was 3/5 filled with a richly viscous green liquid. moving idly back and forth was a tiny animal, teardrop shaped, whose Violet skin left a faint glow behind as it swam.
'is that supposed to be there?'
Burris laughed. 'I have a deneb martini, so-called. It's a preposterous name. specialty of the house.'
'and in it?'
'a tadpole, essentially. Amphibious life form from one of the aldebaran worlds.'
'which you drink?'
'yes. Live.'
'live.' Lona shuddered. 'why? does it taste that good?'
'it has no taste at all, as a matter of fact. It's pure decoration. sophistication come full circle, back to barbarism. One gulp, and down it goes.'
'but it's alive? How can you kill it?'
'Have you ever eaten an oyster, Lona?'
'No. what's an oyster?'
'a mollusk. once quite popular, served in its shell. Live. You sprinkle it with lemon juice – citric acid, you know – and it writhes. Then you eat it. it tastes of the sea. I'm sorry, Lona. That's how it is. Oysters don't know what's happening to them. They don't have hopes and fears and dreams. Neither does this creature here.'
'but to kill -'
'we kill to eat. A true morality of food would allow us to eat only synthetics.' Burris smiled kindly. 'I'm sorry. I wouldn't have ordered it if I'd known it would offend you. Shall I have them take it away?' "
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babies to term. She has never met them. This profoundly impacted her. Burris is profoundly impacted by the unending pain and the monster face that the alien surgeons left him with.Chalk decides to bring the two together, and publicize their romance, making revenue from it. But he is an emotional vampire and he grows fat on negative emotions, so Burris and Lona are in for bad times.
Hardback edition
P.65:
"Hooded once more, he let himself be swept along a network of pneumatic tubes until he found himself gliding into an immense cavernous room studded with various levels of activity points. Just now there was little activity; the desks were empty, the screens were silent. A gentle glow of thermal luminescent fungi lit the place. Turning slowly, Burris panned his gaze across the room and up a series of Crystal rungs until he observed, seated thronewise near the ceiling on the far side, a vast individual.
Chalk. Obviously.
Burris stood absorbed in the sight, forgetting for a moment the million tiny pricking pains that were his constant companions. So big? So enfleshed? The man had devoured a legion of cattle to gain that bulk."
P.67:
" 'your rating must have been good. you were given a tough assignment. first landing on a world of intelligent beings – never a cinch. how many in your team?'
'Three. we all went through surgery. Prolisse died first, then Malcondotto. Lucky for them.'
'you dislike your present body?'
'it has its advantages. The doctors say I'm likely to live 500 years. But it's painful, and it's also embarrassing. I was never cut out to be a monster.'
'you're not as ugly as you may think you are,' chalk observed. 'oh, yes, children run screaming from you, that sort of thing. But children are conservatives. They loathe anything new. I find that face of yours quite attractive in its way. I dare say a lot of women would fling themselves at your feet.' "
P.83:
" '... It's a dry world. Pluvial belts about the poles, then mounting dryness approaching the equator. it rains about every billion years at the equator and somewhat more frequently in the temperate zones.'
'Homesick?'
'hardly. But I learned the beauty of thorns there.'
'thorns? They stick you.'
'That's part of their beauty.'
'you sound like chalk now,' Aoudad muttered. 'pain is instructive, he says. Pain is gain. and thorns are beautiful. Give me a rose.'
'rose bushes are thorny, too,' Burris remarked quietly.
AOudad looked distressed. 'tulips, then. Tulips!'
Burris said, 'The Thorn is merely a highly evolved form of leaf. an adaptation to a harsh environment. Cacti can't afford to transpire the way leafy plants do. So they adapt. I'm sorry you regard such an elegant adaptation as ugly.' "
P.134-5:
"the glass was translucent quartz. It was 3/5 filled with a richly viscous green liquid. moving idly back and forth was a tiny animal, teardrop shaped, whose Violet skin left a faint glow behind as it swam.
'is that supposed to be there?'
Burris laughed. 'I have a deneb martini, so-called. It's a preposterous name. specialty of the house.'
'and in it?'
'a tadpole, essentially. Amphibious life form from one of the aldebaran worlds.'
'which you drink?'
'yes. Live.'
'live.' Lona shuddered. 'why? does it taste that good?'
'it has no taste at all, as a matter of fact. It's pure decoration. sophistication come full circle, back to barbarism. One gulp, and down it goes.'
'but it's alive? How can you kill it?'
'Have you ever eaten an oyster, Lona?'
'No. what's an oyster?'
'a mollusk. once quite popular, served in its shell. Live. You sprinkle it with lemon juice – citric acid, you know – and it writhes. Then you eat it. it tastes of the sea. I'm sorry, Lona. That's how it is. Oysters don't know what's happening to them. They don't have hopes and fears and dreams. Neither does this creature here.'
'but to kill -'
'we kill to eat. A true morality of food would allow us to eat only synthetics.' Burris smiled kindly. 'I'm sorry. I wouldn't have ordered it if I'd known it would offend you. Shall I have them take it away?' "
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Subjects
Awards
Hugo Award (Nominee — Novel — 1968)
Nebula Award (Nominee — Novel — 1967)
Language
Original language
English
Original publication date
1967-08
Physical description
222 p.; 17.7 cm
ISBN
0345279689 / 9780345279682
Local notes
Omslag: Murray Tinkelman
Omslaget viser en kvinde, der omfavner en kutteklædt skikkelse i en kaktuslund
Indskannet omslag - N650U - 150 dpi
Omslaget viser en kvinde, der omfavner en kutteklædt skikkelse i en kaktuslund
Indskannet omslag - N650U - 150 dpi
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Pages
222
DDC/MDS
| 813.54 |