THE BOOK OF SKULLS

by Robert Silverberg ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 13, 1972

Silverberg, as Theodore Sturgeon just commented, has of late ""vaulted into a new order of magnitude"" -- for magnitude, a questionable magnitude, you might substitute hieratic mystery in this story of four young men who go to a monastery in the Arizona desert in the knowledge that two will live and two will die according to the ninth canon of the Book of Skulls. The story is told in alternating insets by each of them (two are ""jocks""; two are ""queers"" although one admits to the latter only toward the close) and in between all the hip talk recorded on this ultimate purgative high (""A psychic enema might not be such a bad thing"") the interest naturally centers on which life for an immortal life will be exchanged. Metaphysical Russian roulette?

Pub Date: March 13, 1972

ISBN: 0345471385

Page Count: -

Publisher: Scribners

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 1972

Categories: FICTION