Tom O'Bedlam

Product Description "I know more than Apollo Fort oft when he lies sleeping I behold the starts at mortal wars And the wounded wekin weeping." --Tom O' Bedlam's song Tom, like the medieval Tom O'Bedlam, can't decipher the meaning of the images plaguing his mind. Much like the wondering and mad Tom of the medieval ballad, the Tom O' Bedlam of 2103 doesn't know what to make of the images that keep cluttering his mind. To preserve the last shred of his sanity and keep these never-ending wonders a secret, he feigns insanity. But then a probe that has traveled over four light years away transmits the very pictures that have been haunting Tom's dreams. In this post-industrial world on the verge of a total collapse, Tom has become humanity's spokesperson to the distant planet that may be his world's salvation. From Publishers Weekly Some bibliophiles might argue that a book written less than 20 years ago hasn't quite yet earned the title of "classic," but Robert Silverberg's "world in chaos" novel Tom O'Bedlam is being touted as such, here reprinted and updated by the Hugo- and Nebula Award-winning author. It's the "definitive text," Silverberg writes, minus its original editor's revisions, and it tells a haunting tale of wisdom masked as madness and the search for answers to life's great questions.Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.