The Glade 4.0

Sounds like an bad episode of Heroes :p

Could it be the biography of Robert Wadlow?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Wadlow

So parts of it sound a lot like one of Card's series (the Ender's Shadow set), but those are more recent than you're thinking of.

No clue past that, sorry.

Could it be

Big Fish: A Novel of Mythic Proportions

http://www.amazon.com/Big-Fish-Novel-My ... 0140282777

Some of the details you relate are very similar, some differ, but if you read it as a kid there is a fudge factor on what you are correctly remembering. It was also made into a movie.

The Man In The Tree
by Damon Knight
Berkley, 1984
ISBN: 0-425-06006-3
Cover Illustration by Carl Lundgren
Science Fiction

Impeccably written and thought-provoking, you’ll find yourself asking “is Gene Anderson Christ or the Anti-Christ?”

This book will appeal to: Neil Gaiman fans and sci-fi buffs who enjoy the work of Bradbury.

Buy Now


The Man In The Tree

Gene Anderson discovers he has a talent unlike any other in the world. As such, his childhood should have been a thing of wonder. Instead, he ends up a killer on the run, grows into an eight-and-half-foot giant and lives a queer and uncertain life. As he matures, Gene becomes a poet, a millionaire and even a circus freak. He’s also a prophet. Wherein lies Gene’s greatest problem. Is he Christ or is he the Anti-Christ? Not even Gene can answer that question.

Beginning his disturbing novel with a tell-tale poem, Damon Knight presents the reader with a wonderful gift—if only he or she has the imagination to appreciate it.

“When I was young we were giants’ captives.
They stripped us, tortured us with facecloths,
Left us to endure alone
The moonwashed branches on the windows
In the long clock-ticking night.
We voyaged deep under that black ocean
Where Earth eats her daughters in silence,
And always returned. By day we had red-jam smiles,
Breadcrumb fingers, corn hair.
In our pockets were stones, gray string, nails
Scavenged as we went. We knew the secret
Undersides of things, the roofs of tables.
Only insects were smaller than ourselves.
We caught locusts and made thm spit tobacco,
Poured dust on pismires, puffed ladybirds away.
We dreamed of being smaller still: built pebble fences,
Roads in dirt, peered with one eye
Under green blades. All Eden was
Our afternoon. It was the time before
They taught us time: before we knew.”
- Gene Anderson

I found The Man In The Tree to be a marvelous look at the whole idea of Christ. Knight turns and twists our preconceptions before we even have a hint of what he’s up to. The end disturbs.

This novel is my favourite book of all time. Not ever considered popular and never discussed in his biographies, I consider The Man In The Tree to be classic Damon Knight. He always had something to say, and he wrote with a biting wit that was sometimes humorous, sometimes risque, sometimes wry and, in my opinion, often dark.

Out of print, but still available on sites like Amazon, this is a recommended read.

Clayton Bye
Horror Editor

Copyright © Clayton Clifford Bye 2009

Mm... the date is wrong, but darned if everything else doesn't match up:


From http://www.thedeepening.com/horror/2009 ... wn-league/

Goodreads link: http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1875 ... n_the_Tree

Cover is shown at either link!

I guess one decade bled into another.

Lots of folks had that experience in the 70s. Just say "no".

Actually I have never used any illicit drug in my life, which amazes some people for some reason.

hehe well it is more time than anything else, I was in elementary school in the 70's not many drugs at that level back then. Actually I have never used any illicit drug in my life, which amazes some people for some reason.