Downward to the Earth

Robert Silverberg is a master at bringing alien worlds to life. This novel is no exception. The planet Belzagor is an ex colonialized planet, similar to what Africa and India had under England. Eight years after Earth has given control back to the nildoror, a species very much like elephants, an ex-colonial agent, Edmund Gunderson, goes back in order to expunge some deep feelings of remorse about some of the things he had done.

He learns more about the nildoror, on his quest, than he ever knew about them as a Colonial head. He learns that they are highly spiritual and that they have mores and customs that go much deeper than he ever realized. They have a rite called rebirth, which he had only heard about, but now he wants to see and experience.

Throughout the novel, the inhumanity to a species that man inflicts, becomes a clear and a driving force of the novel. Humanity never took the time to understand the native inhabitants, but only used them as a tool to rape and pillage the planet for its resources. On his journey Gunderson undergoes a spiritual cleansing of his own. But nothing could prepare him for the rite of rebirth.