Robert Silverberg 3 hr 13 min read

'Who was your father?' the mutant asks Dale Kesley, but he cannot remember; his past is a blank, and the only clue lies in Antarctica, now a paradise behind an impenetrable barrier.

Robert Silverberg's 1957 novel is a brisk post-apocalyptic and social-SF adventure. Fast, engaging early SF. Read it for young Silverberg, a man with no memory crossing a ruined, feudal Earth ruled by immortal dictators, toward the forbidden continent that holds the secret of who he is.

In its time

Published in 1957, during the 1950s, post-war optimism meets cold war anxiety.

Reading it

3 hr 13 min read (a novel-length work, settle in).