Subject: KINGDOMS OF THE WALL by Robert Silverberg

From: [email-masked] (Evelyn C Leeper +1 908 957 2070)
Date: 24 Feb 93 18:51:51 GMT

KINGDOMS OF THE WALL by Robert Silverberg
                     A book review by Evelyn C. Leeper
		      Copyright 1993 Evelyn C. Leeper

     If it seems as if this is a reworking of Silverberg's own THE FACE OF
THE WATERS--a journey across an alien world to seek God--that's because to a
large extent it is.  In THE FACE OF THE WATERS, it's humans traveling across
an ocean world; in KINGDOMS OF THE WALL it's aliens climbing the Wall, an
enormous mountain set atop a series of cliffs.  It's true that in THE FACE
OF THE WATERS the pilgrims are pilgrims by necessity, while in KINGDOMS OF
THE WALL they are pilgrims by choice.  And this distinction does change the
main focus of the story from survival to the quest for ... what?  Is it a
quest for knowledge or a quest for something greater than oneself?  The
pilgrims of KINGDOMS OF THE WALL are climbing to meet the gods, who live at
the top of the Wall.  But some go merely as worshippers, while others see
themselves in more Promethean terms.  The question being examined is not
just the purpose of the climb, but of life itself.

     Silverberg has chosen to make his pilgrims aliens--not a primitive
people who are supposedly alien, but who are, nonetheless, human in their
biology and motivation--but a race who are *not* human, whose biology is
very different than our own.  I was happy to see this change from the usual
approach, but disappointed in what Silverberg used it for.  Or, more
precisely, I was disappointed that it wasn't this way purely for its own
sake.  I was also disappointed that Silverberg felt it necessary to spell
out the "lesson of the Wall" rather than allow the reader to derive it him-
or herself from the story.

     If you've already read THE FACE OF THE WATERS, this will probably seem
just a reworking of that in a different setting with a few changes (somewhat
like SOMMERSBY is to THE RETURN OF MARTIN GUERRE).  Of the two, I would say
KINGDOMS OF THE WALL is marginally better.

%T      Kingdoms of the Wall
%A      Robert Silverberg
%C      New York
%D      March 1993
%I      Bantam Spectra
%O      hardback, US$22.95
%G      ISBN 0-553-09309-6
%P      309pp

Evelyn C. Leeper   |   +1 908 957 2070   |   [email-masked]