How long does it take to read Downward to the Earth?
Downward to the Earth by Robert Silverberg takes about 3 hours 29 minutes to read at 250 words a minute.
About 3 hours 29 minutes
A weekend read
First published 1970. 190 pages, about 52,250 words.
7 days at 30 minutes a day
Estimate based on 275 words per page.
At other speeds
| Slow, 150 words a minute | 5 hours 48 minutes |
| Average, 250 words a minute | 3 hours 29 minutes |
| Fast, 400 words a minute | 2 hours 11 minutes |
The page count is the median across 16 editions, so your copy may differ. How we calculate.
About the book
From the shrouding fogs of its Mist Country to the lunatic tropical fertility of its jungles, the planet Belzagor was alien in the extreme. Before the decolonization movement, it had been part of Earth's Galaxy-wide empire. But the Nildoror and Sulido-ror, Belzagor's two intelligent species, had been given their independence, and once again they ruled themselves. Edmund Gundersen, a former colonial official from Earth, was returning to Belzagor after an eight year absence. Officially, he was a tourist, but in reality he was seeking redemption—redemption for the crimes he had committed against the Nildoror and Sulidoror. Even now, he still found it hard to accept their independence. The Nildoror were great elephant-like beings; and the Sulidoror, husky bipeds covered with dark red hair, had long arms tipped with terrifying claws. How could such creatures, without any technology to speak of, run an entire planet? Yet they did, and they had one thing that had always eluded human understanding—the ceremony of rebirth. Somehow this mysterious rite linked the two species, and the act that weighed most heavily on Gundersen's mind had occurred in connection with it. During an emergency, he had commandeered a group of Nildoror for a labor detail. Using a fusion torch, he had forced them to obey, and on his account they had missed their rebirth. To atone for this deed, Gundersen had decided to journey alone through Belzagor's jungles. When he reached the Mist Country, he would offer himself as a candidate for rebirth—even if it would mean the end of his life as a human!
Subjects: Life on other planets, Fiction, American Science fiction, Science fiction, Fiction, science fiction, general, Fiction, general
