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Son of Man
Robert Silverberg has been nominated for and won more awards for his fiction than any other writer in the science fiction genre. This classic, now finally back in print, sweeps us--and Clay, the main character--into Earth's far-away future. It's a time when no one has heard of Shakespeare, Mozart, or Darwin, and when the planet is inhabited by beings of great intelligence, ambivalent sexuality, and extraordinary powers. Clay embarks on a panoramic journey, encompassing a billion years, and comes to understand that the era from which he came is nothing more than a minute fiber in the band of time.
224 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published January 1, 1971
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582 people want to read
About the author
Robert Silverberg
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Robert Silverberg is one of science fiction’s most beloved writers, and the author of such contemporary classics as Dying Inside, Downward to the Earth and Lord Valentine’s Castle, as well as At Winter’s End, also available in a Bison Books edition. He is a past president of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America and the winner of five Nebula Awards and five Hugo Awards. In 2004 the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America presented him with the Grand Master Award. Silverberg is one of twenty-nine writers to have received that distinction.
Robert Silverberg is one of science fiction’s most beloved writers, and the author of such contemporary classics as Dying Inside, Downward to the Earth and Lord Valentine’s Castle, as well as At Winter’s End, also available in a Bison Books edition. He is a past president of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America and the winner of five Nebula Awards and five Hugo Awards. In 2004 the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America presented him with the Grand Master Award. Silverberg is one of twenty-nine writers to have received that distinction.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 65 reviews
July 26, 2020
Woah... what a trip! I loved it, although it was the exact equivalent of staring into a kaleidoscope for 5 hours!
Definitely not a "typical" book in any sense: not typical Silverberg, not typical science-fiction, and not even typical of the days when it was written (1971), even if it channels a lot of the psychedelic sub-culture of the early '70s. Just... different from anything I’ve ever read.
I think of this novel as a virtuoso performance by an author who had fully mastered his craft, and wanted to go as "out there" as he could possibly go with his imagination in one single book.
Where to start... well, "Clay" is a man from the 20th Century who is caught up in a time-flux and transported to a time that’s billions of years into the future. The Earth of this distant era retains almost no recognizable feature from our time, and its population consists of wildly variant life forms. In the intervening eons, the human race has evolved into many forms, from the tyrannosaur-like Eaters, to the sedentary and "zen" Awaiters, to the squid-like underwater Breathers, to the colossal Interceders, to the werewolf-like Destroyers � all of these are “Sons of Man�.
Together with Clay, other versions of what Homo Sapiens has mutated into during the past millions of years find themselves sucked up by this time-flux, including a pink spheroid who lives inside a cage that rolls around on two wheels. Yikes! No need for LSD!
With the Skimmers, and in spite of them, Clay goes on a journey of discovery which takes him around this future Earth.
So on one hand, we have wild and extreme projections of evolutionary science. As always with Silverberg, he is not very much concerned with the scientific aspects of it at all.
Against this scenario, the author goes berserk with his imagination - especially visual and sensory imagination, including at least a million different colors that he describes throughout the book.
Surrealism must have been a major influence. Salvador Dalì would have LOVED this book and rolled his greasy mustache tips in delight.
In the only interview I found on the internet where Robert Silverberg talks specifically about this book, he says:
”I had no pattern in mind in the evolutionary conceptions. The book was intended as a dreamlike vision, a surreal portrait of the future, not as a scientific text. One of my chief inspirations was a book called A Voyage to Arcturus by David Lindsay, which has some of the same emphasis on color and free imagination. But mainly the imagery came from my own dreams. I found that I was actually dreaming scenes from the book each night; I jotted them down when I awoke and wrote them later in the day.�
“Most of those creatures are, in the novel, described as direct descendants of man � our gene pool undergoing vast diversion over the eons to come. My intentions were literary, but I also think it’s a very possible concept: despite today’s current anti-scientific attitudes toward genetic manipulation, we are destined to see such vast changes in the physical form of the human race in the next five thousand years (let alone a couple of billlion!) that we would not be able to recognize our descendants as human.�
At the end, we get a sort of messianic finale, very fitting after thinking about the nature of man and the biblical title, but there is no real explanation for anything even there, and to be honest it makes as much sense as any dream - which is, very little.
I have to admit, if this hadn't been written by Silverberg (whose work I adore), I might not have liked it as much. It's not an easy read, especially because there is no real narrative engine, no plot that propels you forward while you're reading, and no explanation for almost anything at all, which is a typical feature of the fantasy genre, rather than SF - and one of the reasons why I usually can’t stand fantasy fiction.
It’s not easy to read because it demands a constant extra effort of imagination from the reader. So you need to do some mental work out.
But Silverberg was perfectly aware of all this, to the point that towards the end he actually spells out each unanswered question that the reader still has, almost as if he was saying “Hey, I’m with you: I know exactly what is left unexplained! I’m not your average fantasy writer! I know what I’m doing here.�:
from p.179 of the first edition:
"Will I ever return to my own time?"
"What has become of the Spheroid?"
"How are new Skimmers created?"
"Where is the home of Wrong? Who or what is she?"
"Why have I been brought here?"
"How old is the world?"
etc. etc.
All in all, this is an absolutely unique work of fiction that still shines, fizzes and dazzles today, in all of its hallucinogenic splendor.
Definitely not a "typical" book in any sense: not typical Silverberg, not typical science-fiction, and not even typical of the days when it was written (1971), even if it channels a lot of the psychedelic sub-culture of the early '70s. Just... different from anything I’ve ever read.
I think of this novel as a virtuoso performance by an author who had fully mastered his craft, and wanted to go as "out there" as he could possibly go with his imagination in one single book.
Where to start... well, "Clay" is a man from the 20th Century who is caught up in a time-flux and transported to a time that’s billions of years into the future. The Earth of this distant era retains almost no recognizable feature from our time, and its population consists of wildly variant life forms. In the intervening eons, the human race has evolved into many forms, from the tyrannosaur-like Eaters, to the sedentary and "zen" Awaiters, to the squid-like underwater Breathers, to the colossal Interceders, to the werewolf-like Destroyers � all of these are “Sons of Man�.
Together with Clay, other versions of what Homo Sapiens has mutated into during the past millions of years find themselves sucked up by this time-flux, including a pink spheroid who lives inside a cage that rolls around on two wheels. Yikes! No need for LSD!
With the Skimmers, and in spite of them, Clay goes on a journey of discovery which takes him around this future Earth.
So on one hand, we have wild and extreme projections of evolutionary science. As always with Silverberg, he is not very much concerned with the scientific aspects of it at all.
Against this scenario, the author goes berserk with his imagination - especially visual and sensory imagination, including at least a million different colors that he describes throughout the book.
Surrealism must have been a major influence. Salvador Dalì would have LOVED this book and rolled his greasy mustache tips in delight.
In the only interview I found on the internet where Robert Silverberg talks specifically about this book, he says:
”I had no pattern in mind in the evolutionary conceptions. The book was intended as a dreamlike vision, a surreal portrait of the future, not as a scientific text. One of my chief inspirations was a book called A Voyage to Arcturus by David Lindsay, which has some of the same emphasis on color and free imagination. But mainly the imagery came from my own dreams. I found that I was actually dreaming scenes from the book each night; I jotted them down when I awoke and wrote them later in the day.�
“Most of those creatures are, in the novel, described as direct descendants of man � our gene pool undergoing vast diversion over the eons to come. My intentions were literary, but I also think it’s a very possible concept: despite today’s current anti-scientific attitudes toward genetic manipulation, we are destined to see such vast changes in the physical form of the human race in the next five thousand years (let alone a couple of billlion!) that we would not be able to recognize our descendants as human.�
At the end, we get a sort of messianic finale, very fitting after thinking about the nature of man and the biblical title, but there is no real explanation for anything even there, and to be honest it makes as much sense as any dream - which is, very little.
I have to admit, if this hadn't been written by Silverberg (whose work I adore), I might not have liked it as much. It's not an easy read, especially because there is no real narrative engine, no plot that propels you forward while you're reading, and no explanation for almost anything at all, which is a typical feature of the fantasy genre, rather than SF - and one of the reasons why I usually can’t stand fantasy fiction.
It’s not easy to read because it demands a constant extra effort of imagination from the reader. So you need to do some mental work out.
But Silverberg was perfectly aware of all this, to the point that towards the end he actually spells out each unanswered question that the reader still has, almost as if he was saying “Hey, I’m with you: I know exactly what is left unexplained! I’m not your average fantasy writer! I know what I’m doing here.�:
from p.179 of the first edition:
"Will I ever return to my own time?"
"What has become of the Spheroid?"
"How are new Skimmers created?"
"Where is the home of Wrong? Who or what is she?"
"Why have I been brought here?"
"How old is the world?"
etc. etc.
All in all, this is an absolutely unique work of fiction that still shines, fizzes and dazzles today, in all of its hallucinogenic splendor.
March 3, 2014
Back in the 1970s, there was a certain type of film that, whether by chance or design, became highly favored by the cannibis-stimulated and lysergically enhanced audience members of the day. These so-called "stoner pictures"--such as "Performance," "El Topo," "Pink Flamingos" and "Eraserhead"--played for years as "midnight movies" and remain hugely popular to this day. Well, just as there is a genre of cinema geared for stoners, it seems to me that there could equally well be a breed of literature with a genuine appeal for those with an "altered consciousness." That we don't hear of such books is perhaps due to the fact that reading requires more in the way of active mental work than does film gazing; reading is not as passive an activity, generally speaking, as watching a film, and entails more of an exercise of the imagination. But if there ever WERE such a genre of literature as the "stoner book," then I do believe that Robert Silverberg's "Son of Man" would be a prime example. Released in 1971, this was just one of four novels that the author came out with that year, the others being the wonderful "The Second Trip" (NOT an LSD reference), the Nebula-winning "A Time of Changes," and his story of insane overpopulation, "The World Inside." Quite unlike any other Silverberg novel that I have encountered, "Son of Man" is a bizarre, hallucinatory, phantasmagoric vision of Earth's far future that is surely not for all tastes; even Jon Davis, the host of the Quasi-Official Robert Silverberg Web Site, tells us that the book is "probably not for the casual reader."
In this virtually plotless novel, the reader encounters an everyman named (most symbolically) Clay, who may or may not be from Clayton, Missouri. Clay is somehow caught in a "time-flux" and whisked untold billions of years into Earth's future (as opposed to Silverberg's 1968 novel "Hawksbill Station," which is set a billion years in the past), to a time when all the flora and fauna are completely changed, and even the constellations and continents have altered. Over the course of his travels, Clay meets the six different forms that mankind has evolved into: the sexually mutable Skimmers, who he befriends; the vegetablelike, soil-dwelling Awaiters; the squidlike Breathers; the shaggy Destroyers; the T. rex-like Eaters; and the saurian Interceders. With the Skimmers, he participates in/observes their five rites: the Opening of the Earth, during which their spirits (?) explore the bowels of the planet; the Lifting of the Sea; the Tuning of the Darkness, during which the "music of the spheres" is adjusted by the Skimmer crew; the Filling of the Valleys, in which all of Earth's mountains are seemingly leveled and its valleys filled in; and the mysterious Shaping of the Sky. Clay also traverses the numerous zones of discomfort--Ice, Fire, Dark, Old (in which he ages drastically), Empty and Slow--and, along the way, changes into a female, roams the stars, gets dissolved in a river, is transformed into an Awaiter, explores an underground city now populated only by robots, traverses a desert that breeds hallucinations, and on and on....
"Son of Man," as you can tell, is a book of virtually boundless imagination, and in that regard, it must be deemed a complete success. It is as if someone dared Silverberg to write the most way-out book imaginable in a sci-fi context, and the author accepted and rose to the challenge. The book is surely as bizarre as David Lindsay's 1920 classic "A Voyage to Arcturus" (which also featured a hero who undergoes physical metamorphoses) and as pleasingly "trippy" as Philip K. Dick's "The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch" (1964), but what I kept being reminded of here, of all things, is H. P. Lovecraft's posthumous, oneiric novella of 1943, "The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath." As in that surrealist wonder, in "Son of Man," any marvelous thing can pop up at any moment, and there is simply no way in the world for the reader to predict what will happen in the very next sentence! At one point in the story, Clay attempts "a rational analysis of his experiences," at which the reader can only chuckle and wish him luck! In another section, the forces of Chaos erupt from a mountainside, and in a display of psychedelic verbiage that rivals anything in Henry Kuttner's "The Fairy Chessmen" (1946) or Dick's "The Ganymede Takeover" (1967), Clay sees "a thick snaky worm with luminous antennae, and a walking black barrel, and a dancing fish, and a tunnel with legs. He sees a trio of giant eyes without bodies. He sees two green arms that clutch each other in a desperate and murderous grip. He sees a squadron of marching red eggs. He sees wheels with hands. He sees undulating carpets of singing slime. He sees fertile nails. He sees one-legged spiders. He sees black snowflakes. He sees men without heads. He sees heads without men...." Anyway, most of the book is like that (you should get a load of what Clay sees in that hallucinatory desert!), and whether the author has any grander design than engendering sheer wonder and that elusive sense of cosmic awe, I'm not certain. The book is most assuredly heavily symbolic, but symbolic of what, I don't know. Perhaps it would be wise to take a hint from what Clay thinks as he traverses that underground city: "Futile to seek logic here."
"Son of Man" is, needless to say, both intelligent and finely written, in Silverberg's best manner during this, the great second phase of his literary career. The book can be justly accused of being overwritten, and of consisting of "one damn thing after another," but overall, it is a fairly overwhelming affair and, to quote author Brian Stableford, "a beautiful and brilliant book." But hardly perfect. When Clay suddenly transforms into a woman, he mentally rattles off practically every darn bit of the female anatomy ("mesovaria, the infundibulo-pelvic ligaments...") to the point where the reader assumes he must have been a 20th century gynecologist! And it was the Skimmer named Ninameen who tells Clay that "Dreams end," not Ti, as he contemplates 140+ pages later. And when Clay soars through the sky "at an altitude of several miles" and is said to cast shadows in the ionosphere...well, the ionosphere doesn't even begin till one reaches around 30 miles up. Still, it is hard to quibble with a book in which seeming reality is so very plastic. Silverberg's novel also contains some clever humor--I love it when Clay becomes a woman after he lifts the oceans with the Skimmers, and the author writes that he is "unmanned by this sea-change"--and some quite moving sections regarding life and death and Man's place in the grand scheme of things. It is a boldly ambitious book, an exercise in imaginative gusto run rampant, and, I guarantee you, quite unlike anything you have previously taken in. This reader has not partaken of recreational drugs in a very long time, but Silverberg's "Son of Man" surely was an effective substitute, lemme tell you!
In this virtually plotless novel, the reader encounters an everyman named (most symbolically) Clay, who may or may not be from Clayton, Missouri. Clay is somehow caught in a "time-flux" and whisked untold billions of years into Earth's future (as opposed to Silverberg's 1968 novel "Hawksbill Station," which is set a billion years in the past), to a time when all the flora and fauna are completely changed, and even the constellations and continents have altered. Over the course of his travels, Clay meets the six different forms that mankind has evolved into: the sexually mutable Skimmers, who he befriends; the vegetablelike, soil-dwelling Awaiters; the squidlike Breathers; the shaggy Destroyers; the T. rex-like Eaters; and the saurian Interceders. With the Skimmers, he participates in/observes their five rites: the Opening of the Earth, during which their spirits (?) explore the bowels of the planet; the Lifting of the Sea; the Tuning of the Darkness, during which the "music of the spheres" is adjusted by the Skimmer crew; the Filling of the Valleys, in which all of Earth's mountains are seemingly leveled and its valleys filled in; and the mysterious Shaping of the Sky. Clay also traverses the numerous zones of discomfort--Ice, Fire, Dark, Old (in which he ages drastically), Empty and Slow--and, along the way, changes into a female, roams the stars, gets dissolved in a river, is transformed into an Awaiter, explores an underground city now populated only by robots, traverses a desert that breeds hallucinations, and on and on....
"Son of Man," as you can tell, is a book of virtually boundless imagination, and in that regard, it must be deemed a complete success. It is as if someone dared Silverberg to write the most way-out book imaginable in a sci-fi context, and the author accepted and rose to the challenge. The book is surely as bizarre as David Lindsay's 1920 classic "A Voyage to Arcturus" (which also featured a hero who undergoes physical metamorphoses) and as pleasingly "trippy" as Philip K. Dick's "The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch" (1964), but what I kept being reminded of here, of all things, is H. P. Lovecraft's posthumous, oneiric novella of 1943, "The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath." As in that surrealist wonder, in "Son of Man," any marvelous thing can pop up at any moment, and there is simply no way in the world for the reader to predict what will happen in the very next sentence! At one point in the story, Clay attempts "a rational analysis of his experiences," at which the reader can only chuckle and wish him luck! In another section, the forces of Chaos erupt from a mountainside, and in a display of psychedelic verbiage that rivals anything in Henry Kuttner's "The Fairy Chessmen" (1946) or Dick's "The Ganymede Takeover" (1967), Clay sees "a thick snaky worm with luminous antennae, and a walking black barrel, and a dancing fish, and a tunnel with legs. He sees a trio of giant eyes without bodies. He sees two green arms that clutch each other in a desperate and murderous grip. He sees a squadron of marching red eggs. He sees wheels with hands. He sees undulating carpets of singing slime. He sees fertile nails. He sees one-legged spiders. He sees black snowflakes. He sees men without heads. He sees heads without men...." Anyway, most of the book is like that (you should get a load of what Clay sees in that hallucinatory desert!), and whether the author has any grander design than engendering sheer wonder and that elusive sense of cosmic awe, I'm not certain. The book is most assuredly heavily symbolic, but symbolic of what, I don't know. Perhaps it would be wise to take a hint from what Clay thinks as he traverses that underground city: "Futile to seek logic here."
"Son of Man" is, needless to say, both intelligent and finely written, in Silverberg's best manner during this, the great second phase of his literary career. The book can be justly accused of being overwritten, and of consisting of "one damn thing after another," but overall, it is a fairly overwhelming affair and, to quote author Brian Stableford, "a beautiful and brilliant book." But hardly perfect. When Clay suddenly transforms into a woman, he mentally rattles off practically every darn bit of the female anatomy ("mesovaria, the infundibulo-pelvic ligaments...") to the point where the reader assumes he must have been a 20th century gynecologist! And it was the Skimmer named Ninameen who tells Clay that "Dreams end," not Ti, as he contemplates 140+ pages later. And when Clay soars through the sky "at an altitude of several miles" and is said to cast shadows in the ionosphere...well, the ionosphere doesn't even begin till one reaches around 30 miles up. Still, it is hard to quibble with a book in which seeming reality is so very plastic. Silverberg's novel also contains some clever humor--I love it when Clay becomes a woman after he lifts the oceans with the Skimmers, and the author writes that he is "unmanned by this sea-change"--and some quite moving sections regarding life and death and Man's place in the grand scheme of things. It is a boldly ambitious book, an exercise in imaginative gusto run rampant, and, I guarantee you, quite unlike anything you have previously taken in. This reader has not partaken of recreational drugs in a very long time, but Silverberg's "Son of Man" surely was an effective substitute, lemme tell you!
October 2, 2011
A few pages into this book, I groaned. I picked it up because I was reading Robert Silverberg books. I barely glanced at the cover to get a sense of what it was going to be about. On the first page, Clay, a man of our time, which in the case of the book would be around 1970, finds himself caught in a time flux and deposited in some future world, a verdant paradise possibly a million years in the future. Soon he meets Hanmer, one of the current human specimens, a soft spoken, somewhat androgynous young man with green skin and red eyes. Hanmer will be Clay's guide.
That's when I groaned. I seldom like books that involve a stranger trotted around a wondrous new world and shown wonders. Dante set a high literary standard for this format around the beginning of the 14th century. Utopian novels employ this method, and they are a drag. In science fiction from about the same tame as Silverberg's novel there is Theodore Sturgeon's Venus Plus X, a silly and tedious book. Nothing much can happen in these stories, if they are stories. They read like account of visits to futuristic theme parks that prompt from their authors inflated language suited to the wonders on view. Silverberg is an author who can describe some pretty outlandish worlds and make them totally believable. For Son of Man he slips into highfalutin language that he imagines does justice to the mystic and ecstatic rituals Clay experiences. It doesn't. It just sounds strained.
Few books I have ever read spend such time on the state of their protagonist's genitals. Everyone is naked in this world. Hanmer and his five friends, known as Skimmers, not only look androgynous but change gender at will. Clay's frequent erections, whether prompted by sexual arousal by a Skimmer in his/her female mode or at times simply by something in the air, are mighty things. Except for one gender-bending encounter that must have much more titillating and shocking in 1971 that it is today, Clay finds himself mounting not only the Skimmers but in some cases the primordial ooze he drags himself through and even wet sand on a beach. (Think about the last one.) There is much engulfing and thrusting described, although at times Clay ejaculates more spontaneously. We also learn how the varying atmospheric conditions affect his penis and testicles. Silverberg was a hardworking, full-time writer who in addition to SF wrote dirty books for long forgotten paperback publishers like Nightstand Editions. That industry was done in by home video and the internet, but if you were around in the seventies you probably encountered these kinds of publications and you will recognize their language in Son of Man. Where else would you come across the word "encunted"? (It doesn't make it through spell check but it is in Wiktionary.)
But I digress. No, I take that back. Clay's erections are a central feature of the book. His other experiences involve body-dissolving trips to the edge of the universe, time spent as a giant carrot, and struggles alone through the "Unpleasant Zones," areas with names like Heavy, Slow, Dark, Cold, Empty. The Skimmers, who are not unlike H.G. Wells' Eloi minus the inconvenience of the Morlocks, live a carefree existence, their only duty being certain rituals that keep the world humming along. Sound boring? It is. But to Silverberg's credit, and his love of monstrosities, Clay meets along his journey some pretty interesting throwbacks to earlier human forms that range from spheres who live in mobile cages, to pimply, stinky goat men, to ravenous dinosaurs -- each of them some evolutionary adaptation to an era of earth's history.
The conclusion is a cosmic experience, at the Well of First Things. (Another trait of this book is an absolute lack of humor, and yet much in Son of Man could be transferred to a Douglas Adams book with little rewriting.) In addition to a prolonged ejaculation this climactic eperience involves an immersion in the full panoply of humanity and a quasi-religious experience in which Clay takes on all the sorrows, fears, and boredom of everything from his Skimmer friends to Neanderthals and the spheroid thing in the cage, Why he feels compelled or even has the right to do this is not clear, except that he is Clay, he is one special dude.
That's when I groaned. I seldom like books that involve a stranger trotted around a wondrous new world and shown wonders. Dante set a high literary standard for this format around the beginning of the 14th century. Utopian novels employ this method, and they are a drag. In science fiction from about the same tame as Silverberg's novel there is Theodore Sturgeon's Venus Plus X, a silly and tedious book. Nothing much can happen in these stories, if they are stories. They read like account of visits to futuristic theme parks that prompt from their authors inflated language suited to the wonders on view. Silverberg is an author who can describe some pretty outlandish worlds and make them totally believable. For Son of Man he slips into highfalutin language that he imagines does justice to the mystic and ecstatic rituals Clay experiences. It doesn't. It just sounds strained.
Few books I have ever read spend such time on the state of their protagonist's genitals. Everyone is naked in this world. Hanmer and his five friends, known as Skimmers, not only look androgynous but change gender at will. Clay's frequent erections, whether prompted by sexual arousal by a Skimmer in his/her female mode or at times simply by something in the air, are mighty things. Except for one gender-bending encounter that must have much more titillating and shocking in 1971 that it is today, Clay finds himself mounting not only the Skimmers but in some cases the primordial ooze he drags himself through and even wet sand on a beach. (Think about the last one.) There is much engulfing and thrusting described, although at times Clay ejaculates more spontaneously. We also learn how the varying atmospheric conditions affect his penis and testicles. Silverberg was a hardworking, full-time writer who in addition to SF wrote dirty books for long forgotten paperback publishers like Nightstand Editions. That industry was done in by home video and the internet, but if you were around in the seventies you probably encountered these kinds of publications and you will recognize their language in Son of Man. Where else would you come across the word "encunted"? (It doesn't make it through spell check but it is in Wiktionary.)
But I digress. No, I take that back. Clay's erections are a central feature of the book. His other experiences involve body-dissolving trips to the edge of the universe, time spent as a giant carrot, and struggles alone through the "Unpleasant Zones," areas with names like Heavy, Slow, Dark, Cold, Empty. The Skimmers, who are not unlike H.G. Wells' Eloi minus the inconvenience of the Morlocks, live a carefree existence, their only duty being certain rituals that keep the world humming along. Sound boring? It is. But to Silverberg's credit, and his love of monstrosities, Clay meets along his journey some pretty interesting throwbacks to earlier human forms that range from spheres who live in mobile cages, to pimply, stinky goat men, to ravenous dinosaurs -- each of them some evolutionary adaptation to an era of earth's history.
The conclusion is a cosmic experience, at the Well of First Things. (Another trait of this book is an absolute lack of humor, and yet much in Son of Man could be transferred to a Douglas Adams book with little rewriting.) In addition to a prolonged ejaculation this climactic eperience involves an immersion in the full panoply of humanity and a quasi-religious experience in which Clay takes on all the sorrows, fears, and boredom of everything from his Skimmer friends to Neanderthals and the spheroid thing in the cage, Why he feels compelled or even has the right to do this is not clear, except that he is Clay, he is one special dude.
April 4, 2011
Silverberg must have ingested a combination of LSD and Ecstasy prior to writing this book. Clay, our 20th century human narrator, is captured by the "time flux" (never explained) and deposited in the far, far future (how far? don't know) where he meanders around having intercourse (both philosophical and sexual) with future versions of humanity on a future version of earth. This could have been interesting except for the stream of consciousness writing style and the utter and complete lack of plot. I tried to read this once before and just couldn't get through it. This time I ended up pretty much skim-reading the second half, just to see if possibly it might get better as well as to ensure I never have to try to read it again. There are some interesting philosophical gems, but I just couldn't get into it. Maybe someone with more experience with mood-altering chemicals might find it a bit more to their liking. A quote from page 96 seems to sum up: "Though he transcends these difficulties, he is perturbed by a fundamental uncertainty of purpose that conflicts not only with his awareness of the nonexistance of purpose, but with his awareness of the nonexistance of conflict." That's this book in a nutshell. No conflict, no purpose.
August 24, 2021
A psychedelic far future romp, in which a modern man plays the part of the atavistic primitive, transported to a world that is barely recognizable as Earth. The protagonist's guides are the jovial humanoid "Skimmers", who invite him to participate in their cosmos shaking sex rituals as they travel across the earth, along the way experiencing changes in sex and species, encountering several descendant species of humanity, and the bizarre "zones", places that distill the experiences Slow, Old and Dark. Don't look for coherence and you'll have a wild ride.
December 28, 2021
I actually can't fault this and the minus 1 star is simply because I got pretty confused towards the end as the whole thing descended into a kind of swirl of madness... but this is the thing, when dealing with the idea of infinity and your smallness in the universe, the fact that you aren't really in control and the cultural signifiers you use as your frame of reference turns out to be made from cheap bits of plastic... then how can anything cultural be rated at all? Isn't the whole point of giving something a 1 star or a 2 star etc. isn't the whole point of that actually pointless? Toothless? Kind of entitled too? Up your own arse and even a bit narcissistic. Like there's any reason at all to care in the grand scheme of things, when everything ever is actually possible. If you were able to be projected outside of your sphere of knowledge, and see things all at once, then how is that even expressed? Maybe some old acid head at the bus stop might have the answer for you? Though it's not going to be satisfying and it's not going to pay the bills.
This is another one of those books that I think in the long run I'm going to love, and keep thinking about. Minus one star because it hurt.
This is another one of those books that I think in the long run I'm going to love, and keep thinking about. Minus one star because it hurt.
May 17, 2022
I’ve been a fan of Silverberg ever since reading some of his classic sci-fi like THE BOOK OF SKULLS and DYING INSIDE back in the 70s. However, I found it really difficult trying to get into this one. I think, as others have mentioned, that Silverberg must have been on an LSD trip when he wrote this in 1971. It tells of a man called Clay from the 20th century who wakes up millennia into the future through some kind of time flux. Man has gone through countless evolutions and the beings at the end are rather mild mannered and can shift their sexes at will. (These people kind of reminded me of the Eloi from Wells� Time Machine.) Clay arrives in the future naked and horny and has sex with most anyone or any being that will have him. His exploration of this future world goes on and on and I admit to skimming most of the last half of the book. Thankfully, it does come to an end.
This one was a disappointment to me. I always considered Silverberg one of the best in his field and hopefully the next book I read by him will be an improvement over this one!
This one was a disappointment to me. I always considered Silverberg one of the best in his field and hopefully the next book I read by him will be an improvement over this one!
October 3, 2019
Metamorphosen, Philosophisches, Sinneserfahrungen in anderen Wesenheiten, Psychedelic, fast Biblisches. Roman von 1971, als Silverbergs Werke begannen interessant zu werden. Auf 190 Seiten komprimierte etwas andere SF. Aus heutiger Sicht leicht angestaubt.
April 3, 2020
Silverberg discovers LSD.
Clay awakens naked and alone in a strange world of magnificent color, sound, scent and life. He meets Hanmer, recognizably human in form but hairless, golden-green skinned, able to change sex and travel astrally around the solar system.
He's not in Kansas anymore.
Hanmer is a human from the distant future, a Son of Man. Clay has been transported through something called a 'time-flux' to Hanmer's era, alongside other, often startling variations of humanity. He enjoys intense new experiences, yet feels like a primitive.
Why has he been brought here?
A writer of pulp sci-fi and pornography in the 1950s and early 60s, Silverberg reinvented himself thereafter as a more ambitious writer, freeing his imagination and letting his hair down to indulge in all manor of lyrical flights of fancy.
He never abandoned the sex though. Far from it. In the first twenty pages of this book Clay has sex with himself, Hanmer (who becomes a female for him), the sky, and even the planet Jupiter. I kid you not, he what's the biggest planet in the solar system!
Yep, it's a real "anything goes" outing from the author. At one point he lists ten consecutive synonyms for the word 'dismembered', all of which also begin with the letter 'd'. At another point he
names and visits more than fifty stars.
There isn't much story amongst an orgy of ritual and sensation. Iirritated me as often as it entertained me. Still, I admired Silverberg's WTF attitude here.
Clay awakens naked and alone in a strange world of magnificent color, sound, scent and life. He meets Hanmer, recognizably human in form but hairless, golden-green skinned, able to change sex and travel astrally around the solar system.
He's not in Kansas anymore.
Hanmer is a human from the distant future, a Son of Man. Clay has been transported through something called a 'time-flux' to Hanmer's era, alongside other, often startling variations of humanity. He enjoys intense new experiences, yet feels like a primitive.
Why has he been brought here?
A writer of pulp sci-fi and pornography in the 1950s and early 60s, Silverberg reinvented himself thereafter as a more ambitious writer, freeing his imagination and letting his hair down to indulge in all manor of lyrical flights of fancy.
He never abandoned the sex though. Far from it. In the first twenty pages of this book Clay has sex with himself, Hanmer (who becomes a female for him), the sky, and even the planet Jupiter. I kid you not, he what's the biggest planet in the solar system!
Yep, it's a real "anything goes" outing from the author. At one point he lists ten consecutive synonyms for the word 'dismembered', all of which also begin with the letter 'd'. At another point he
names and visits more than fifty stars.
There isn't much story amongst an orgy of ritual and sensation. Iirritated me as often as it entertained me. Still, I admired Silverberg's WTF attitude here.
Read
October 14, 2021This is a story about humans in the future (written in the past!). I am reading 50s, 60s and 70s science fiction stories for about six months having bought about 20 in a charity shop ten years ago - all with great covers. The ideas are usually a bit simple and (obviously) dated - mind-reading seems a big topic, space flight pre-actual space flight is quite interesting but often a bit generic. This book is very different though - absolutely chocka block full of tripped out concepts - humans being trans-sexuality (moving from one sex to another at random), existing as silt in rivers, smelling colours, humansexisting as 'thought'. Really quite crazy stuff - from its time of writing (late 60s i think) I would say that is the very creative writings of a novelist imbibing a lot of hallucinogetics which sometimes makes the narrative a bit impenetrable but worth it. It's a trip!
January 31, 2009
This is my favorite Robert Silverberg book.
October 5, 2009
A surrealistic look at the future, SF on LSD.
April 12, 2020
I love this one by Silverberg. I am fascinated by his examination of what it means to be human and his writing is elegant.
August 1, 2021
Nova sveska novosadske edicije Supernova pruža nam priliku da se već treći put ove godine susretnemo sa romanom jednog od najcenjenijih pisaca naučne fantastike, Robertom Silverbergom. Posle romana Vreme promene, objavljenog u almanahu Monolit 6 i ekspresno izdatog romana Spuštanje noći koji je napisao u, za mene neshvatljivoj, kolaboraciji sa Isakom Asimovom, sada je pred nama jedan manje poznat roman, Sin čovečji.
Nažalost, kao i prethodna dva, i ovaj je malo razočaranje za vašeg predstavljača knjiga, naviknutog na visoke standarde koje je Silverberg postavio, pre svega, romanima Umiranje iznutra i Knjiga lobanja, kao izvrsnim novelama: Rođen sa mrtvima, Plovidba u Vizantiju, ili Gilgameš u Pograničju.
Tokom skoro cele karijere, Silverberg se suočavao sa dva, za njega teško rešiva problema. Prvi je bio nedostatak novca, što je povlačilo neophodnost hiperproduktivnosti. Ovo je dovodilo i do toga da je bilo godina kada je objavljivao i više od deset romana, što se neminovno moralo odražavati na kvalitet. Drugi problem je bilo nemilosrdno kasapljenje njegovih knjiga, jer su izdavači uglavnom smatrali da je njegov stil pretežak za prosečnog čitaoca naučne fantastike. Ovo je cak dovelo do toga da je krajem sedamdesetih nekoliko godina potpuno prestao da piše naučnu fantastiku. Ipak, poslednjih godina situacija se u oba pogleda popravila, tako da i dalje ljubitelji naučne fantastike mogu da uživaju u njegovim delima.
Sin čovečji nastao je početkom sedamdesetih, negde između dva njegova najbolja romana Knjiga lobanja i Umiranje iznutra. Za razliku od njih koji se bave problemima identiteta čoveka u tadašnjoj Americi, Silverberg ovde glavnog junaka nepojmljivom igrom sila prostor-vremena baca u daleku budućnost. On dospeva u svet u kome nailazi na ljude na različitim stepenima evolucionog razvoja dospelih tu kao i on mimo svoje volje. Već na samom početku jedan od njih, daleki potomak čovekov vodi ga na fantastično putovanje po Sunčevom sistemu demonstrirajući mu čovekove sposobnosti. Slede isto tako fantastične pustolovine u fantastičnom okruženju, i polako počinjete da gubite interesovanje za ono što Silverberg opisuje, jer sve više stičete utisak da je sve to tu samo zato da se popune stranice i ispuni kvota reci za objavljivanje, da je sve to samo lažna rečitost i filozofiranje ispod čega nema skoro ničega. Priča teče dalje i vi je čitate, jer Silverberg ume da piše i jer su pojedine misli i rečenice lepe i zanimljive, ali utisak praznine ostaje do kraja.
Dodatno opterećenje čitanju donosi format knjige koja jedva da prekriva dlan, pa su i slova sitna, sitna... jer treba na 220 stranica nagurati sav taj tekst. Ipak, ima i dobrih strana: prevod deluje iznenađujuće solidno.
Sve u svemu, ako niste baš zaljubljenik u naučnu fantastiku Sin čovečji Roberta Silverberga sasvim sigurno nije knjiga za vašu policu. Pogotovu što se, zbog svoje veličine, tamo ne bi ni videla. Ako jeste, uzmite je, nije skupa, a dosta verno oslikava i onu drugu, nešto lošiju, stranu Silverbergovog opusa.
(tekst pročitan na radiju B92 početkom 1990-tih)
Nažalost, kao i prethodna dva, i ovaj je malo razočaranje za vašeg predstavljača knjiga, naviknutog na visoke standarde koje je Silverberg postavio, pre svega, romanima Umiranje iznutra i Knjiga lobanja, kao izvrsnim novelama: Rođen sa mrtvima, Plovidba u Vizantiju, ili Gilgameš u Pograničju.
Tokom skoro cele karijere, Silverberg se suočavao sa dva, za njega teško rešiva problema. Prvi je bio nedostatak novca, što je povlačilo neophodnost hiperproduktivnosti. Ovo je dovodilo i do toga da je bilo godina kada je objavljivao i više od deset romana, što se neminovno moralo odražavati na kvalitet. Drugi problem je bilo nemilosrdno kasapljenje njegovih knjiga, jer su izdavači uglavnom smatrali da je njegov stil pretežak za prosečnog čitaoca naučne fantastike. Ovo je cak dovelo do toga da je krajem sedamdesetih nekoliko godina potpuno prestao da piše naučnu fantastiku. Ipak, poslednjih godina situacija se u oba pogleda popravila, tako da i dalje ljubitelji naučne fantastike mogu da uživaju u njegovim delima.
Sin čovečji nastao je početkom sedamdesetih, negde između dva njegova najbolja romana Knjiga lobanja i Umiranje iznutra. Za razliku od njih koji se bave problemima identiteta čoveka u tadašnjoj Americi, Silverberg ovde glavnog junaka nepojmljivom igrom sila prostor-vremena baca u daleku budućnost. On dospeva u svet u kome nailazi na ljude na različitim stepenima evolucionog razvoja dospelih tu kao i on mimo svoje volje. Već na samom početku jedan od njih, daleki potomak čovekov vodi ga na fantastično putovanje po Sunčevom sistemu demonstrirajući mu čovekove sposobnosti. Slede isto tako fantastične pustolovine u fantastičnom okruženju, i polako počinjete da gubite interesovanje za ono što Silverberg opisuje, jer sve više stičete utisak da je sve to tu samo zato da se popune stranice i ispuni kvota reci za objavljivanje, da je sve to samo lažna rečitost i filozofiranje ispod čega nema skoro ničega. Priča teče dalje i vi je čitate, jer Silverberg ume da piše i jer su pojedine misli i rečenice lepe i zanimljive, ali utisak praznine ostaje do kraja.
Dodatno opterećenje čitanju donosi format knjige koja jedva da prekriva dlan, pa su i slova sitna, sitna... jer treba na 220 stranica nagurati sav taj tekst. Ipak, ima i dobrih strana: prevod deluje iznenađujuće solidno.
Sve u svemu, ako niste baš zaljubljenik u naučnu fantastiku Sin čovečji Roberta Silverberga sasvim sigurno nije knjiga za vašu policu. Pogotovu što se, zbog svoje veličine, tamo ne bi ni videla. Ako jeste, uzmite je, nije skupa, a dosta verno oslikava i onu drugu, nešto lošiju, stranu Silverbergovog opusa.
(tekst pročitan na radiju B92 početkom 1990-tih)
August 6, 2018
Leyendo el libro de entrevistas a Silverberg de Zinos-Amaro, me sorprendió su recuerdo de esta novela, un tanto vilipendiada por las personas con las que había hablado de ella. Entiendo ese orgullo de autor: El hijo del hombre mantiene los temas que le preocupaban entre los 60 y los 70 desde una llamativa originalidad en la forma. Es una narración muy onírica donde un humano despierta en algún momento del futuro lejano para encontrarse con un planeta sumamente cambiado y unos descendientes que le van a servir de guía por sus frustraciones y anhelos. Mientras conoce a diversos personajes y participa en todo tipo de rituales, a cada cual más surrealista, cobran forma la inevitable búsqueda de la trascendencia, la pulsión de muerte individual y como sociedad, la necesidad de comunión con sus semejantes, el arraigo con un pasado que se ha perdido y nadie parece interesado en recuperar, su habitual temor a la muerte...
El relato es fuertemente simbólico y, a ratos, bastante sorprendente. Deja al descubierto los miedos y vulnerabilidades de su protagonista en un panorama incierto y en perpetua mutación donde su propia sexualidad está abierta al cambio (imprevisto). Es hasta divertido ver el pavor a tener relaciones con alguien que había conocido como hombre cuando él ha desarrollado características sexuales femeninas. Más si te imaginas a un señor como Silverberg en su pellejo. No obstante, el hecho que sea más descriptivo que narrativo no le hace demasiado bien cuando determinadas situaciones se repiten y la novela se alarga de manera un tanto antinatural. Las últimas 50 páginas las he leído con un cierto hastío a pesar de su atmósfera de angustia existencial. Al final, me parece más un título para fans muy fans de Silverberg. Quien no lo sea tiene a su disposición una docena de novelas más recomendables. Lo menos.
El relato es fuertemente simbólico y, a ratos, bastante sorprendente. Deja al descubierto los miedos y vulnerabilidades de su protagonista en un panorama incierto y en perpetua mutación donde su propia sexualidad está abierta al cambio (imprevisto). Es hasta divertido ver el pavor a tener relaciones con alguien que había conocido como hombre cuando él ha desarrollado características sexuales femeninas. Más si te imaginas a un señor como Silverberg en su pellejo. No obstante, el hecho que sea más descriptivo que narrativo no le hace demasiado bien cuando determinadas situaciones se repiten y la novela se alarga de manera un tanto antinatural. Las últimas 50 páginas las he leído con un cierto hastío a pesar de su atmósfera de angustia existencial. Al final, me parece más un título para fans muy fans de Silverberg. Quien no lo sea tiene a su disposición una docena de novelas más recomendables. Lo menos.
October 30, 2023
this was a trip, in several ways. I think robbie was tripping when he wrote it - this is the epitomy of psychedelic scifi, plus it really took me on a rollercoaster of figuring out whether or not I was enjoying it. There were so many passages and chapters that I loved but several times it was ruined by clay's incessant need to fuck literally anything. the small exploration in gender and sexuality made some of this thoughtful and necessary but most of the time clay was just being a horny guy. I don't think that this is a spoiler because it happens like two pages in but if I awoke in a strange unfamiliar land naked and suspecting I've traversed through time, I don't think I'd bash one out but that's just me.
I want to try at least one more Silverberg because his ideas are really interesting and I think he has maybe one of my favourite writing styles like ever, proper eloquent and descriptive and really adaptive in his structuring and tone. But if all his books have short dry sex scenes peppered throughout that take you out of the thought-provoking scifi I'll have to give them a miss.
I want to try at least one more Silverberg because his ideas are really interesting and I think he has maybe one of my favourite writing styles like ever, proper eloquent and descriptive and really adaptive in his structuring and tone. But if all his books have short dry sex scenes peppered throughout that take you out of the thought-provoking scifi I'll have to give them a miss.
April 15, 2024
The cover blurb claims 'potential to be another Stanger in a Strange Land', not likely
July 20, 2020
A previous reviewer suggested that this book is 'the exact equivalent of staring into a kaleidoscope for 5 hours!' Exactly! Although on that basis he gave the book five stars and I am giving it one.
Depends on whether you'd find staring into a kaleidoscope for 5 hours a gratifying or grating experience I guess.
Depends on whether you'd find staring into a kaleidoscope for 5 hours a gratifying or grating experience I guess.
July 28, 2014
è un viaggio nel futuro dell'uomo, un viaggio tra passato, presente e futuro, dove tutto gira intorno a Clay, che però il simbolo dell'umanità. Egli deve imparare ad accettarsi ed ad accettare le varie forme di vita che verranno da lui, dopo di lui. E' un viaggio iniziatico anche per i suoi amici sfioratori, che se da una parte lo accolgono con benevolenza, dall'altra poi iniziano a guardarlo male per i suoi difetti e vogliono scappare da lui perché si sentivano superiori. Si sentivano dei infallibili e non volevano accettare la propria parte antica e forse futura? In fondo sono l'uno lo specchio degli altri. Lui fatica ad accettare alcune delle sue forme future, loro ci mettono un po' a comprendere di non essere dei, ma uomini e che certi difetti non sono così terribili se compensati dalla parte migliore di noi.
Debbo ammettere di essermi irritata per il loro rifiuto, mi ha fatto pensare di nuovo ai classici libri/film di fantascienza degli anni 60, stile pianeta delle scimmie, dove l'uomo vuole dipingersi a tutti costi come mostro non salvabile. E mi ha irritato anche perché, in fondo, sono stati loro a volere Clay, mostrandogli di poterlo capire fino in fondo e poi hanno deciso di rifiutarlo. E in questi giorni ho formulato un'idea un po' pazza che spiegherebbe molte cose. Se i sei sfioratori che accolgono Clay all'inizio avessero il ricordo di ciò che viene spiegato nel finale del libro? In questa storia il tempo non ha molta importanza quindi loro potrebbero aver benissimo aver vissuto alcune cose prima, anche se noi le abbiamo viste dopo e viceversa. Spero si capisca il senso di questa mia teoria.
In ogni caso gran bel libro, legato sicuramente agli anni 60-70 e davvero rivoluzionario per certi versi. Forse un primo barlume della moderna fisica quantistica.
à.
Voto 8 e grazie a Krishel per il regalo.
Debbo ammettere di essermi irritata per il loro rifiuto, mi ha fatto pensare di nuovo ai classici libri/film di fantascienza degli anni 60, stile pianeta delle scimmie, dove l'uomo vuole dipingersi a tutti costi come mostro non salvabile. E mi ha irritato anche perché, in fondo, sono stati loro a volere Clay, mostrandogli di poterlo capire fino in fondo e poi hanno deciso di rifiutarlo. E in questi giorni ho formulato un'idea un po' pazza che spiegherebbe molte cose. Se i sei sfioratori che accolgono Clay all'inizio avessero il ricordo di ciò che viene spiegato nel finale del libro? In questa storia il tempo non ha molta importanza quindi loro potrebbero aver benissimo aver vissuto alcune cose prima, anche se noi le abbiamo viste dopo e viceversa. Spero si capisca il senso di questa mia teoria.
In ogni caso gran bel libro, legato sicuramente agli anni 60-70 e davvero rivoluzionario per certi versi. Forse un primo barlume della moderna fisica quantistica.
à.
Voto 8 e grazie a Krishel per il regalo.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
July 20, 2018
Weird, weird and freaking weird. I don't know what to make of this book, I almost didn't finish reading it a couple times because it's downward spiral into insanity didn't abate. But despite all that there is a certain fascination that kept me reading, Silverberg is creating a fantastical far, far, FAR future and making it wholly his own. I can respect the imagination and creativity that went into the work, even if I don't appreciate the result.
February 20, 2019
More than sum of our parts
What is man? Robert explores this ambitious question as only be can. In all of we experience, think, and feel we question. He looks at it a unique perspective and this is indeed a thought provoking book. It is not for the video game crowd with their need for meaningless and unending action. It is not a passive book. The reader must put effort into it. The reader will be awarded if that happens.
What is man? Robert explores this ambitious question as only be can. In all of we experience, think, and feel we question. He looks at it a unique perspective and this is indeed a thought provoking book. It is not for the video game crowd with their need for meaningless and unending action. It is not a passive book. The reader must put effort into it. The reader will be awarded if that happens.
June 15, 2020
No real plot, but plenty of sex with the descendants of mankind (and almost everything else - Clay indulges himself constantly) in this psychedelic, surrealist vision of the future.
October 20, 2024
Silverberg, is a hot or miss author for me, some I love others not so much.
This one is (I am guessing) from the “New Wave sci-fi� and as such it is ideas based rather than plot bases and is on the speculative, psychedelic side of the SFF shelf. The reading of it requires patience, concentration, persistence, visualisation and a willingness to let the landscape roll over you without asking what is going on. At least, that is my take on it.
There is a plot: Our main protagonist, Clay from around our world-ish time (or more accurately from when this was written) wakes up to find he has been thrown far, far into the future. So far ahead that humans are no longer recognisable as such both physically and in terms of personal powers. There is no civilisation or society really, the world is entirely unrecognisable. Upon awakening he meets Hanman who sort of adopts him, shows him how to discorporate into a mist (or something) and takes Clay on a cruise of the solar system. This is a pretty cool sequence that certainly has an SFF feel to it.
Back from their solar system cruise, Clay wanders around the world, sometimes with Hanman and his buddies, other times alone. He meets many different descendants of humans, including the malevolent goat-men, humans that have evolved into thinking trees and others that are pink blobs living in metal cages.
He also takes a trip to some underground cities where humankind went when the surface was unliveable, these are being maintained by robots desperate to have humans to serve again. The humans that used to live there may have evolved into T-rex type things. Or maybe they didn't.
Clay learns from a human/squid/fish to name all the different types of human, some of which have been thrown ahead in time like Clay has, others are just remnant populations. We find that 'skimmers' is the name for Hanman and his group of six with whom Clay travels around a bit. Their whole life seems to be walking around the Earth and occasionally stopping for these 'rites' like 'bringing the sky down' or 'filling the valleys' or whatever. These rites are essential group sex in which Clay mostly participates. There a psychedelic type side effects, like the sea rising out of it's basin then going back.
Which leads me to the content warning this book probably needs; there is a lot of sex for no particular reason, both during 'rites' and at other times. During one 'rite' Clay transforms in the middle of the even into a female which freaks him out in a big way and was probably a bit shocking and thought provoking when it was written. In 2024, it is more a bit wince-worthy. I did wonder if all these 'rites' were meant to be some interpretation of the Kama Sutra? That was really a concept that Westerns were right into in the 70's I believe. Anyhow, as well as having sex a lot, Clay thinks continuously about his genitalia. Seriously. I have never read anything where anyone spent so much time thinking about their dangly bit! This book was published in the 70's when Silverberg was right in the middle of the part of his career where he wrote a lot of soft porn, and it shows. As they walk around naked for pretty much the whole novel, that gives us many, many options to hear about Clay's balls being frozen, enlarged, scratched by thorns ect ect ect
I didn't hate this book and I did quite enjoy reading it. It is well written with long dream-like sequences which Silverberg allegedly actually thought up in his dreams a lot of the time. Some of the concepts are fascinating, the world is interesting.
Definitely one of his more description driven works. The plot seems largely pointless and circular, the one character is unlikable in the extreme, but he and his genitals are a suitable enough vehicle to see this extraordinary world building through.
This one is (I am guessing) from the “New Wave sci-fi� and as such it is ideas based rather than plot bases and is on the speculative, psychedelic side of the SFF shelf. The reading of it requires patience, concentration, persistence, visualisation and a willingness to let the landscape roll over you without asking what is going on. At least, that is my take on it.
There is a plot: Our main protagonist, Clay from around our world-ish time (or more accurately from when this was written) wakes up to find he has been thrown far, far into the future. So far ahead that humans are no longer recognisable as such both physically and in terms of personal powers. There is no civilisation or society really, the world is entirely unrecognisable. Upon awakening he meets Hanman who sort of adopts him, shows him how to discorporate into a mist (or something) and takes Clay on a cruise of the solar system. This is a pretty cool sequence that certainly has an SFF feel to it.
Back from their solar system cruise, Clay wanders around the world, sometimes with Hanman and his buddies, other times alone. He meets many different descendants of humans, including the malevolent goat-men, humans that have evolved into thinking trees and others that are pink blobs living in metal cages.
He also takes a trip to some underground cities where humankind went when the surface was unliveable, these are being maintained by robots desperate to have humans to serve again. The humans that used to live there may have evolved into T-rex type things. Or maybe they didn't.
Clay learns from a human/squid/fish to name all the different types of human, some of which have been thrown ahead in time like Clay has, others are just remnant populations. We find that 'skimmers' is the name for Hanman and his group of six with whom Clay travels around a bit. Their whole life seems to be walking around the Earth and occasionally stopping for these 'rites' like 'bringing the sky down' or 'filling the valleys' or whatever. These rites are essential group sex in which Clay mostly participates. There a psychedelic type side effects, like the sea rising out of it's basin then going back.
Which leads me to the content warning this book probably needs; there is a lot of sex for no particular reason, both during 'rites' and at other times. During one 'rite' Clay transforms in the middle of the even into a female which freaks him out in a big way and was probably a bit shocking and thought provoking when it was written. In 2024, it is more a bit wince-worthy. I did wonder if all these 'rites' were meant to be some interpretation of the Kama Sutra? That was really a concept that Westerns were right into in the 70's I believe. Anyhow, as well as having sex a lot, Clay thinks continuously about his genitalia. Seriously. I have never read anything where anyone spent so much time thinking about their dangly bit! This book was published in the 70's when Silverberg was right in the middle of the part of his career where he wrote a lot of soft porn, and it shows. As they walk around naked for pretty much the whole novel, that gives us many, many options to hear about Clay's balls being frozen, enlarged, scratched by thorns ect ect ect
I didn't hate this book and I did quite enjoy reading it. It is well written with long dream-like sequences which Silverberg allegedly actually thought up in his dreams a lot of the time. Some of the concepts are fascinating, the world is interesting.
Definitely one of his more description driven works. The plot seems largely pointless and circular, the one character is unlikable in the extreme, but he and his genitals are a suitable enough vehicle to see this extraordinary world building through.
February 5, 2021
I didn’t know what to expect when I read Son of Man. I read little Silverberg when I was in my youthful sci-fi phase (1966-1972), and it was his Dying Inside that I best recall and have read again within the past eight years. After that re-reading, a burgeoning interest in the Gilgamesh epic led me to his Gilgamesh the King, which I thought a fair interpretation of the legend. I only recently bought Son of Man on a whim, curious to see how Silverberg might spin off some interesting take on what it means to be human.
As I read, I recalled Olaf Stapledon’s classic First and Last Men, which makes the human species its central protagonist and describes the evolutionary trials which the species undergoes across millennia and epochs, as natural conditions on Earth change, as contact is made with other intelligent species, and as humans saunter out into the universe. Published in 1930, Stapledon’s novel is ground-breaking, a large-canvas sci-fi tour de force that eschewed the contemporary pulp magazine space opera motifs in favor of broader themes of evolutionary development.
Silverberg presents the products of different evolutionary strains of humanity on an Earth far, far into the future, where an aberrant “time flux� has cast many other evolutionary scions of humanity amongst the planet’s six current ramifications: Skimmers, Awaiters, Breathers, Eaters, Destroyers, and Interceders. To achieve some sense of the wonder entailed in finding oneself in the presence of alien flora and fauna, the peculiar varieties of humanness, and the experience of dissolving and recombining, both in the air and in water, Silverberg has chosen as his guide to the future a human of the 20th century, an American called Clay. Silverberg’s descriptions of floating, flying, aquatic breathing, plant-like sentience, dissolution, et al. are expressed in the argot of hallucinatory mind-expansion (ie, trippy language).
Clay falls in with the sex-shifting, smooth-bodied versions of humanity called the Skimmers, whose eternal existence appears to involve recreation (a lot of sex) and the periodic performance of rituals to maintain the planet’s homeostasis. Clay’s journeys across the various zones of the planet are sometimes in the company of the Skimmers and sometimes solo, when he wanders off or falls behind. It’s with the Skimmers that he is able on two occasions to soar into outer space to view the solar system up close, and then to observe distant stars in the making. Clay’s relations with the Skimmers begins to upset them, as Clay’s darker moods—his sense of loss, purposelessness, and inferiority—give the Skimmers the notion that they’d like to die, to dissolve forever. In order to prevent the immortal Skimmers from ending their existence, Clay gives himself up to the expanse. Whether his sacrifice is death or some other type of existence is unclear.
What I missed in this novel—and Clay strives for the same information—are the reasons that humanity assumed so many evolutionary branches. What did strike a chord was Clay’s bewilderment at the loss of all the artifacts of humanity that we know, along with all of the history and culture of homo sapiens. What are we, if not our history and culture? Bookending Clay’s “pilgrimage� with verses from the New Testament lends the novel a quasi-religious aspect and gives the impression Silverberg was seeking an expression of the ineffable—matter and spirit and timelessness that lie beyond our imagination—that borrows from myth and religion. I enjoyed my time with Clay, but it’s to Stapledon I’ll turn for the panoramically mind-expanding perspective on humanity’s future.
As I read, I recalled Olaf Stapledon’s classic First and Last Men, which makes the human species its central protagonist and describes the evolutionary trials which the species undergoes across millennia and epochs, as natural conditions on Earth change, as contact is made with other intelligent species, and as humans saunter out into the universe. Published in 1930, Stapledon’s novel is ground-breaking, a large-canvas sci-fi tour de force that eschewed the contemporary pulp magazine space opera motifs in favor of broader themes of evolutionary development.
Silverberg presents the products of different evolutionary strains of humanity on an Earth far, far into the future, where an aberrant “time flux� has cast many other evolutionary scions of humanity amongst the planet’s six current ramifications: Skimmers, Awaiters, Breathers, Eaters, Destroyers, and Interceders. To achieve some sense of the wonder entailed in finding oneself in the presence of alien flora and fauna, the peculiar varieties of humanness, and the experience of dissolving and recombining, both in the air and in water, Silverberg has chosen as his guide to the future a human of the 20th century, an American called Clay. Silverberg’s descriptions of floating, flying, aquatic breathing, plant-like sentience, dissolution, et al. are expressed in the argot of hallucinatory mind-expansion (ie, trippy language).
Clay falls in with the sex-shifting, smooth-bodied versions of humanity called the Skimmers, whose eternal existence appears to involve recreation (a lot of sex) and the periodic performance of rituals to maintain the planet’s homeostasis. Clay’s journeys across the various zones of the planet are sometimes in the company of the Skimmers and sometimes solo, when he wanders off or falls behind. It’s with the Skimmers that he is able on two occasions to soar into outer space to view the solar system up close, and then to observe distant stars in the making. Clay’s relations with the Skimmers begins to upset them, as Clay’s darker moods—his sense of loss, purposelessness, and inferiority—give the Skimmers the notion that they’d like to die, to dissolve forever. In order to prevent the immortal Skimmers from ending their existence, Clay gives himself up to the expanse. Whether his sacrifice is death or some other type of existence is unclear.
What I missed in this novel—and Clay strives for the same information—are the reasons that humanity assumed so many evolutionary branches. What did strike a chord was Clay’s bewilderment at the loss of all the artifacts of humanity that we know, along with all of the history and culture of homo sapiens. What are we, if not our history and culture? Bookending Clay’s “pilgrimage� with verses from the New Testament lends the novel a quasi-religious aspect and gives the impression Silverberg was seeking an expression of the ineffable—matter and spirit and timelessness that lie beyond our imagination—that borrows from myth and religion. I enjoyed my time with Clay, but it’s to Stapledon I’ll turn for the panoramically mind-expanding perspective on humanity’s future.
September 18, 2023
Son of Man is the most bizarre novel by Silverberg I've so far read. It takes us into very fluid far future where anything seems possible and almost nothing is grounded to our current reality. The story begins when a man named Clay wakes up in a future so distant even the moon no longer exists. He's met by Hanmer, a 'skimmer', one of six gender fluid beings that represent a far future evolutionary path of humans. He soon joins their posse as a kind of pet and participates in some of their rituals which will eventually bring about new Age of Aquarius (or something like that). Luckily for Clay (and one supposes, for Silverberg) the skimmers really like having sex, regardless of their current gender, and Clay turns out to be malleable, so he gets it six ways to Sunday. Though he does get a bit bored after a while and wanders off to meet (and see what it's like being) other very bizarro future incarnations of 'humanity', none of which resemble Homo sapiens. These include Eaters, Destroyers, spheroids, goats, Interceders, and so on. It all ends with an epiphany, some time on the porcelain rim, and finally, surrounded by his friends, a deep and satisfying sleep.
The book is dedicated to "Bill Rostler and Paul Turner - fellow voyagers." Rostler was a fellow SF writer and a pornographer. Paul Turner's name is too common to easily look up, but a Paul Turner did interview Silverberg for a magazine, once. I'm willing to bet their voyages together were largely of the astral kind, and in various states of dress.
The book is dedicated to "Bill Rostler and Paul Turner - fellow voyagers." Rostler was a fellow SF writer and a pornographer. Paul Turner's name is too common to easily look up, but a Paul Turner did interview Silverberg for a magazine, once. I'm willing to bet their voyages together were largely of the astral kind, and in various states of dress.
June 19, 2017
Robert Silverberg is one of my favorite SF writers. Son of Man was written at the height of his greatest period, which lasted from the mid-sixties to somewhere in the latter part of the 1970s. Yet, it's also perhaps his most difficult book to evaluate. I know some who dislike it. Others consider it one of his best (Silverberg himself seems to view it that way).
In some ways, it can be described as the book that would have been produced had Olaf Stapledon written in the style of the new wave. It's an incredible look of the future man, across multiple forms, told in a flowing, colorful style, with characters often looking toward their feelings and their sexuality as much as at the marvels around them. Clay, the main character, awakens to find himself far in the future, befriended by a group of future humans, in a world where humans in many past forms (some almost mountain-like, some like strange spheres, some like dinosaurs) still live. The novel follows Clay across this world as he encounters the people and marvels. There is no real plot, per se; this is more a fantastic travelogue, both external and internal.
It's an experience worth having, but in the end there are at least a dozen Silverberg works I'd rank higher.
In some ways, it can be described as the book that would have been produced had Olaf Stapledon written in the style of the new wave. It's an incredible look of the future man, across multiple forms, told in a flowing, colorful style, with characters often looking toward their feelings and their sexuality as much as at the marvels around them. Clay, the main character, awakens to find himself far in the future, befriended by a group of future humans, in a world where humans in many past forms (some almost mountain-like, some like strange spheres, some like dinosaurs) still live. The novel follows Clay across this world as he encounters the people and marvels. There is no real plot, per se; this is more a fantastic travelogue, both external and internal.
It's an experience worth having, but in the end there are at least a dozen Silverberg works I'd rank higher.
June 20, 2021
Like a sexed-up Olaf Stapledon, written in impressively energetic prose (though the occasional repetition feels dated), Son of Man (1971) is a loose future history told through the eyes of Clay, the novel's protagonist, who is inexplicably sent drifting forward through time (or is he dreaming during/post an appendectomy?) and meets the "sons of man", i.e., the ancestors of Homo sapiens. This short novel sustained my interest despite lacking any other human characters - at least as defined in our era.
This was one of Steve Donoghue's SSF starter kit recommendations. Not one that I would recommend as a way in to the genre (try H. G. Wells's The Time Machine first), but if you like Stapledon or J. G. Ballard's The Unlimited Dream Company (1979), you might enjoy this.
This was one of Steve Donoghue's SSF starter kit recommendations. Not one that I would recommend as a way in to the genre (try H. G. Wells's The Time Machine first), but if you like Stapledon or J. G. Ballard's The Unlimited Dream Company (1979), you might enjoy this.
February 7, 2025
This tale soars as an allegory detailing the nature of both a fallen and ascending humanity through its various evolutionary outcomes in a far distant future. However, it fails to illuminate its epicenter, that 'son of man' trope so often on Christ's lips, so variously meaning both the figure that delivers divine deliverance and the historical presence of God in human affairs. Its borderline pornographic sensibility is also a distracting issue. While the hierophany of father sky covering mother earth at times delivers a mythic frame of human sexuality, the spectacle of sex so often trumps narrative purpose. Join Pilgrim's Progress to Belle du jour and you'll have Son of Man.
June 25, 2017
By far the most ambitious Silverberg novel I've read, and perhaps the least entertaining. An ambitious work doesn't necessarily have to be entertaining to be worth reading, but this one fell too flat for me to recommend. A man from our time wakes in the far future to go on a voyage experiencing different aspects of the human condition. It might remind you of Lindsay's A Voyage to Arcturus , Calvino's Invisible Cities or other similar works. I suspect any of these works will be very rewarding if you are on the author's wavelength - an experience I came closest to with Lindsay.
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