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A World Called Solitude
Birk Aaland is a refugee from Earth's tyrannical government. He finds himself stranded on an undiscovered planet, which seems to be inhabited. Further exploration reveals the fantastic cities of the planet to be long deserted, yet still fully functional. Birk finds the cities to be perfectly maintained by the robot servants of the former inhabitants, and so he becomes the marooned king of an isolated kingdom of machines.
His life away from earth is a lonely one and he spends eleven years without any human contact or companionship, tortured by memories of his former life on Earth and increasingly unable to imagine returning to it. Then Birk's fitful peace is shattered when a spaceship crashes on his planet, and the sole survivor is a woman named Michi Nakamura, who is not about to accept a fate in Birk's solitary world.
His life away from earth is a lonely one and he spends eleven years without any human contact or companionship, tortured by memories of his former life on Earth and increasingly unable to imagine returning to it. Then Birk's fitful peace is shattered when a spaceship crashes on his planet, and the sole survivor is a woman named Michi Nakamura, who is not about to accept a fate in Birk's solitary world.
187 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1981
2 people are currently reading
36 people want to read
About the author
Stephen Goldin
150 books47 followersBorn in Philadelphia in 1947, Stephen Goldin has lived in California since 1960. He received a Bachelor’s degree in Astronomy from UCLA and worked as a civilian space scientist for the U.S. Navy for a few years after leaving college, but has made his living as a writer/editor most of his life.
His first wife was fellow author Kathleen Sky, with whom he co-wrote the first edition of the highly acclaimed nonfiction book The Business of Being a Writer . His current wife is fellow author Mary Mason. So far they have co-authored two books in the Rehumanization of Jade Darcy series.
He served the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America as editor of the SFWA Bulletin and as the organization’s Western Regional Director.
He has lived with cats all his adult life. Artistically, he enjoys Broadway musicals and surrealist art. Philosophically, he is an atheist.
Learn more about him at his Web site. . Many of his books can be bought through his online bookstore, Parsina Press.
His first wife was fellow author Kathleen Sky, with whom he co-wrote the first edition of the highly acclaimed nonfiction book The Business of Being a Writer . His current wife is fellow author Mary Mason. So far they have co-authored two books in the Rehumanization of Jade Darcy series.
He served the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America as editor of the SFWA Bulletin and as the organization’s Western Regional Director.
He has lived with cats all his adult life. Artistically, he enjoys Broadway musicals and surrealist art. Philosophically, he is an atheist.
Learn more about him at his Web site. . Many of his books can be bought through his online bookstore, Parsina Press.
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Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
September 2, 2025
This one has some worthwhile points but ultimately isn't among Goldin's best work. I think it's one of those poor books that needed some editorial overseeing. Birk Aaland is a refugee from an oppressive Earth government and finds himself on a strangely deserted planet full of robots and cities and high-tech wonders. (I think Goldin dug Forbidden Planet.) He enjoys his isolation but becomes obsessed with sexual thoughts. He's an interesting character, but not necessarily a nice one. Then a ship crashes and a woman is the only survivor; she wants only to escape to continue her mission. Then there are aliens and a threat to Earth... There are some interesting thoughts about responsibility and duty to self, race, country, and planet, but there's just so much stuff happening that it tends to cancel itself out. I'll rate it two-and-a-half and then round up. Doubleday printed it in hardback in 1981 with a deadly dull cover, and Fawcett got a nice-looking cover for the mass market edition but then shrunk it down to thumbnail size and drew six racetrack rings around it for some reason that we'll never learn.
November 30, 2015
This book sounded pretty good at first and read pretty well at first, but then it simply just degenerated into smut, so I gave up in disgust midway through and didn't finish it.
Birk Aaland is a world class scientist who invents an awesome new space ship engine that revolutionizes space travel and he becomes wealthy and famous. Then, a military dictator takes over and starts purging Earth of undesirables. He imprisons, tortures, and murders millions. Birk is stupid enough to speak out, thinking that his fame will protect him, and he soon joins the other political prisoners. His beautiful wife divorces him, his colleagues lie about him, he is sentenced and tortured and doesn't know when he's going to be executed. However, this dictator has filled up so many Earth prisons, that he has to start shipping prisoners off planet to colony worlds, so Birk is loaded on a ship with other prisoners and they take off. And they mutiny and take over the ship, but take some damage. Birk is the only one who knows how to fly, so they fly seeking a suitable planet to land on and finally he flies into a huge gas cloud in desperation and spots an unmapped, perfect planet. However, he doesn't know how to land and crashes the ship. He's the only survivor. He wakes to find he was saved by robots and the world is fully developed and full of functioning robots, but empty of its previous civilization, whom he begins to refer to as the Makers, a warlike alien race, long gone. And so he spends 11 years there, exploring and basically enjoying his solitude.
However, we learn early on he's horny as hell and masturbates frequently. Even the robots joke with him about it. He wants a woman, preferably one who looks like and reminds him of his ex-wife. So, his life is uprooted one day when a new space ship crash lands on the planet. The robots rush to the crash site, while he has ambivalent feelings. What if they're looking for him? What if they're after him? He goes to the site and discovers that, sure enough, it's a military ship. There are six critically wounded survivors, two of whom are women. And so it begins.
One, a tall blonde, reminds him of his ex in his fantasies, so he begins masturbating while fantasizing about her. Three of the men die and then this woman dies. He's distraught because the remaining woman is Japanese and apparently Asians aren't nearly as attractive in his book. The robots come to him with a dilemma. Both of the remaining survivors are doing badly, but it's possible one could survive -- with organ transplants from the other. So he has to play God and decide who lives and who dies. And while he makes a big show about trying hard to decide, naturally he chooses the woman, because above all else, he wants to get laid and he's already begun fantasizing about having her as his sex slave, er mate, and is masturbating frantically to the fantasy.
Michi Nakamura survives. She awakes in a hospital surrounded by robots, confused, and wondering where the people are. Arthur, the robot boss, comes to talk to her and tells her there are people in charge and she'll see someone soon. But that's not good enough for her, so she escapes from her room and flees through the building, eventually locating Birk, where she tells him her colony world was invaded and it's imperative she reach Earth to warn them. He tells her she can't, she's stuck there and she pretty much loses it. And he loses it back. And then the book is full of them fighting and his continued stupid fantasies about her. When he sees her or even thinks about her, no matter how much he despises her, he gets an erection and wants to bone her. Honestly, I know many sci fi writers are perverts, but the only writer I've seen that's more sex obsessed than this one is Heinlein and he's a pervert of the first degree, beaten only by de Sade. I don't know whether Goldin himself is a sex starved maniac or just likes to create characters who are and I can buy someone who hasn't had sex with a woman in over a decade being horny, but every single thought and action surrounding this single woman has to involve sex? It's ridiculous! And Birk also acts like a spoiled brat, like a small child. He's got the emotional breakdown of a four year old. At first I kind of liked him and his explorations and interactions with the robots, but when he went to a dark city to have sex with a robot who, through somehow magically reading his thoughts and memories, could look and act like his ex-wife, I was just kind of repelled. And it just got worse. I don't know how this book ends. I suspect that they wind up fucking each other's brains out and loving it and they both escape this planet and make it back to Earth where she warns the government and he is granted a reprieve. But who knows? I do know that I don't want to continue reading this one track smut to find out. I'm no prude -- I've read de Sade -- but I don't like gratuitous sex just for the sake of turning horny teenage readers on. It's really quite stupid. This could have been a good book. Instead, I can't recommend it at all.
Birk Aaland is a world class scientist who invents an awesome new space ship engine that revolutionizes space travel and he becomes wealthy and famous. Then, a military dictator takes over and starts purging Earth of undesirables. He imprisons, tortures, and murders millions. Birk is stupid enough to speak out, thinking that his fame will protect him, and he soon joins the other political prisoners. His beautiful wife divorces him, his colleagues lie about him, he is sentenced and tortured and doesn't know when he's going to be executed. However, this dictator has filled up so many Earth prisons, that he has to start shipping prisoners off planet to colony worlds, so Birk is loaded on a ship with other prisoners and they take off. And they mutiny and take over the ship, but take some damage. Birk is the only one who knows how to fly, so they fly seeking a suitable planet to land on and finally he flies into a huge gas cloud in desperation and spots an unmapped, perfect planet. However, he doesn't know how to land and crashes the ship. He's the only survivor. He wakes to find he was saved by robots and the world is fully developed and full of functioning robots, but empty of its previous civilization, whom he begins to refer to as the Makers, a warlike alien race, long gone. And so he spends 11 years there, exploring and basically enjoying his solitude.
However, we learn early on he's horny as hell and masturbates frequently. Even the robots joke with him about it. He wants a woman, preferably one who looks like and reminds him of his ex-wife. So, his life is uprooted one day when a new space ship crash lands on the planet. The robots rush to the crash site, while he has ambivalent feelings. What if they're looking for him? What if they're after him? He goes to the site and discovers that, sure enough, it's a military ship. There are six critically wounded survivors, two of whom are women. And so it begins.
One, a tall blonde, reminds him of his ex in his fantasies, so he begins masturbating while fantasizing about her. Three of the men die and then this woman dies. He's distraught because the remaining woman is Japanese and apparently Asians aren't nearly as attractive in his book. The robots come to him with a dilemma. Both of the remaining survivors are doing badly, but it's possible one could survive -- with organ transplants from the other. So he has to play God and decide who lives and who dies. And while he makes a big show about trying hard to decide, naturally he chooses the woman, because above all else, he wants to get laid and he's already begun fantasizing about having her as his sex slave, er mate, and is masturbating frantically to the fantasy.
Michi Nakamura survives. She awakes in a hospital surrounded by robots, confused, and wondering where the people are. Arthur, the robot boss, comes to talk to her and tells her there are people in charge and she'll see someone soon. But that's not good enough for her, so she escapes from her room and flees through the building, eventually locating Birk, where she tells him her colony world was invaded and it's imperative she reach Earth to warn them. He tells her she can't, she's stuck there and she pretty much loses it. And he loses it back. And then the book is full of them fighting and his continued stupid fantasies about her. When he sees her or even thinks about her, no matter how much he despises her, he gets an erection and wants to bone her. Honestly, I know many sci fi writers are perverts, but the only writer I've seen that's more sex obsessed than this one is Heinlein and he's a pervert of the first degree, beaten only by de Sade. I don't know whether Goldin himself is a sex starved maniac or just likes to create characters who are and I can buy someone who hasn't had sex with a woman in over a decade being horny, but every single thought and action surrounding this single woman has to involve sex? It's ridiculous! And Birk also acts like a spoiled brat, like a small child. He's got the emotional breakdown of a four year old. At first I kind of liked him and his explorations and interactions with the robots, but when he went to a dark city to have sex with a robot who, through somehow magically reading his thoughts and memories, could look and act like his ex-wife, I was just kind of repelled. And it just got worse. I don't know how this book ends. I suspect that they wind up fucking each other's brains out and loving it and they both escape this planet and make it back to Earth where she warns the government and he is granted a reprieve. But who knows? I do know that I don't want to continue reading this one track smut to find out. I'm no prude -- I've read de Sade -- but I don't like gratuitous sex just for the sake of turning horny teenage readers on. It's really quite stupid. This could have been a good book. Instead, I can't recommend it at all.
August 10, 2016
My first impression of "A world called Solitude" was negative. But hold on, you will find it pays out to read the whole novel.
It is not what I understand as "Science Fiction" - the projection of scientific or technical ideas into the future, an alternative world or similar. In Goldins universe there exist three sentient races - all of them are bipeds, they have spaceships and a military hierarchy, shoes and audible speech. One alien race has big hands with two thumbs and seven fingers. Why? Mooses have big feet because they walk on swamps. There is no explanation why this race should have big hands, or the other alien race an extra set of eyes where we have ears.
The alien towns have skyscrapers, museums and mosaics. Replace robots by sailors and conscripts, spaceships by steamboats, exploding hyperdrives by exploding steam engines, ruins of one extinct alien race by japanese marine bases left over from World War II, the other alien race by the chinese army and the plot would not change in the least.
I asked myself why, for example, Goldin must invent a robot who talks and acts exactly like a butler. But who am I to critizice the author? Maybe it is his stratagem for artistic alienation. Maybe he felt that a story playing in England with real butlers would distract the reader with too much details which allusions carrying unwished-for connotations? In any case, Goldin did not want to write another SF Story, Space Opera or Fantasy!
I found the first few dozends of pages extremely boring. There are pages and pages of pure descriptions, without action, without even dialogues. And the descriptions were'nt that interesting either - the author just sets the stage.
The more I read, the more I felt compelled to read on, however. There is a frequently recurring "Leitmotif". Birk is fascinated by a tableau in an alien museum, showing one desperate person lying on the floor, begging for help, and one other person, totally uncaring and denying any help. The whole plot is based on this Leitmotif, one lonely person needing help, the other being unmerciful, and the scenery is viewed every time from an other angle.
The more I read the more I was fascinated from the topic and how Goldin dealt with it. And at last, in the second half of the novel, there even develops some action.
It is not what I understand as "Science Fiction" - the projection of scientific or technical ideas into the future, an alternative world or similar. In Goldins universe there exist three sentient races - all of them are bipeds, they have spaceships and a military hierarchy, shoes and audible speech. One alien race has big hands with two thumbs and seven fingers. Why? Mooses have big feet because they walk on swamps. There is no explanation why this race should have big hands, or the other alien race an extra set of eyes where we have ears.
The alien towns have skyscrapers, museums and mosaics. Replace robots by sailors and conscripts, spaceships by steamboats, exploding hyperdrives by exploding steam engines, ruins of one extinct alien race by japanese marine bases left over from World War II, the other alien race by the chinese army and the plot would not change in the least.
I asked myself why, for example, Goldin must invent a robot who talks and acts exactly like a butler. But who am I to critizice the author? Maybe it is his stratagem for artistic alienation. Maybe he felt that a story playing in England with real butlers would distract the reader with too much details which allusions carrying unwished-for connotations? In any case, Goldin did not want to write another SF Story, Space Opera or Fantasy!
I found the first few dozends of pages extremely boring. There are pages and pages of pure descriptions, without action, without even dialogues. And the descriptions were'nt that interesting either - the author just sets the stage.
The more I read, the more I felt compelled to read on, however. There is a frequently recurring "Leitmotif". Birk is fascinated by a tableau in an alien museum, showing one desperate person lying on the floor, begging for help, and one other person, totally uncaring and denying any help. The whole plot is based on this Leitmotif, one lonely person needing help, the other being unmerciful, and the scenery is viewed every time from an other angle.
The more I read the more I was fascinated from the topic and how Goldin dealt with it. And at last, in the second half of the novel, there even develops some action.
Read
May 2, 2015This sounds like a funny book but not worth my.time
April 21, 2024
Stephen Goldin was mij niet bekend als SF auteur maar blijkens wikipedia heeft hij een dikke collectie romans en feuilletons bij elkaar geschreven. Deze uitgave van Elmar Sciencefiction heeft een mooie cover illustratie van Han Janssen die op het oog iets te maken heeft met de inhoud, maar na lezing de plank redelijk misgeslagen heeft. Dat is op zich niet zo erg want de roman zelf stelt ook niet heel erg veel voor.
Op zich is de premisse wel aardig. Een vluchteling voor het Terraanse regime (Terraans omdat het een Aarde centrisch sterrenrijk betreft), verblijft 15 jaar op een door sterrennevels onvindbare planeet (sic.) die de steden en robots van een vergane beschaving herbergt en wordt de facto de alleenheerser over de planeet en al zijn robots. Een situatie die hem eigenlijk wel bevalt. Dan crasht er op een dag een ruimtevaarder (en mooie vrouw) op de planeet, een vrouw die een missie wil uitvoeren die onze ingekakte Robinson terug in contact met het aardse regime zou brengen. Daar moet hij totaal niets van hebben, hij wil eigenlijk alleen maar het bed induiken met de gestrande ruimtevaardster.
Ik zou zeggen, het uitgangspunt voor een mooi verhaal vol van romantiek, verscheurende dillema's en misschien een catharsis of twee. Helaas, onze protagonist is een zelfzuchtige zak avant la lettre en vertoont meer dan eens onbegrijpelijk gedrag, zelfs als je de oorsprong van zijn trauma leert kennen. De planeet de mysterieus had kunnen zijn wordt alleen gebruikt als doorlopende deux ex machina en de antagonisten zijn zo intelligent als de tegenstanders van Zorro. Alleen de ruimtedame wekt de indruk enigszins de knikkers op een rijtje te hebben. De schrijfstijl is kinderlijk en de fixatie op sex puberaal. Lost in translation? Mogelijk. Maar niet waarschijnlijk. Daarvoor is het verhaal te rechtlijnig.
Het wordt nooit echt beter en het einde is dan ook meer dan voorspelbaar. Tegelijk kan ik het niet helpen geamuseerd te zijn door de krampachtige pogingen van de schrijver om er een literaire draai aan te geven. Hij introduceert de kunst van de aliens als troostend maar ziet die troost ten onder gaan alvorens het boek ten onder gaat in zijn eigen anti-climax. Nu ja, wellicht was het dan toch een literair product. De Nederlandse titel is de Misantroop en ik kan mij niet aan de indruk onttrekken dat de vertaler (Bob van Laerhoven) deze titel heeft bewust (of onbewust) heeft gekozen als vervanging voor Een wereld genaamd eenzaamheid om uitdrukking te geven aan zijn gevoel nadat hij dit boek vertaald had.
Ik hoop dat ik nog iets heb van Stephen Goldin, kijken of dit een flop of een top was in zijn oeuvre. Een ster? Mnuh twee sterren voor onbedoeld amusement van deze lezer... Maar dit gedrochtje gaat wel linea recta terug naar de minibieb.
Op zich is de premisse wel aardig. Een vluchteling voor het Terraanse regime (Terraans omdat het een Aarde centrisch sterrenrijk betreft), verblijft 15 jaar op een door sterrennevels onvindbare planeet (sic.) die de steden en robots van een vergane beschaving herbergt en wordt de facto de alleenheerser over de planeet en al zijn robots. Een situatie die hem eigenlijk wel bevalt. Dan crasht er op een dag een ruimtevaarder (en mooie vrouw) op de planeet, een vrouw die een missie wil uitvoeren die onze ingekakte Robinson terug in contact met het aardse regime zou brengen. Daar moet hij totaal niets van hebben, hij wil eigenlijk alleen maar het bed induiken met de gestrande ruimtevaardster.
Ik zou zeggen, het uitgangspunt voor een mooi verhaal vol van romantiek, verscheurende dillema's en misschien een catharsis of twee. Helaas, onze protagonist is een zelfzuchtige zak avant la lettre en vertoont meer dan eens onbegrijpelijk gedrag, zelfs als je de oorsprong van zijn trauma leert kennen. De planeet de mysterieus had kunnen zijn wordt alleen gebruikt als doorlopende deux ex machina en de antagonisten zijn zo intelligent als de tegenstanders van Zorro. Alleen de ruimtedame wekt de indruk enigszins de knikkers op een rijtje te hebben. De schrijfstijl is kinderlijk en de fixatie op sex puberaal. Lost in translation? Mogelijk. Maar niet waarschijnlijk. Daarvoor is het verhaal te rechtlijnig.
Het wordt nooit echt beter en het einde is dan ook meer dan voorspelbaar. Tegelijk kan ik het niet helpen geamuseerd te zijn door de krampachtige pogingen van de schrijver om er een literaire draai aan te geven. Hij introduceert de kunst van de aliens als troostend maar ziet die troost ten onder gaan alvorens het boek ten onder gaat in zijn eigen anti-climax. Nu ja, wellicht was het dan toch een literair product. De Nederlandse titel is de Misantroop en ik kan mij niet aan de indruk onttrekken dat de vertaler (Bob van Laerhoven) deze titel heeft bewust (of onbewust) heeft gekozen als vervanging voor Een wereld genaamd eenzaamheid om uitdrukking te geven aan zijn gevoel nadat hij dit boek vertaald had.
Ik hoop dat ik nog iets heb van Stephen Goldin, kijken of dit een flop of een top was in zijn oeuvre. Een ster? Mnuh twee sterren voor onbedoeld amusement van deze lezer... Maar dit gedrochtje gaat wel linea recta terug naar de minibieb.
February 20, 2023
By far the most disappointing book I've read recently, I was really looking forward to reading something that might capture what it felt like to wander an empty city, the way it did for me march/april 2020, wandering around my city and watching that video of NYC completely empty.
Instead I was treated to just a disgusting and completely unbelievable misogynist of a protagonist and one of the worst visual descriptions of a woman I've ever suffered through, truly awful.
All of this for a protagonist who is impossible to suspend disbelief for or even care about, hes stuck on this planet all on his own and he just happens to be the big ol' physics genius that figured out hyperspace travel (never mind that a theoretical physicist and an engineer are two different things). But fret not! For hes a well rounded character with a major flaw he keeps secret: he lead a political revolution and was thrown in jail by a dictator for it, one of the dumbest characters I've ever read, truly a miserable book.
Instead I was treated to just a disgusting and completely unbelievable misogynist of a protagonist and one of the worst visual descriptions of a woman I've ever suffered through, truly awful.
All of this for a protagonist who is impossible to suspend disbelief for or even care about, hes stuck on this planet all on his own and he just happens to be the big ol' physics genius that figured out hyperspace travel (never mind that a theoretical physicist and an engineer are two different things). But fret not! For hes a well rounded character with a major flaw he keeps secret: he lead a political revolution and was thrown in jail by a dictator for it, one of the dumbest characters I've ever read, truly a miserable book.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
December 27, 2022
Een van de zeldzame boeken die ik vaak opnieuw het gelezen. Al was het al heel lang geleden. Was vergeten dat er ook donkere elementen inzitten. De 'held' zit eekhoornachtige dieren te martelen. Goed boek.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
February 15, 2023
Good read but the ending felt quick, lazy, and predictable.
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April 20, 2023why is it always that the male protagonist of an old sci fi book is a terrible person ??
April 9, 2011
Not a particularly memorable science fiction novel.
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews