Book Review: Kingdoms of the Wall

Book Review: 'Kingdoms of the Wall' by Robert Silverberg

3 / 5 Stars

'Kingdoms of the Wall' first was published in the U.K. in 1992, with a Bantam Spectra hardcover edition released in the U.S. in 1993. This mass market paperback edition (370 pp.) was published in February 1994, and features cover art by Chris Hopkins.

'Kingdoms' is a 'Quest' novel, much like Silverberg's 'The Face of the Waters' (1991). The reader is invited, so to speak, to accompany a group of adventurers on their journey to a Big Revelation about the world they live in.

In 'Kingdoms', the lead protagonist, and first-person narrator, for the Quest is one Poilar Crookleg, a young man residing in the village of Jespodar. Each year, villages all over the world assemble a cohort of forty pilgrims (twenty men and twenty women), who set out on a journey to clamber up the immense mountain range known as the Wall and onward to the summit of the mountain called Kosa Saag. The Gods, so it is said, live in splendor atop Kosa Saag, and those resolute enough to travel all the way to their abode will be blessed with knowledge and grace sustaining. 

The road to the summit of Kosa Saag is no easy one, and all manner of dangers and distractions test the commitment of the pilgrims to their holy task. Indeed, only a fraction of any Forty who set out for Kosa Saag ever return, and those that do return, have been irrevocably changed. Some are mute, others crippled by madness. None of the returnees will tell of what they found in the land of the Gods.

Poilar's father and grandfather had been among the lucky ones, the shining ones, recruited to be pilgrims, and while they never have returned, Poilar yearns to follow in their footsteps. In the early chapters of 'Kingdoms' readers learn of the arduous, at times lethal, training recruits for the Forty must undergo. And thus it is that after eight years of training, one hot and humid morning Poilar and thirty-nine other men and women from the village of Jespodar march out the of village and onto the trail that will take them into the Wall, and beyond the Wall, the summit of Kosa Saag and a rendezvous with the Gods.  

As the Quest progresses, Poilar and his companions will witness all manner of horrors, as well as things sublime. But none of their encounters will prepare them for what lies at the summit of Kosa Saag..........

Well before I finished 'Kingdoms of the Wall' I was agreeable to assigning the novel a Three-Star Rating. As always, Silverberg's prose is smooth and effortless, but as was the case with 'The Face of the Waters', the straightforward plot contains quite a bit of padding in the form of internal monologues, and various digressions. Not until page 267 does Silverberg begin to tip his hand as to the nature of the Big Revelation, and when the closing chapter discloses said Revelation, it comes with some holes in logic that were a little too big to ignore. However, I found the denouement of 'Kingdoms' to be superior to that of 'The Face of the Waters', and in that sense I was content. 

Those readers who are at ease with Silverberg's dilatory approach to storytelling likely will find 'Kingdoms of the Wall' to be rewarding, but not overly memorable.