Shadrach in the furnace

Several years ago, I wrote here about the summer of 1978: "Every weekend I would take the train to London ... I think that I used to borrow books from the public library in Swiss Cottage on one visit then return them on the next visit". The only book which I do remember borrowing is "Shadrach in the furnace" by Robert Silverberg; I very much enjoyed reading this, and bought my own copy (21 August 1978, as noted in the book) when I visited San Francisco shortly afterwards.

After the great Kindle disaster and its restoration, I discovered that I did not have a copy of 'Shadrach' on the Kindle. These days I am inclined to think that I never had a copy of 'Shadrach' as I have not been able to locate any e-book version on the Internet. On the other hand, I was able to find a scanned PDF version of the book and downloaded this a few days ago. I then converted the PDF into epub format so that I could edit it. Apart from removing the page numbers, the original scan was about 99% accurate, so editing the scan was very easy. 

I discovered this time where each book's cover is stored: in Calibre, one can see the various files which comprise the book (I read recently that the epub format is simply a renamed zip file). Calibre organises these files into sections, one of which is called 'images',  allowing the replacement of any file in this section with another jpg file. It seems that Calibre created this cover image during the conversion process, based on the first page of the PDF file. As this inexplicably has the wrong title ('In the furnace'), I dug out my old print copy, photographed the cover (as appears above) then added this file to the epub.

I have always loved this book. As I wrote to the Robert Silverberg mailing list in 2007 (in response to RS noting that a new edition was to be published by the University of Nebraska Press) -

I was rereading "Shadrach" the other day and as usual was swept away by its majesty, its breadth and its humanity. What's amazing about this book is that it covers so much material. Whilst it's a story about betrayal (and if one wants, one can easily find the stages of Greek tragedy buried within, namely introduction, complication, attempts by the protagonist to solve his problems, resolution), it also:

1. serves as a medical primer in case anyone wants to become a surgeon
2. serves as a travel guide to the world (and when, Mr Silverberg, are you going to return to Jerusalem so that I can play Meshach to your Shadrach?)
3. gives a geography lesson about Ecuador
4. gives an off the cuff lecture about feedback systems (Nikki and her discussion of MichaelAngelo's David)
5. even invents a few new religions, including the most unlikely one of carpentry

... and makes it all so believable.

I know that people like Valentine and all his stories, but that's all bloated adventure when compared to Shadrach, even though Valentine does have his metaphysical moments, and no Silverberg book would be complete without them.

So if you haven't read this tower of a book, then you're in for a special treat! And no, I don't think I've given any spoilers about what happens in the book.