The World Inside

stadjodes reviewed The World Inside by Robert Silverberg

Review of 'The World Inside' on 'Goodreads'

1 star

I...I really wanted to like this book. It was a really interesting concept, and the culture of the characters who have never been outside was fascinating. That being said, finishing this book was painful. It was a struggle to get through half, and it honestly took a lot of short reading sessions to get through it. I'm not sure what it was that I disliked so much.

The author had an excellent narrative form, I guess I really felt nothing for any of the characters or their lives or their fates, as it was.

rufzerg666 reviewed The World Inside by Robert Silverberg

Review of 'The World Inside' on 'Goodreads'

3 stars

The World Inside (TWI) somehow reminds me of another architecture-based science fiction: the cyberpunk manga by Tsutomu Nihei called Blame! Both are really good in using space to create an alien atmosphere and setting. There is a sense of largeness in both that paradoxically engenders claustrophobia. I have finished the manga series Blame! and I am writing this while I am half-way through TWI. Whereas TWI teems with people in its corridors and rooms, the world Killy inhabits is a vast and mostly empty space. But enough with the comparison.

There's a lot of sex in TWI. It was written in the 60s and so we have to consider the social setting of the novel's writing. There's also drugs and rock and roll in the novel, also things that are very 60s.

The prose is good. The characters are well-constructed. The world is revealed slowly and methodically. Overall, this is …

The World Inside (TWI) somehow reminds me of another architecture-based science fiction: the cyberpunk manga by Tsutomu Nihei called Blame! Both are really good in using space to create an alien atmosphere and setting. There is a sense of largeness in both that paradoxically engenders claustrophobia. I have finished the manga series Blame! and I am writing this while I am half-way through TWI. Whereas TWI teems with people in its corridors and rooms, the world Killy inhabits is a vast and mostly empty space. But enough with the comparison.

There's a lot of sex in TWI. It was written in the 60s and so we have to consider the social setting of the novel's writing. There's also drugs and rock and roll in the novel, also things that are very 60s.

The prose is good. The characters are well-constructed. The world is revealed slowly and methodically. Overall, this is a solid work of science fiction.

EDIT:

I have just recently finished the book. Wow. There are several scenes that would require a little openmindedness. Is it a dystopia? Part of the appeal is that after reading so much of the lives of the people in the urbmon and how it is the only world that they know, the line blurs a bit. Has that whole 'Plato's Allegory of the Cave' vibe to it. I highly recommend this novel.

bondolo

rated it

Aug. 4, 2013

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