Scan barcode
A review by psteve
Across a Billion Years by Robert Silverberg
3.0
Humans have found the remains of High Ones, in sites nearly a billion years old in our region of the galaxy. In this book a small group is digging on one planet. One of their members is writing 'message cubes' to be delivered to his telepathic sister, back on earth (long distance communication is enabled by telepathic twins). This tells the story of their findings, which lead to some dramatic revelations at the end. The ending of the book was superb.
Before reading it, I didn't check the date the book was written, so it was kind of a game to figure it out as I read. Silverberg makes up a lot of slang in the book, and frankly none of it is very compelling, it seems to be a way to make his book seem late 60's hip, but it doesn't work because none of the slang is anchored to any other language, it is just weird words. It doesn't really bother you while reading the book, but it does stand out. That's not a criticism of the book necessarily, it makes it more of an artifact of the time it was written.
Before reading it, I didn't check the date the book was written, so it was kind of a game to figure it out as I read. Silverberg makes up a lot of slang in the book, and frankly none of it is very compelling, it seems to be a way to make his book seem late 60's hip, but it doesn't work because none of the slang is anchored to any other language, it is just weird words. It doesn't really bother you while reading the book, but it does stand out. That's not a criticism of the book necessarily, it makes it more of an artifact of the time it was written.