The Second Trip

A vicious rapist (artist Nat Hamlin) has undergone erasure freeing his body for the establishment of a new identity (Paul Macy). After four years in a rehabilitation centre to establish the new mind and false memories in the Hamlin body, Paul is released into the community and given a job as TV news anchor. Unfortunately on his first day out of rehab he bumps into Hamlin's former lover and the encounter somehow reawakens the Hamlin identity. A battle for control of the body ensues between Macy and Hamlin. Hamlin is hell bent on removing Macy so that he can resume his old life as an artist (and rapist), which Macy is fighting for his very survival.
I read and enjoyed a lot of Silverberg back in the 1980s and have only recently picked up show more this and a couple of other novels and I am quite disappointed by them. The future visions do not withstand scrutiny (for example this book was set in 2011) and Silverberg has a few major obsessions which he endlessly recycles in different stories. Sex is one obsession that is prominent in this book (Silverberg characters get it on at every available opportunity), along with telepathy and the theme of an internal struggle between identities. Aspects of The Second Trip were reminiscent of another Silverberg novel, Dying Inside and even uses some of the same imagery (such as a telepath being described as a vampire). I think that the telepathic character in this book may even be a first draft of the main character in Dying Inside. This was an OK story I suppose, but it has not passed the test of time (written in 1972). show less

A very strange, yet interesting read. There is a bit of sex in this story, but it's not gratuitous. It's used to tell the story of a rapist caught in a world where such crimes are punished by having one's memories wiped, and a new personality implanted for the criminal to serve out the rest of his days. As such, the criminal becomes a rehabilitated model citizen. But what happens if the old personality shows up again? Well, that's the scenario Silverberg draws for us.More interestingly, this book uses some very interesting writing techniques. It's written in the 3rd person, but the narration can, at times, go into the first person as a way of bringing the reader closer into the conscious of the two main characters, both fighting for show more control of the single body they must share. I found Silverberg's wordsmithing here to be of great interest. Writers looking to better understand narration would be well rewarded to study this book, even if the story turns out to be less than appealing. show less

Un homme est condamné à mort pour des crimes atroces. Son corps est vidé de son âme et on injecte une nouvelle âme, créée de toutes pièces, dans le corps vide. Le criminel, qui se trouve être également un talentueux artiste, n'a en réalité pas complètement disparu. Le livre raconte le conflit entre les deux personnages, au sein d'un seul corps, avec des interrogations sur ce qu'est un être humain et sur sa valeur. Mais avec trop de longueurs.