Master of Life and Death

A man with too much power and too many problems brought on by too many projects and too many opponents. Rising to power unsought, he stumbles his way through complex and baffling issues as best he can, wielding the power of life and death as well as the future of the world itself.

The story moves at a brisk pace, the characters are well drawn and substantial for such a short work, and the plot draws the reader in to the twist ending typical of stories of this era.

Silverberg makes one unexpected error: He correctly puts Nairobi, Kenya at the foot of the Kikuyu Hills in sight of Mount Kilimanjaro, then places it all 'on the west coast of Africa", instead of the east coast. Jarring, but in the end irrelevant to the story.

An outstanding early work by Silverberg.