Tom O'Bedlam

Rating:
Summary: Uncanny Prescience?
Review: Has anyone else noticed that what happens in this book is spookily like what actually happened in San Diego about 10 years later in the Heaven's Gate mass suicide? i.e. a cult that believes they will be transported to a distant planet if they kill themselves. I would suppose Silverberg himself must have noticed the similarity and I am wondering if anyone knows what comment he had on it.

Rating:
Summary: His Masterpiece
Review: One of the most beautiful, thought-provoking sci-fi novels ever written. To put it quite simply, this book is brilliant; easily ranks as one of Silverberg's best novels...

Written during Robert Silverberg's artistic/creative peak (the 1980's), this book deals with the complex issues of personal faith, spiritualism and religion... it is at times violent, passionate, poetic, sensual, symbolic & profound... and it will leave you speechless...

Silverberg also introduced some of his most sympathetic, likable characters here... anyone who has ever faced an obstacle or dealt with a disability (mental or physical) will surely find inspiration in the character of Tom.

I've had my hardback copy for 15 years; it's one of my all-time favorite novels and I would recommend this book to anyone interested in learning what GOOD sci-fi is all about.

Rating:
Summary: Haunting and powerful
Review: Probably the best book Silverberg has written, in my opinion. Left me thinking for weeks about the nature of religion and humanity's relationship to the unknowable. It doesn't offer any easy answers, but rather poses the *real* questions better than almost any book I know of -- and knowing what the questions really are is the most important step in finding the answers.

Rating:
Summary: Naked Fantasy With Fig Leaf of Science
Review: This story presents the characters an escape from their future, dystopian world. The theme includes other life forms whirling around distant stars. In his rather zany story Silverberg presents us with a rather [weak] cast of characters who become drugged with their dreams of other worlds. The character's dull, purposeless lives are overwhelmed by their visions. Within the story's parameters these dream worlds are said to exist in some objective manner as shown by photos returned from an extraterrestrial probe. The material can be interpreted in several ways: as positing the existence of parallel worlds, as merely subjective dream material of the characters, or as pure, naked fantasy. It seems that Silverberg uses a mere fig leaf of science to cover this naked fantasy.

Tom O'Bedlam is the most engaging and puzzling character. The author asks the reader to view Tom as possessing a telekinesis that enables him to transport people out of their bodies and into extraterrestrial worlds. Tom becomes the gateway or worm hole entrance to these dream worlds. Although Tom is portrayed as crazy or faking craziness, the reader is asked to accept Tom's killing of people as actually releasing them from the pain of their worldly life. The reader is asked to accept Tom's power to propel them to a kind of other world heaven. The willy nilly story becomes confusing when Tom transports both willing souls and unwilling souls out of their bodies-all types: a salvation seeker, a would be suicide and would be killer are all sent to a non human afterlife. All characters who Tom randomly touches are transported, leaving behind a corpse whose face is painted with a Crossing smile.

Rating:
Summary: Naked Fantasy With Fig Leaf of Science
Review: This story presents the characters an escape from their future, dystopian world. The theme includes other life forms whirling around distant stars. In his rather zany story Silverberg presents us with a rather [weak] cast of characters who become drugged with their dreams of other worlds. The character's dull, purposeless lives are overwhelmed by their visions. Within the story's parameters these dream worlds are said to exist in some objective manner as shown by photos returned from an extraterrestrial probe. The material can be interpreted in several ways: as positing the existence of parallel worlds, as merely subjective dream material of the characters, or as pure, naked fantasy. It seems that Silverberg uses a mere fig leaf of science to cover this naked fantasy.

Tom O'Bedlam is the most engaging and puzzling character. The author asks the reader to view Tom as possessing a telekinesis that enables him to transport people out of their bodies and into extraterrestrial worlds. Tom becomes the gateway or worm hole entrance to these dream worlds. Although Tom is portrayed as crazy or faking craziness, the reader is asked to accept Tom's killing of people as actually releasing them from the pain of their worldly life. The reader is asked to accept Tom's power to propel them to a kind of other world heaven. The willy nilly story becomes confusing when Tom transports both willing souls and unwilling souls out of their bodies-all types: a salvation seeker, a would be suicide and would be killer are all sent to a non human afterlife. All characters who Tom randomly touches are transported, leaving behind a corpse whose face is painted with a Crossing smile.

Rating:
Summary: Religious Science Fiction
Review: Tom O'Bedlam is an example of a separate genre. Like the Dune Series, Stranger in a Strange land and the Godmakers, it is science fiction with a religious quality. It left me feeling stunned.