The World and Thorinn

by Damon Knight

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Poor lame Thorinn is thrown into a well by his father to appease the rumbling gods, and cursed to Go Down... and down he goes, breaking through floors, ceilings and walls into amazing new worlds."A brilliant book by an excellent writer."-Goodreads

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1 review
To appease the goals, Thorinn's step-father seals him in a deep well, with the geas (over-powering mental command) to "go down". So Thorinn does for the rest of the book which takes him level by level deeper into a far future earth. A fantasy-style journey, but mostly SF, except for the unexplained mechanism of the geas. Snippets at the beginning of some chapters fill in some of the background of how things came to be, and there's some fairly restrained info-dumps at the end. Thorinn is ignorant but clever. A talking box picked up early in the journey helps serves as a miniature deus ex machina at various points. The problem is that there's nothing much to care about. Other than surviving, nothing is at stake. Places visited are never show more seen again.

Not bad but nothing to recommend seeking it out either.
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½

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Kidd, Tom (Cover artist)

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Common Knowledge

Original publication date
1981-02

Classifications

Genres
Fiction and Literature, Science Fiction
DDC/MDS
813.54Literature & rhetoricAmerican literature in EnglishAmerican fiction in English1900-19991945-1999
LCC
PS3561 .N44 .W6Language and LiteratureAmerican literatureAmerican literatureIndividual authors1961-
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Statistics

Members
209
Popularity
155,811
Reviews
1
Rating
½ (3.29)
Languages
English, German
Media
Paper, Ebook
ISBNs
5
UPCs
1
ASINs
7