Product Description

Meet Karl Glogauer, time traveller and unlikely Messiah. When he finds himself in Palestine in the year 29AD he is shocked to meet the man known as Jesus Christ -- a drooling idiot, hiding in the shadows of the carpenter's shop in Nazareth. But if he is not capable of fulfilling his historical role, then who will take his place?

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #74955 in Books
• Published on: 1999-11-11
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 128 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
A slim novel of theology and time travel, Behold the Man was expanded from the 1966 novella version which won a Nebula Award. Non-hero Karl Glogauer has a traumatic history of bullying and abuse as a Jewish refugee child in 1950s Britain. When grown, he rides a strange time machine to the Roman-ruled Judaea of AD 28 and finds himself hailed as a magus by John the Baptist and the Essene sect ...

How should he use the power? Did he really have a mission? Could he alter history and be responsible for aiding the Jews to throw out the Romans?

In his own time Glogauer is a failed lover, a questing but forever unsatisfied mystic, a repeated faker of suicide attempts. In first-century Judaea these shortcomings are echoed in terrible ironies, and his destiny emerges as inevitable from the moment he visits a certain carpenter's workshop to find the misshapen idiot boy called Jesus.

Karl Glogauer had discovered the reality he had been seeking. That was not to say he did not still have doubts.

Perhaps it might have been possible to alter history, but the grim old drama plays out as it was foreordained--or at least, close enough for historians to hammer into the prophesied shape. "The chroniclers would rearrange it". Whether history has been remade as tragedy or farce is for readers to decide. This is Moorcock's sharpest, most successful novel of pure SF; it's the 22nd selection in Millennium's very strong SF Masterworks library. --David Langford

About the Author
SALES POINTS * #22 in the Millennium SF Masterworks series, a library of the finest science fiction ever written * 'This is the most accessible of Moorcock's best work' Gregory Benford * Winner of the Nebula Award * 'Here is a writer of rare talent who has stumbled on an idea so dangerous and brilliant that scarcely any living writer could do justice to it' Guardian

Customer Reviews

Short, sharp and shocking
In his interviw about this book Moorcock says he kept the sci-fi to a minimum because he didn't want readers to get bogged down in extraneous detail. He was not interested in 'rationales' of how the time machine worked but what the time machine might represent symbolically (a womb, a
rebirth) and this is obvious from his description of the machine. If this didn't have its sci-fi element my guess it would be a famous literary classic because it's a whole lot more subtle and interesting than Last Temptation of Christ or that Dennis Potter play about Christ, which I think had the same title. It is the book's continuing power, which hit me as a young man. It isn't intended to shake your faith in religion. It's intended to make you question your faith in everything! Nice and short, too.

God this is good
This has, no doubt, been widely read by SF lovers. First published in 1969, it won the Nebula award for best novella. It is quite a quick read - even the number of pages exaggerate its length.

I made the mistake of reading the blurb on the back cover before I bought the book. Unfortunately, this told me the plot up to page 145, so there were no surprises for me!

So what's it about without giving away everything? Karl Glogauer has the opportunity to travel in time using a time machine invented by a crank scientist. He decides to go to Palestine in 29 AD so that he can watch the crucifixion. The story builds up the events leading to this decision at the same time as following Glogauer's progress in the past.

I enjoyed this story... as a non-religous person I am all in favour of this type of alternative look at religous history.

Praise the Lord!
One of Moorcocks best, a stunning idea (time traveller becomes involved in the reality of Jesus crucifixion) is matched by an exquisite execution, as the structure of this novel brilliantly pieces together the compelling characterisation of Karl Glogaur. Doubtlessly highly blasphemous for any committed Christians, this is thought-provoking and moving stuff for everyone else.