(Uncredited cover for the 1973 edition)

4.5/5 (Very Good)

Robert Silverberg’s late 60s and early 70s science fiction novels were often well-wrought ruminations on acute social alienation.   For example, in Dying Inside (1972) a man slowly loses his telepathic abilities and thus, a core component of his identity.  In  The Man in the Maze (1969), a man rendered incapable of interacting with other humans, goes into self-imposed exile.  In Thorns (1967), two manipulated/modified souls (a man surgically altered by aliens and a young girl who’s the virgin mother of hundreds of children), find strange solace in each other’s company.  In The World Inside (1971), our heroes feel disconnected from the unusual world they’ve grown up in — and rebel in their own ways.

The Second Trip (1971) subverts this theme.  Instead, our hero desperately attempts to re-integrate himself into society (as his persona has been designed to do), to come to grips with his laboratory Continue reading →