Kian Ryan reviewed Worlds Fair 1992 by Robert Silverberg
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.