From: ecl@mtgzy.att.com (Evelyn C Leeper +1 908 957 2070)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.reviews
Subject: THE FACE OF THE WATERS by Robert Silverberg
Date: 8 Apr 92 20:35:12 GMT
Organization: University of Alaska Computer Network


                   THE FACE OF THE WATERS by Robert Silverberg
                        A book review by Evelyn C. Leeper
			 Copyright 1992 Evelyn C. Leeper

        THE FACE OF THE WATERS seems to be an attempt to combine an
   introspective character study with an adventure story focusing on the weird
   biology of a strange planet.  Even with Silverberg's not inconsiderable
   talent, it's not entirely successful.

        The planet is Hydros, a world that is almost entirely water.  The small
   human population lives (by sufferance) on the floating islands built by the
   native intelligent species, the "Gillies."  But the Gillies allow no
   spaceport to be built, so traveling to Hydros is a one-way trip in a drop-
   capsule.  (One wonders how humans found out that Hyros was livable, or how
   they negotiated with the Gillies for permission to settle humans there,
   since the implication is that no spaceport means that NO ship can ever take
   off if it lands, plus of course there's no place to land anyway.)  The
   original humans were criminals sent into permanent exile; now the new
   arrivals are mostly misfits who choose this particular permanent exile.
   (The social structure in which descendents of the original convict settlers
   becomes the elite, proud of their ancestry, is reminiscent of Australia,
   reinforced here by the image of islands, though Australia is a MUCH bigger
   island than any of these.) One community of 78 humans lives on Sorve Island,
   but when one of the members offends the Gillies, they are all evicted.
   (This week I've also seen MISSISSIPPI MASALA and COME SEE THE PARADISE, so
   stories of people getting evicted from their homes are getting repetitious-
   -I wonder if the 500th anniversary of the expulsion of the Moors and Jews
   from Spain is one reason for this seeming trend.)

        Anyway, Valben Lawler, the community's doctor and descendent of one of
   the original settlers, wants to keep the group together instead of
   scattering it to several of the other islands.  This leads to difficulties
   and eventually an epic voyage to Hydros's one land mass, called the Face of
   the Waters.

        When I say "epic voyage," I have this on good authority--one of the
   characters is writing an epic about it even as it is going on, and another
   keeps quoting Coleridge's "Ancient Mariner."  Yet all their adventures have
   a certain sameness to them: they encounter a weird life-form which either 1)
   they know to be dangerous, or 2) looks harmless, but in either case IS
   dangerous.  They fight it, possibly suffering some losses, and then go on to
   the next.  With all this adventure, the character study of Lawler gets
   somewhat lost in the shuffle, reserved mostly for scenes between Lawler and
   Sundira Thane, a woman who intrigues Lawler because she has traveled widely
   on Hydros, as contrasted with his having lived only on Sorve (his entire
   experience off Sorve was a single day spent on another island as it drifted
   close by).

        At the end, however, the book switches to a more philosophical tone,
   not effectively (in my opinion).  The switch is too abrupt and the message-
   -of casting aside the past and embracing the future--is not so much
   demonstrated as announced.  In both this book and RAFT (by Stephen Baxter),
   artifacts are used as powerful symbols of the past, but here Silverberg
   doesn't carry through with the metaphor.

        THE FACE OF THE WATERS isn't a bad book, but it is a dissatisfying one.
   I can see the necessity of conveying the impersonal hostility of the world,
   but by using the "weird alien biology" motif, Silverberg undercuts the mood
   the reader needs for the philosophy.  And to be honest, the fact that I was
   not comfortable with what Silverberg seems to be saying in his ending no
   doubt affected my opinion--but that you would have to decide for yourself if
   you read the book.

   %T      The Face of the Waters
   %A      Robert Silverberg
   %C      New York
   %D      November 1991
   %I      Bantam Spectra
   %O      hardback, US$20
   %G      ISBN 0-553-07592-6
   %P      368pp

Evelyn C. Leeper   |   +1 908 957 2070   |   att!mtgzy!ecl or ecl@mtgzy.att.com