- Way of the Pilgrim -- Gordon Dickson

Way of the Pilgrim -- Gordon Dickson

Written by Administrator

Monday, 12 April 2004

This was a great book to read. I don't want to give away much in terms of spoilers because it's worth reading. Let me just say that you really need to finish the book. At times it seems to follow a pretty standard storyline but there is a significant difference. Just read the whole thing before you decide to disagree with me.

The back of the book describes the story: an alien race has overtaken the world and considers the humans to be nothing more than cattle that they can use for producing goods. The main character, Shane, begins an effort to try to free humanity from the oppression. The story is about that effort and the issues that Shane needs to come to deal with.

The writing is top quality. Before reading this book I hadn't heard of Gordon Dickson. By only a few pages into the book I knew that he was an accomplished author. The story telling is vivid and well paced. Very pleasant to read.

Dickson shows us a world that has been taken over by aliens who possess technolog that is so far advanced over what humans have they can hardly believe it. Dickson does a great job of leaving the advanced technology as a mystery. It works, we don't know why, it makes sense, but it's a mystery.

He also manages to portray the aliens in non-human terms (as much as possible) while still retaining enough context for the story to make sense. His use of language as a central point of culture is interesting. Almost makes me think that Dickson had some linguist friends...

I've been recommending this book to anyone I know who reads Science Fiction. If you're a scifi reader, I recommend it to you too.