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Dahlgren's World #1
O Master Caliban!
Harper & Row, 1976. Hardcover with dustjacket, 1st edition. Novel takes place on an alien planet in an isolated reservation set aside for environmental experiments. Young four-armed Dahlgren must confront and defeat the sentient Robots which have seized power from his scientist father. There is a sequel, "Heart of Red Iron" (1989).
- GenresScience Fiction
244 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1976
46 people want to read
About the author
Phyllis Gotlieb
57 books25 followersPhyllis Fay Gotlieb, née Bloom, BA, MA was a Canadian science fiction novelist and poet.
The Sunburst Award is named for her first novel, Sunburst. Three years before Sunburst was published, Gotlieb published the pamphlet Who Knows One, a collection of poems. Gotlieb won the Aurora Award for Best Novel in 1982 for her novel A Judgement of Dragons.
She was married to Calvin Gotlieb, a computer science professor, and lived in Toronto, Ontario.
The Sunburst Award is named for her first novel, Sunburst. Three years before Sunburst was published, Gotlieb published the pamphlet Who Knows One, a collection of poems. Gotlieb won the Aurora Award for Best Novel in 1982 for her novel A Judgement of Dragons.
She was married to Calvin Gotlieb, a computer science professor, and lived in Toronto, Ontario.
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
February 9, 2019
There's something really fantastic about Gotlieb's version of pulp SF. It has a texture to it that is just the right flavor for me.
August 13, 2018
I was quite dissappointed. The information on the back of the book sounded so good...
May 21, 2022
I thought this was a very interesting book, though I didn't find it compelling reading because I stopped on every page to think about what Gotlieb was doing with it. Someone who wasn't doing that could have just found it a cracking good story, though not as entry-level sf - it's at least undergraduate.
It features a jungle, radioactivity and mutants, telepathy, unethical science, sentient animals (including a goat), sentient machines (robots, but at least two of them are AIs by modern standards), delinquent children, and dis-functional families.
There are a lot of elements. It's an sf meditation on Shakespeare's The Tempest, with a multi-coloured sentient gibbon in the role of Ariel, a four-armed boy child replacing Miranda, and a Prospero who makes different decisions. It makes me want to watch Forbidden Planet and figure out whether Gotlieb spun off Robbie the Robot. I kept thinking of J.G. Ballard, though I'm not familiar enough with Ballard's work to know whether there is a real relationship or whether I'm just mis-recognising the scenery. And Delany: there's some stuff about vulnerable and abused children that makes me think of Delany. There's a real chess game (notated in an Appendix, and credited to Gotlieb's husband, who was a computer scientist) between a human being and an intelligent machine on its way to sentience, and again, I'm not good enough at chess to understand everything the author is trying to tell me with that (apparently The Tempest is the only play in which Shakespeare mentions chess...). One of the most interesting aliens I have ever encountered makes a brief appearance in Chapter 17 - I'm sorry not to have seen more of her. There's a good discussion of ethics. There's some sex, nicely handled. I love the writing, although it gets knotty at times. I could go on.
All in all it's a book that would bear close, critical reading.
There's a sequel, Heart of Red Iron, published 1989, which I will seek out and read with interest.
There's an ebook available from Baen.
If information about the book itself is not sufficient, maybe the author might be of interest: a Canadian Jewish female poet who went on to win an Aurora Award for lifetime achievement, and had a literary award, the Sunburst, named after her first book?
Gotlieb was born in 1926, published 18 books of fiction and poetry between 1964-2007 and died in 2009. John Clute says (SFE):
"Gotlieb's career was not conspicuous or prolific; but, quite quietly, she became some time ago and remained until her death, along with William Gibson, Robert J Sawyer and Robert Charles Wilson, among the most important of contemporary Canadian sf writers. She was given Canada's Aurora Award in 1982 for lifetime achievement."
It features a jungle, radioactivity and mutants, telepathy, unethical science, sentient animals (including a goat), sentient machines (robots, but at least two of them are AIs by modern standards), delinquent children, and dis-functional families.
There are a lot of elements. It's an sf meditation on Shakespeare's The Tempest, with a multi-coloured sentient gibbon in the role of Ariel, a four-armed boy child replacing Miranda, and a Prospero who makes different decisions. It makes me want to watch Forbidden Planet and figure out whether Gotlieb spun off Robbie the Robot. I kept thinking of J.G. Ballard, though I'm not familiar enough with Ballard's work to know whether there is a real relationship or whether I'm just mis-recognising the scenery. And Delany: there's some stuff about vulnerable and abused children that makes me think of Delany. There's a real chess game (notated in an Appendix, and credited to Gotlieb's husband, who was a computer scientist) between a human being and an intelligent machine on its way to sentience, and again, I'm not good enough at chess to understand everything the author is trying to tell me with that (apparently The Tempest is the only play in which Shakespeare mentions chess...). One of the most interesting aliens I have ever encountered makes a brief appearance in Chapter 17 - I'm sorry not to have seen more of her. There's a good discussion of ethics. There's some sex, nicely handled. I love the writing, although it gets knotty at times. I could go on.
All in all it's a book that would bear close, critical reading.
There's a sequel, Heart of Red Iron, published 1989, which I will seek out and read with interest.
There's an ebook available from Baen.
If information about the book itself is not sufficient, maybe the author might be of interest: a Canadian Jewish female poet who went on to win an Aurora Award for lifetime achievement, and had a literary award, the Sunburst, named after her first book?
Gotlieb was born in 1926, published 18 books of fiction and poetry between 1964-2007 and died in 2009. John Clute says (SFE):
"Gotlieb's career was not conspicuous or prolific; but, quite quietly, she became some time ago and remained until her death, along with William Gibson, Robert J Sawyer and Robert Charles Wilson, among the most important of contemporary Canadian sf writers. She was given Canada's Aurora Award in 1982 for lifetime achievement."
April 17, 2013
This is a new release from Event Horizon EBooks, an e-book reprint of the original 1976 Harper & Row print edition. Note that the rating is posted by the publisher.
December 7, 2016
La rivolta degli automi di Barrazan V, la crudele regina degli erg, il naufragio di un astronave con a bordo un misterioso "maestro del meccano"
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews