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Robert Silverberg: Worlds Fair 1992 (1982, Ace) 2 stars

A high school boy's essay discussing the possibility of life on Pluto wins him a …

This is a very pedestrian YA story.

2 stars

This is a very pedestrian YA story. Teenage male protagonist wins a competition to work for a year on the 1992 World's Fair - held on a space station above earth. There's scratchings at the morals of exploration and exploitation, and while I recognise the novel was written in 1970, I'm still not convinced by the arguments from a 1970's viewpoint, especially in a YA novel.

Silverberg can very much write better. This was intended to be a YA novel, and is voiced like a Tom Swift novel. It talks down to the reader, makes the protagonist over-clever and puts him on a rollercoaster. He suffers a small heartbreak, but very quickly moves on, because he's going somewhere.

Possibly over-harsh, but they don't write them like this anymore, for good reason.