Subject: Review: STARBORNE by Robert Silverberg

From: "Evelyn C Leeper" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 23 May 1996 18:21:56 GMT

STARBORNE by Robert Silverberg
                   A book review by Evelyn C. Leeper
		    Copyright 1996 Evelyn C. Leeper

     Robert Silverberg's latest novel takes a lot of familiar science
fiction ideas and combines them in a story that keeps promising to go
somewhere, but manages to make even the transformation of mankind
unexciting.

     The spaceship WOTAN has been launched with its crew of fifty by an
Earth so bored with Paradise that this is the only excitement they can think
of.  While it travels through hyperspace to discover a planet that can be
colonized, the ship stays in touch with Earth through telepathic twins.  The
crew explores a couple of planets, with somewhat familiar perils, learns
that the twins' link seems to be weakening, and moves on to a climax that
rings remarkably flat.

     While I was reading this I kept feeling that just a few pages more and
it would catch fire, that it was on the verge of something.  But it never
quite delivered on that, and looking back over it, it seems to have been a
book about petty squabbles and personality conflicts more than about
exploring the universe.  Given that society as a whole is filled with
boredom and ennui, I suppose it isn't too surprising that the characters
often seem to display these characteristics.  For example, there is supposed
to be a new captain every year.  But after the first year, no one else will
take the job, so the same person continues in that position.  (This sounds
like a lot of organizations I've been in.)  The problem is that reading
about bored characters is, well, boring.  Trying to keep track of who's
sleeping with whom doesn't really provide much interest.

     As in several of Silverberg's recent books (in particular THE FACE ON
THE WATERS and THE KINGDOMS OF THE WALL), the framework is a quest- like
journey in which the diversity of characters is really what is supposed to
hold your interest.  Like many books with such a journey, the arrival is a
bit of a let-down, and the problem here is that the characters are not
interesting along the way either.

%T      Starborne
%A      Robert Silverberg
%C      New York
%D      June 1996
%I      Bantam Spectra
%O      hardback, US$22.95
%G      ISBN 0-553-10264-8
%P      304pp

Evelyn C. Leeper | +1 908 957 2070 | [email-masked]
"There isn't a limited amount of love in Iowa.  It isn't a non-renewable
resource.  If Amy and Barbara or Mike or Steve love each other, it
doesn't mean that John and Mary can't."  -Rep. Ed Fallon, Iowa