Silverberg, Robert 1935-
Silverberg, Robert 1935-
(Gordon Aghill, a joint pseudonym, Robert Arnette, a house pseudonym, T.D. Bethlen, Alexander Blade, a house pseudonym, Ralph Burke, a joint pseudonym, Walker Chapman, Dirk Clinton, Roy Cook, Walter Drummond, Dan Eliot, Don Elliott, Richard Greer, a house pseudonym, Franklin Hamilton, Paul Hollander, E.K. Jarvis, a house pseudonym, Ivar Jorgenson, Warren Kastel, a house pseudonym, Calvin M. Knox, Dan Malcolm, Webber Martin, Alex Merriman, Clyde Mitchell, a house pseudonym, David Osborne, George Osborne, Robert Randall, a joint pseudonym, Ellis Robertson, a joint pseudonym, Lloyd Robinson, Eric Rodman, Lee Sebastian, Leonard G. Spencer, a house pseudonym, S.M. Tenneshaw, a house pseudonym, Hall Thornton, Gerald Vance, a house pseudonym, Richard F. Watson)
PERSONAL: Born January 15, 1935, in New York, NY; son of Michael (an accountant) and Helen Silverberg; married Barbara H. Brown (an engineer), August 26, 1956 (separated, 1976; divorced, 1986); married Karen L. Haber, 1987. Education: Columbia University, B.A., 1956.
ADDRESSES: Home—Oakland, CA. Agent—Ralph Vicinanza, 303 W. 18th St., New York, NY 10011. E-mail—ragberg@attglobal.net.
CAREER: Writer, editor, and public speaker. Writer, 1956—; Agberg Ltd., president, 1981—.
MEMBER: Science Fiction Writers of America (president, 1967-68), Hydra Club (chair, 1958-61).
AWARDS, HONORS: Hugo Award, World Science Fiction Convention, for best new author, 1956, for best novella, 1969, for Nightwings, for best novella, 1987, for Gilgamesh in the Outback, and for best novelette, 1990, for Enter a Soldier. Later: Enter Another; New York Times best hundred children’s books citation, 1960, for Lost Race of Mars; Spring Book Festival Awards, New York Herald Tribune, 1962, for Lost Cities and Vanished Civilizations, and 1967, for The Auk, the Dodo, and the Oryx: Vanished and Vanishing Creatures; National Association of Independent Schools award, 1966, for The Old Ones: Indians of the American Southwest; Nebula Award nominations, Science Fiction Writers of America, best novel, 1967, for Thorns, best novella, 1967, for Hawksbill Station, best novella, 1968, for Nightwings, best novel, 1969, for Up the Line, best novella, 1969, for To Jorslem, best novel, 1970, for Tower of Glass, best novel, 1972, for The Book of Skulls, best novel, 1972, for Dying Inside, best novel, 1975, for The Stochastic Man, best novel, 1976, for Shadrach in the Furnace, best short story, 1982, for “The Pope of Chimps,” best novella, 1983, for Homefaring, best novella, 1986, for Gilgamesh in the Outback, best novella, 1987, for The Secret Sharer, and best novelette, 1989, for Enter a Soldier. Later: Enter Another; Hugo Award nominations, best novel, 1968, for Thorns, best novella, 1968, for Hawksbill Station, best novel, 1970, for Up the Line, best short story, 1970, for “Passengers,” best novella, 1970, for To Jorslem, best novel, 1971, for Tower of Glass, best short story, 1971, for “The World Outside,” best novel, 1972, for A Time of Changes, best novel, 1972, for The World Inside, best novel, 1973, for The Book of Skulls, best novel, 1973, for Dying Inside, best short story, 1973, for “When We Went to See the End of the World,” best novella, 1975, for Born with the Dead, best short story, 1975, for “Schwartz between Galaxies,” best novel, 1976, for The Stochastic Man, best novel, 1977, for Shadrach in the Furnace, best novel, 1981, for Lord Valentine’s Castle, best short story, 1981, for “Our Lady of the Sauropods,” best novella, 1986, for Sailing to Byzantium, best novella, 1988, for The Secret Sharer, best novella, 1993, for Thebes of the Hundred Gates, best short story, 1995, for “Via Roma,” and best short story, 1996, for “Hot Times in Magma City”; Guest of Honor, World Science Fiction Convention, 1970; Nebula Awards, Science Fiction Writers of America, best short story, 1970, for “Passengers,” best short story, 1972, for “Good News from the Vatican,” best novel, 1972, for A Time of Changes, best novella, 1975, for Born with the Dead, and best novella, 1986, for Sailing to Byzantium; John W. Campbell Memorial Award, 1973, for excellence in writing; Jupiter Award, best novella, 1973, for The Feast of St. Dionysus; Prix Apollo, novel, 1976, for Nightwings; Milford Award, 1981, for editing; Locus Awards, best fantasy novel, 1982, for Lord Valentine’s Castle, and best anthology, 1999, for Legends: Short Novels by the Masters of Modern Fantasy; Grand Master, Science Fiction Writers of America, 2004.
WRITINGS:
SCIENCE FICTION
Master of Life and Death (also see below), Ace Books (New York, NY), 1957.
The Thirteenth Immortal (bound with This Fortress World by J.E. Gunn), Ace Books (New York, NY), 1957.
Invaders from Earth (bound with Across Time by D. Grinnell), Ace Books (New York, NY), 1958, published separately, Avon (New York, NY), 1968, published as We, the Marauders (bound with Giants in the Earth by James Blish under joint title A Pair in Space), Belmont (New York, NY), 1965.
Stepsons of Terra (bound with A Man Called Destiny by L. Wright), Ace Books (New York, NY), 1958, published separately, 1977.
The Planet Killers (bound with We Claim These Stars! by Poul Anderson), Ace Books (New York, NY), 1959.
Collision Course, Avalon (New York, NY), 1961.
Next Stop the Stars (story collection) [and] The Seed of Earth (novel), Ace Books (New York, NY), 1962, published separately, 1977.
Recalled to Life, Lancer Books (New York, NY), 1962.
The Silent Invaders (bound with Battle on Venus by William F. Temple), Ace Books (New York, NY), 1963, published separately, 1973.
Godling, Go Home! (story collection), Belmont (NewYork, NY), 1964.
Conquerors from the Darkness, Holt (New York, NY), 1965.
To Worlds Beyond: Stories of Science Fiction, Chilton (Philadelphia, PA), 1965.
Needle in a Timestack (story collection), Ballantine Books (New York, NY), 1966, revised edition, Ace Books (New York, NY), 1985.
Planet of Death, Holt (New York, NY), 1967.
Thorns, Ballantine Books (New York, NY), 1967.
Those Who Watch, New American Library (New York, NY), 1967.
The Time-Hoppers, Doubleday (New York, NY), 1967.
To Open the Sky (story collection), Ballantine Books (New York, NY), 1967.
Hawksbill Station, Doubleday (New York, NY), 1968, published as The Anvil of Time, Sidgwick & Jackson (London, England), 1968.
The Masks of Time, Ballantine Books (New York, NY), 1968, published as Vornan-19, Sidgwick & Jackson (London, England), 1970.
Dimension Thirteen (story collection), Ballantine Books (New York, NY), 1969.
The Man in the Maze, Avon (New York, NY), 1969.
Nightwings, Avon (New York, NY), 1969.
(Contributor) Three for Tomorrow: Three Original Novellas of Science Fiction, Meredith Press (New York, NY), 1969.
Three Survived, Holt (New York, NY), 1969.
To Live Again, Doubleday (New York, NY), 1969.
Up the Line, Ballantine Books (New York, NY), 1969, revised edition, 1978.
The Cube Root of Uncertainty (story collection), Macmillan (New York, NY), 1970.
Downward to the Earth, Doubleday (New York, NY), 1970.
Parsecs and Parables: Ten Science Fiction Stories, Doubleday (New York, NY), 1970.
A Robert Silverberg Omnibus (contains Master of Life and Death, Invaders from Earth, and The Time-Hoppers), Sidgwick & Jackson (London, England), 1970.
Tower of Glass, Scribner (New York, NY), 1970, reprinted, Gollancz (London, England), 2001.
Moonferns and Starsongs (story collection), Ballantine Books (New York, NY), 1971.
Son of Man, Ballantine Books (New York, NY), 1971, reprinted, Gollancz (London, England), 2003.
A Time of Changes, New American Library (New York, NY), 1971.
The World Inside, Doubleday (New York, NY), 1971.
The Book of Skulls, Scribner (New York, NY), 1972, reprinted, Del Rey/Ballantine Books (New York, NY), 2006.
Dying Inside, Scribner (New York, NY), 1972, recorded by the author, Caedmon, 1979.
The Reality Trip and Other Implausibilities (story collection), Ballantine Books (New York, NY), 1972.
The Second Trip, Doubleday (New York, NY), 1972.
(Contributor) The Day the Sun Stood Still, Thomas Nelson (Nashville, TN), 1972.
Earth’s Other Shadow: Nine Science Fiction Stories, New American Library (New York, NY), 1973.
(Contributor) An Exaltation of Stars: Transcendental Adventures in Science Fiction (includes short story “The Feast of St. Dionysus”), edited by Terry Carr, Simon & Schuster (New York, NY), 1973.
(Contributor) No Mind of Man: Three Original Novellas of Science Fiction, Hawthorn (New York, NY), 1973.
Unfamiliar Territory (story collection), Scribner (New York, NY), 1973.
Valley beyond Time (story collection), Dell (New York, NY), 1973.
Born with the Dead: Three Novellas about the Spirit of Man, Random House (New York, NY), 1974.
Sundance and Other Science Fiction Stories, Thomas Nelson (Nashville, TN), 1974.
The Feast of St. Dionysus: Five Science Fiction Stories, Scribner (New York, NY), 1975.
The Stochastic Man, Harper (New York, NY), 1975.
The Best of Robert Silverberg, Volume 1, Pocket Books (New York, NY), 1976, Volume 2, Gregg Press (Boston, MA), 1978.
Capricorn Games (story collection), Random House(New York, NY), 1976.
Shadrach in the Furnace, Bobbs-Merrill (Indianapolis, IN), 1976.
The Shores of Tomorrow (story collection), Thomas Nelson (Nashville, TN), 1976.
The Songs of Summer and Other Stories, Gollancz (London, England), 1979.
Lord Valentine’s Castle, Harper (New York, NY), 1980.
The Desert of Stolen Dreams, Underwood-Miller, 1981.
A Robert Silverberg Omnibus (contains Downward to the Earth, The Man in the Maze, and Nightwings), Harper (New York, NY), 1981.
Majipoor Chronicles, Arbor House (New York, NY), 1982.
World of a Thousand Colors (story collection), Arbor House (New York, NY), 1982.
Valentine Pontifex (sequel to Lord Valentine’s Castle), Arbor House (New York, NY), 1983.
The Conglomeroid Cocktail Party (story collection), Arbor House (New York, NY), 1984.
Sailing to Byzantium, Underwood-Miller (New York, NY), 1985.
Tom O’Bedlam, Donald I. Fine (New York, NY), 1985, reprinted, Olmstead Press (Chicago, IL), 2001.
Beyond the Safe Zone: Collected Short Fiction of Robert Silverberg, Donald I. Fine (New York, NY), 1986.
Star of Gypsies, Donald I. Fine (New York, NY), 1986, reprinted, Pyr (Amherst, NY), 2005.
At Winter’s End, Warner (New York, NY), 1988, University of Nebraska Press (Lincoln, NE), 2005.
Born with the Dead (bound with The Saliva Tree byBrian W. Aldiss), Tor Books (New York, NY), 1988.
To the Land of the Living, Gollancz (London, England), 1989.
(With wife, Karen Haber) The Mutant Season, Foundation/Doubleday (New York, NY), 1989.
The New Srintime Warner (New York NY) 1990.
In Another Country: Vintage Season, Tor Books (New York, NY), 1990.
(With Isaac Asimov) Nightfall, Doubleday (New York, NY), 1990.
Time Gate II, Baen Books (New York, NY), 1990.
The Face of the Waters, Bantam (New York, NY), 1991.
(With Isaac Asimov) Child of Time, Gollancz (London, England), 1991.
(With Isaac Asimov) The Ugly Little Boy, Doubleday (New York, NY), 1992.
Thebes of the Hundred Gates, Pulphouse, 1992.
The Collected Stories of Robert Silverberg, Volume 1: Secret Sharers, Bantam, 1992, published in 2 volumes, Grafton (London, England), 1992.
(With Isaac Asimov) The Positronic Man, Doubleday (New York, NY), 1993.
Kingdoms of the Wall, Bantam (New York, NY), 1993.
Hot Sky at Midnight, Bantam (New York, NY), 1994.
The Mountains of Majipoor, Bantam (New York, NY), 1995.
Starborne, Bantam (New York, NY), 1996.
The Alien Years, HarperPrism (New York, NY), 1998.
Shadow on the Stars, Foxacre Press, 2000.
Cronos, I Books, 2001.
Longest Way Home, Gollancz (London, England), 2002.
In Another Country, and Other Short Novels, Five Star (Waterville, ME), 2002.
Roma Eterna, Eos (New York, NY), 2003.
(Author of introduction) Philip Wylie, The Disappearance, University of Nebraska Press (Lincoln, NE), 2004.
Phases of the Moon: Stories of Six Decades, Subterranean Press (Burton, MI), 2004.
Queen of Springtime, University of Nebraska Press (Lincoln, NE), 2005.
In the Beginning: Tales from the Pulp Era, Subterranean Press (Burton, MI), 2006.
To Be Continued: The Collected Stories of Robert Silverberg, Volume 1, Subterranean Press (Burton, MI), 2006.
To the Dark Star, 1962-69: The Collected Stories of Robert Silverberg, Volume 2, Subterranean Press (Burton, MI), 2007.
“LORD PRESTIMION” SERIES
Sorcerers of Majipoor, HarperPrism (New York, NY), 1996.
Lord Prestimion, HarperPrism (New York, NY), 1999.
King of Dreams, Eos (New York, NY), 2001.
JUVENILE FICTION
Revolt on Alpha C, Crowell (New York, NY), 1955.
Starman’s Quest, Gnome Press (Hicksville, NY), 1958.
Lost Race of Mars, Winston (Philadelphia, PA), 1960.
Regan’s Planet, Pyramid Books (New York, NY), 1964, revised edition published as World’s Fair, 1992, Follett (New York, NY), 1970.
Time of the Great Freeze, Holt (New York, NY), 1964.
The Mask of Akhnaten, Macmillan (New York, NY), 1965.
The Gate of Worlds, Holt (New York, NY), 1967.
The Calibrated Alligator and Other Science Fiction Stories, Holt (New York, NY), 1969.
Across a Billion Years, Dial (New York, NY), 1969.
Sunrise on Mercury and Other Science Fiction Stories, Thomas Nelson (Nashville, TN), 1975.
(Editor, with Charles G. Waugh and Martin H. Greenberg) The Science Fictional Dinosaur, Avon (New York, NY), 1982.
Project Pendulum, Walker (New York, NY), 1987.
Letters from Atlantis, Macmillan (New York, NY), 1990.
CHAPBOOKS
Absolutely Inflexible, Alexandria Digital Entertainment, 1998.
Hunters in the Forest, Random House (New York, NY), 2001.
Seventh Shrine, Tor (New York, NY), 2004.
NONFICTION
First American into Space, Monarch Books (Derby, CT), 1961.
Lost Cities and Vanished Civilizations, Chilton (Philadelphia, PA), 1962.
Empires in the Dust: Ancient Civilizations Brought to Light, Chilton (Philadelphia, PA), 1963.
The Fabulous Rockefellers: A Compelling, Personalized Account of One of America’s First Families, Monarch Books (Derby, CT), 1963.
Akhnaten: The Rebel Pharaoh, Chilton (Philadelphia, PA), 1964.
(Editor) Great Adventures in Archaeology, Dial (NewYork, NY), 1964.
Man before Adam: The Story of Man in Search of HisOrigins, Macrae Smith (Philadelphia, PA), 1964.
The Great Wall of China, Chilton (Philadelphia, PA), 1965, published as The Long Rampart: The Storyof the Great Wall of China, 1966.
Scientists and Scoundrels: A Book of Hoaxes, Crowell(New York, NY), 1965, reprinted, University ofNebraska Press (Lincoln, NE), 2007.
Bridges, Macrae Smith (Philadelphia, PA), 1966.
Frontiers in Archaeology, Chilton (Philadelphia, PA), 1966.
The Auk, the Dodo, and the Oryx: Vanished and Vanishing Creatures, Crowell (New York, NY), 1967.
Light for the World: Edison and the Power Industry, Van Nostrand (Princeton, NJ), 1967.
Men against Time: Salvage Archaeology in the UnitedStates, Macmillan (New York, NY), 1967.
Mound Builders of Ancient America: The Archaeology of a Myth, New York Graphic Society (New York, NY), 1968.
The Challenge of Climate: Man and His Environment, Meredith Press (New York, NY), 1969.
The World of Space, Meredith Press (New York, NY), 1969.
If I Forget Thee, 0 Jerusalem: American Jews and the State of Israel, Morrow (New York, NY), 1970.
The Pueblo Revolt, Weybright & Talley (New York, NY), 1970.
Before the Sphinx: Early Egypt, Thomas Nelson (Nashville, TN), 1971.
Clocks for the Ages: How Scientists Date the Past, Macmillan (New York, NY), 1971.
To the Western Shore: Growth of the United States, 1776-1853, Doubleday (New York, NY), 1971.
The Longest Voyage: Circumnavigators in the Age of Discovery, Bobbs-Merrill (New York, NY), 1972.
The Realm of Prester John, Doubleday (New York, NY), 1972.
(Contributor) Those Who Can, New American Library (New York, NY), 1973.
Drug Themes in Science Fiction, National Institute on Drug Abuse (Rockville, MD), 1974.
(Contributor) Hell’s Cartographers: Some Personal Histories of Science Fiction Writers, Harper (New York, NY), 1975.
JUVENILE NONFICTION
Treasures beneath the Sea, Whitman Publishing (Racine, WI), 1960.
Fifteen Battles That Changed the World, Putnam (NewYork, NY), 1963.
Home of the Red Man: Indian North America before Columbus, New York Graphic Society (Greenwich, CT), 1963.
Sunken History: The Story of Underwater Archaeology, Chilton (Philadelphia, PA), 1963.
The Great Doctors, Putnam (New York, NY), 1964.
The Man Who Found Nineveh: The Story of Austen Henry Layard, Holt (New York, NY), 1964.
Men Who Mastered the Atom, Putnam (New York, NY), 1965.
Niels Bohr: The Man Who Mapped the Atom, MacraeSmith (Philadelphia, PA), 1965.
The Old Ones: Indians of the American Southwest, New York Graphic Society (New York, NY), 1965.
Socrates, Putnam (New York, NY), 1965.
The World of Coral, Duell, Sloan and Pearce (New York, NY), 1965.
Forgotten by Time: A Book of Living Fossils, Crowell (New York, NY), 1966.
To the Rock of Darius: The Story of Henry Rawlinson, Holt (New York, NY), 1966.
The Adventures of Nat Palmer: Antarctic Explorer and Clipper Ship Pioneer, McGraw, 1967.
The Dawn of Medicine, Putnam (New York, NY), 1967.
The Morning of Mankind: Prehistoric Man in Europe, New York Graphic Society (New York, NY), 1967.
The World of the Rain Forest, Meredith Press (New York, NY), 1967.
Four Men Who Changed the Universe, Putnam (New York, NY), 1968.
Ghost Towns of the American West, Crowell (New York, NY), 1968.
Stormy Voyager: The Story of Charles Wilkes, Lippin-cott (Philadelphia, PA), 1968.
The World of the Ocean Depths, Meredith Press (New York, NY), 1968.
Bruce of the Blue Nile, Holt (New York, NY), 1969.
Vanishing Giants: The Story of the Sequoias, Simon & Schuster (New York, NY), 1969.
Wonders of Ancient Chinese Science, Hawthorn (New York, NY), 1969.
Mammoths, Mastodons, and Man, McGraw (New York, NY), 1970.
The Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, Crowell-Collier (New York, NY), 1970.
(With Arthur C. Clarke) Into Space: A Young Person’s Guide to Space, Harper (New York, NY), revised edition, 1971.
John Muir: Prophet among the Glaciers, Putnam (New York, NY), 1972.
The World within the Ocean Wave, Weybright & Talley (New York, NY), 1972.
The World within the Tide Pool, Weybright & Talley (New York, NY), 1972.
EDITOR; SCIENCE FICTION
Earthmen and Strangers: Nine Stories of Science Fiction, Duell, Sloan and Pearce (New York, NY), 1966.
Voyagers in Time: Twelve Stories of Science Fiction, Meredith Press (New York, NY), 1967.
Men and Machines: Ten Stories of Science Fiction, Meredith Press (New York, NY), 1968.
Dark Stars, Ballantine Books (New York, NY), 1969.
Tomorrow’s Worlds: Ten Stories of Science Fiction, Meredith Press (New York, NY), 1969.
The Ends of Time: Eight Stories of Science Fiction, Hawthorn (New York, NY), 1970.
Great Short Novels of Science Fiction, Ballantine Books (New York, NY), 1970.
The Mirror of Infinity: A Critics’ Anthology of Science Fiction, Harper (New York, NY), 1970.
The Science Fiction Hall of Fame, Doubleday (New York, NY), Volume 1, 1970, published in two volumes, Sphere (London, England), 1972, reprinted in one volume, Tor (New York, NY), 2003.
Worlds of Maybe: Seven Stories of Science Fiction, Thomas Nelson (Nashville, TN), 1970.
Alpha, Volumes 1-6, Ballantine Books (New York, NY), 1971-74; Volumes 7-9, Berkley (New York, NY), 1977-78.
Four Futures, Hawthorn (New York, NY), 1971.
Mind to Mind: Nine Stories of Science Fiction, Thomas Nelson (Nashville, TN), 1971.
The Science Fiction Bestiary: Nine Stories of Science Fiction, Thomas Nelson (Nashville, TN), 1971.
To the Stars: Eight Stories of Science Fiction, Hawthorn (New York, NY), 1971.
Beyond Control: Seven Stories of Science Fiction, Thomas Nelson (Nashville, TN), 1972.
Invaders from Space: Ten Stories of Science Fiction, Hawthorn (New York, NY), 1972.
Chains of the Sea: Three Original Novellas of Science Fiction, Thomas Nelson (Nashville, TN), 1973.
Deep Space: Eight Stories of Science Fiction, Thomas Nelson (Nashville, TN), 1973.
Other Dimensions: Ten Stories of Science Fiction, Hawthorn (New York, NY), 1973.
Three Trips in Time and Space, Hawthorn (New York, NY), 1973.
Infinite Jests: The Lighter Side of Science Fiction, Chilton (Philadelphia PA) 1974.
Mutants: Eleven Stories of Science Fiction, Thomas Nelson (Nashville, TN), 1974.
Threads of Time: Three Original Novellas of Science Fiction, Thomas Nelson (Nashville, TN), 1974.
Windows into Tomorrow: Nine Stories of Science Fiction, Hawthorn (New York, NY), 1974.
(With Roger Elwood) Epoch, Berkley (New York, NY), 1975.
Explorers of Space: Eight Stories of Science Fiction, Thomas Nelson (Nashville, TN), 1975.
The New Atlantis and Other Novellas of Science Fiction, Warner Books (New York, NY), 1975.
Strange Gifts: Eight Stories of Science Fiction, Thomas Nelson (Nashville, TN), 1975.
The Aliens: Seven Stories of Science Fiction, Thomas Nelson (Nashville, TN), 1976.
The Crystal Ship: Three Original Novellas of Science Fiction, Thomas Nelson (Nashville, TN), 1976.
Earth Is the Strangest Planet: Ten Stories of Science Fiction, Thomas Nelson (Nashville, TN), 1977.
Galactic Dreamers: Science Fiction as Visionary Literature, Random House (New York, NY), 1977.
The Infinite Web: Eight Stories of Science Fiction, Dial (New York, NY), 1977.
Triax: Three Original Novellas, Pinnacle (New York, NY), 1977.
Trips in Time: Nine Stories of Science Fiction, Thomas Nelson (Nashville, TN), 1977.
Lost Worlds, Unknown Horizons: Nine Stories of Science Fiction, Thomas Nelson (Nashville, TN), 1978.
The Androids Are Coming: Seven Stories of Science Fiction, Elsevier-Nelson (New York, NY), 1979.
(With Martin H. Greenberg and Joseph D. Olander) CarSinister, Avon (New York, NY), 1979.
(With Martin H. Greenberg and Joseph D. Olander)Dawn of Time: Prehistory through Science Fiction, Elsevier-Nelson (New York, NY), 1979.
The Edge of Space: Three Original Novellas of ScienceFiction, Elsevier-Nelson (New York, NY), 1979.
(With Martin H. Greenberg) The Arbor House Treasuryof Great Science Fiction Short Novels, Arbor House(New York, NY), 1980.
(With Martin H. Greenberg) The Arbor House Treasuryof Modern Science Fiction, Arbor House (NewYork, NY), 1980.
Randall Garrett, The Best of Randall Garrett, PocketBooks (New York, NY), 1982.
The Nebula Awards, Arbor House (New York, NY), 1983.
(With Martin H. Greenberg) The Arbor House Treasury of Science Fiction Masterpieces, Arbor House (New York, NY), 1983.
(With Martin H. Greenberg) The Fantasy Hall of Fame, Arbor House (New York, NY), 1983.
(With Martin H. Greenberg) The Time Travelers: A Science Fiction Quartet, Donald I. Fine (New York, NY), 1985.
(With Martin H. Greenberg) Neanderthals, New American Library (New York, NY), 1987.
Robert Silverberg’s Worlds of Wonder, Warner (New York, NY), 1987.
(With Martin H. Greenberg) The Mammoth Book ofFantasy All-Time Greats, Robinson (New York, NY), 1988.
Worlds Imagined: Fifteen Short Stories, Avenel Books (New York, NY), 1989.
(With Karen Haber) Universe 1, Foundation/Doubleday (New York NY) 1990.
(With Karen Haber) Universe 2, Bantam Books (New York, NY), 1992.
Alfred Bester, Virtual Unrealities: The Short Fiction of Alfred Bester, Vintage (New York, NY), 1997.
Legends: Short Novels by the Masters of Modern Fantasy, Tor Books (New York, NY), 1997.
A Century of Fantasy, 1980-1989, MJF Books (New York, NY), 1997.
A Century of Science Fiction, 1950-1959, MJF Books (New York, NY), 1997.
Far Horizons: All New Tales from the Greatest Worlds of Science Fiction, Avon Eos (New York, NY), 1999.
Nebula Award Showcase, 2001, Harcourt/Harvest (New York, NY), 2001.
Legends II: New Short Novels by the Masters of Modern Fantasy, Del Rey/Ballantine Books (New York, NY), 2004.
EDITOR; “NEW DIMENSIONS” SERIES
The Best of New Dimensions, Pocket Books (New York, NY), 1979.
New Dimensions, Volumes 1-5, Doubleday (New York, NY), Volumes 6-10, Harper (New York, NY), (with Marta Randall) Volumes 11-12, Pocket Books (New York, NY), 1980-81.
UNDER PSEUDONYM WALKER CHAPMAN
The Loneliest Continent: The Story of Antarctic Discovery, New York Graphic Society (New York, NY), 1964.
(Editor) Antarctic Conquest: The Great Explorers in Their Own Words, Bobbs-Merrill (New York, NY), 1966.
Kublai Khan: Lord of Xanadu, Bobbs-Merrill (New York, NY), 1966.
The Golden Dream: Seekers of El Dorado, Bobbs-Merrill (New York, NY) 1967, published as The Search for El Dorado, 1967.
UNDER PSEUDONYM DON ELLIOTT
Flesh Peddlers, Nightstand (New York, NY), 1960.
Passion Trap, Nightstand (New York, NY), 1960.
Backstage Sinner, Nightstand (New York, NY), 1961.
Lust Goddess, Nightstand (New York, NY), 1961.
Sin Cruise, Nightstand (New York, NY), 1961.
Kept Man, Midnight (New York, NY), 1962.
Shame House, Midnight (New York, NY), 1962.
Sin Hellion, Ember (New York, NY), 1963.
Sin Servant, Nightstand (New York, NY), 1963.
Beatnik Wanton, Evening (New York, NY), 1964.
Flesh Bride, Evening (New York, NY), 1964.
Flesh Prize, Leisure (New York, NY), 1964.
Flesh Taker, Ember (New York, NY), 1964.
Sin Warped, Leisure (New York, NY), 1964.
Switch Trap, Evening (New York, NY), 1964.
Nudie Packet, Idle Hour (New York, NY), 1965.
The Young Wanton, Sundown (New York, NY), 1965.
Depravity Town, Reed (New York, NY), 1973.
Jungle Street, Reed (New York, NY), 1973.
Summertime Affair, Reed (New York, NY), 1973.
OTHER
(With Randall Garrett, under joint pseudonym Robert Randall) The Shrouded Planet, Gnome Press (New York, NY), 1957, published under names Robert Silverberg and Randall Garrett, Donning (New York, NY), 1980.
(Under pseudonym Calvin M. Knox) Lest We Forget Thee, Earth, Ace Books (New York, NY), 1958.
(Under pseudonym David Osborne) Aliens from Space, Avalon (New York, NY), 1958.
(Under pseudonym Ivar Jorgenson) Starhaven, Avalon (New York, NY), 1958.
(Under pseudonym David Osborne) Invisible Barriers, Avalon (New York, NY), 1958.
(With Randall Garrett, under joint pseudonym Robert Randall) The Dawning Light, Gnome Press (New York, NY), 1959, published under names Robert Silverberg and Randall Garrett, Donning (New York NY) 1981.
(Under pseudonym Calvin M. Knox) The Plot against Earth, Ace Books (New York, NY), 1959.
(Under pseudonym Walter Drummond) Philosopher of Evil, Regency Books (New York, NY), 1962.
(Under pseudonym Walter Drummond) How to Spend Money, Regency Books (New York, NY), 1963.
(Under pseudonym Franklin Hamilton) 1066, Dial (New York, NY), 1963.
(Under pseudonym Calvin M. Knox) One of Our Asteroids Is Missing, Ace Books (New York, NY), 1964.
(Under pseudonym Paul Hollander) The Labors of Hercules, Putnam (New York, NY), 1965.
(Under pseudonym Franklin Hamilton) The Crusades, Dial (New York, NY), 1965.
(Under pseudonym Lloyd Robinson) The Hopefuls: Ten Presidential Candidates, Doubleday (New York, NY), 1966.
(Under pseudonym Roy Cook) Leaders of Labor, Lippincott (Philadelphia, PA), 1966.
(Under pseudonym Lee Sebastian) Rivers, Holt (New York, NY), 1966.
(Under pseudonym Franklin Hamilton) Challenge for a Throne: The Wars of the Roses, Dial (New York, NY), 1967.
(Under pseudonym Lloyd Robinson) The Stolen Election: Hayes versus Tilden, Doubleday (New York, NY), 1968.
(Under pseudonym Paul Hollander) Sam Houston, Putnam (New York, NY), 1968.
(Under pseudonym Lee Sebastian) The South Pole, Holt (New York, NY), 1968.
Lord of Darkness (fiction), Arbor House (New York, NY), 1983.
Gilgamesh the King (fiction), Arbor House (New York, NY), 1984.
Reflections and Refractions: Thoughts on Science-Fiction, Science, and Other Matters, Underwood Books (Grass Valley, CA), 1997.
Also author of short story “Passengers,” published in Orbit 4, edited by Damon Knight, 1969; of novella To Jorslem, published in the periodical Galaxy, February, 1969; of short story “The World Outside,” published in Galaxy, October, 1970; of short story “Good News from the Vatican,” published in Universe 1, edited by Terry Carr, 1971; of short story “When We Went to See the End of the World,” published in Universe 2, edited by Terry Carr, 1972; of short story “Schwartz between the Galaxies,” published in Stellar 1, edited by Judy Lynn del Rey, 1973; of short story “Our Lady of the Sauro-pods,” published in the periodical Omni, September, 1980; of short story “The Pope of Chimps,” published in Perpetual Light, edited by Alan Ryan, 1982; of novella Homefaring, published in the periodical Amazing Stories, November, 1983; of novella Gilgamesh in the Outback, published in the periodical Asimov’s Science Fiction, July, 1986; of novella The Secret Sharer, published in Asimov’s Science Fiction, September, 1987; of novella Enter a Soldier. Later: Enter Another, published in Asimov’s Science Fiction, June, 1989; of short story “Via Roma,” published in Asimov’s Science Fiction, April, 1994; of short story “Hot Times in Magma City,” published in Asimov’s Science Fiction, December, 1995.
Also author of eighty other novels, 1959-65, under pseudonyms Dan Eliot and Don Elliott.
Contributor, sometimes under pseudonyms, to periodicals Omni, Playboy, Amazing Stories Science Fiction, Fantastic Stories Science Fiction, Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, and other publications.
ADAPTATIONS: Silverberg’s stories “To See the Invisible Man” and “Passengers” were adapted for the audio recording Robert Silverberg Reads “To See the Invisible Man” and “Passengers,” Pelican Records, 1979.
SIDELIGHTS: Robert Silverberg is among the best-known contemporary science-fiction writers in the United States. A prolific author, he has won the field’s prestigious Nebula and Hugo awards and has received more award nominations for his work than any other writer in the genre. Interestingly, despite his prominence in the field, Silverberg’s science fiction makes up only a portion of his total production—indeed, he has even left the field entirely to work in other genres on two separate occasions. Much of Silverberg’s work has been nonfiction, reflecting his interests in such varied topics as archaeology, conservation, history, and the natural sciences. He has received awards for several of these nonfiction books, while his Mound Builders of Ancient America: The Archaeology of a Myth has been hailed as one of the standard works on the subject. Still, this considerable success in the nonfiction field is overshadowed by his continuing popularity among science-fiction fans. As George R.R. Martin, writing in the Washington Post Book World, observed, Silverberg “is best known and best regarded for his work within science fiction.”
Silverberg began his writing career while still a student at Columbia University in the 1950s. He had decided to become a science-fiction writer because of his own reaction to the genre as a boy. He told Jeffrey M. Elliot in Science Fiction Voices #2: “When I was a boy, I read science fiction and it did wonderful things for me. It opened the universe to me. I feel a sense of obligation to science fiction to replace what I had taken from it, to add to the shelf, to put something there for someone else that would do for them what other writers had done for me.” Silverberg’s first sales were to the science fiction magazines of the 1950s, and his first book, Revolt on Alpha C (1955), was a juvenile science-fiction novel. Upon graduation from Columbia in 1956, he became a full-time freelance writer. His work was already so popular that the World Science Fiction Convention, a gathering of the genre’s devotees, voted to give him the Hugo Award as the best new writer of 1955. At the time, Silverberg was only twenty years old.
During the 1950s, Silverberg produced hundreds of stories for the science fiction magazines. His production was so voluminous that he was obliged to publish much of this work under a host of pseudonyms. Silverberg recalled that time to Charles Platt in Dream Makers: The Uncommon People Who Write Science Fiction: “I was courted by editors considerably back then, because I was so dependable; if they said, ‘Give me a story by next Thursday,’ I would.” George W. Tuma characterized these early stories in the Dictionary of Literary Biography as “conform[ing] closely to the conventions of science fiction: alien beings, technological gadgetry, standard plot devices, confrontations between [Earthlings] and extraterrestrial beings, and so forth.”
In 1959, a downturn in sales forced many science-fiction magazines out of business. No longer able to support himself by writing for the genre—and somewhat disillusioned by the formulaic nature of the work desired by publishers—Silverberg instead turned to writing articles for popular magazines, maintaining his high level of production by turning out two pieces every working day. By the early 1960s, he began writing juvenile nonfiction, a career transition he once recalled with some relief to CA. “I severed my connections with my sleazy magazine outlets and ascended into this new, astoundingly respectable and rewarding career,” he explained. In a few years Silverberg established himself as one of the most successful nonfiction writers in the country, publishing books about Antarctica, ancient Egypt, the U.S. space program, medical history, and a host of other topics for young readers. “I was considered one of the most skilled popularizers of the sciences in the United States,” the author remembered.
During the 1960s, Silverberg maintained a rapid writing pace, publishing nearly two million words per year, not only juvenile nonfiction works but science-fiction novels, such as the highly praised Collision Course, 1963’s The Silent Invaders; many short SF stories; and rewrites of many of his earlier novels. He told Elliot that he managed to write prolifically due to intense concentration. “I concentrated on a point source and the words just came out right,” the author recalled.
However, the years of prolific writing finally ended in the mid-1960s. Silverberg later cited two factors for the slowdown in his production at that time. The first was a hyperactive thyroid gland, brought on by prolonged overwork, which forced him in 1966 to slow his working pace considerably. The second factor was a fire in early 1968 at Silverberg’s New York City home. This fire, he once told CA, “drained from me, evidently forever, much of the bizarre energy that had allowed me to write a dozen or more significant books in a single year.”
Despite the drop in production, the late 1960s found the author embarking on more experimental science-fiction writing. In fact, it is the work from this period that most observers credit as the beginning of his serious fiction in the genre. Thomas D. Clareson, although noting in his book Robert Silverberg that “from the beginning, he was a skilled storyteller,” marked 1969 to 1976 the period when Silverberg “conducted his most deliberate experiments and attained the most consistent command of his material.” 1967’s Thorns has been cited as the author’s transitional work through its focus on not only the physical universe, but the inner, psychic universe as reflected by philosophical, psychological, and social elements. In the novel, human protagonist Minner Burris has been physically altered to conform to beings on the planet Manipol. On Manipol, while now accepted for his appearance, Burris is emotionally isolated from native Manipolians due to his social, cultural, and psychological differences. Eventually returning to Earth, he finds himself rejected due to his unusual appearance. Burris’s resulting alienation from human society is contrasted with that of other characters, whose circumstances have set them apart while their inner natures continue to need the contact of fellow humans.
In part, the change in Silverberg’s science fiction of the late 1960s reflected shifts in the field as a whole. The New Wave, a movement of writers (including Silverberg) trying to break out of the genre’s pulp formulas and utilize the techniques of modernist literature, had a powerful influence on many writers in the field. New subjects and approaches were suddenly suitable for commercial science fiction. Referring to such novels as Nightwings (1969) and Hawksbill Station (1968) in an article in the New York Times Book Review, Theodore Sturgeon maintained that Silverberg “changed into something quite new and different—his own man, saying his own things his own way, and doing it with richness and diversity.” Tuma also saw a transformation in Silverberg’s work, stating that the author finally “found his unique approach to science fiction, in terms of both content and writing style.” Speaking of the novels Thorns and Hawksbill Station, as well as of the story “To See the Invisible Man,” Stableford saw Silverberg as using “science fictional ideas to dramatize situations of extreme alienation.”
As Silverberg sought to extend the range of science fiction, his experiments with style and narrative structure continued into the 1970s. “Having already proved that he could write every kind of SF story at least as well as anyone else,” Gerald Jonas commented in the New York Times Book Review, “Silverberg set out… to stretch both the genre and himself.” In 1971’s Son of Man, for example, Silverberg writes of a series of bizarre adventure sequences set on “not the physical planet Earth but the Earth of human perception—the model world of the mind,” as Stableford related. Clay, the novel’s aptly named protagonist, time-shifts to the future, where he meets several species of humanoids that have evolved in differing directions. In this future world, communication between beings involves sexual contact, and Clay eventually experiences unity and transcendence through understanding the heightened significance of physical union.
Despite the fact that his new approach in his work put Silverberg in the forefront of the science fiction field—“By the 1970s Silverberg was writing science fiction much as such of his contemporaries as Barth, Reed, Bartheleme, and Coover were presenting their renditions of everyday American life,” Clareson commented in Voices for the Future: Essays on Major Science-Fiction Writers— Silverberg was dissatisfied with the response to his work. His books won awards, but their sales were poor and they often met with uninformed critical comments from science fiction purists. “I was at first bewildered by the response I was getting from the audience, ” Silverberg told Platt. “There are passages in Dying Inside or in Nightwings which I think are sheer ecstatic song, but people would come up to me and say, ‘Why do you write such depressing books?’ Something was wrong.” By 1975 all of Silverberg’s more serious books, upon which he had placed such importance, were out of print. At that point he announced his retirement from science fiction.
For the next four years, Silverberg wrote no new science fiction. Instead, he devoted his time to the garden of his California home. “I had had my career,” the author once recalled to CA. “Now I had my garden.” But in 1978 he was pushed back into the field after he and his first wife separated and she required a house of her own. To raise the necessary money, Silverberg decided to write “one last book.” The result, Lord Valentine’s Castle, was a massive novel that set a record (for its time) when it was offered to publishers at auction. Harper & Row paid the largest sum ever given for a science fiction novel, $127,500. Silverberg was a writer again.
In Lord Valentine’s Castle, Silverberg mixes elements from science fiction and heroic fantasy. The science-fiction elements include a far-future setting, the imaginary planet of Majipoor, and a host of exotic alien life forms. However, the plot is common to the fantasy genre. It involves a quest by the exiled prince of a distant planet to regain the throne of Majipoor, right the ancient wrong of dispossession committed against the planet’s original inhabitants, the primitive Metamorph peoples, and rejuvenate his own self-confidence. The clever combination of genre elements was praised by Jack Sullivan in the New York Times Book Review. Sullivan described Lord Valentine’s Castle as “an imaginative fusion of action, sorcery and science fiction, with visionary adventure scenes undergirded by scientific explanations.” In his book Robert Silverberg, Clareson stated that “whatever else it does, Lord Valentine’s Castle demands that its readers re-examine the relationship between science fiction and fantasy, for in this narrative Silverberg has fused the two together.”
The rich diversity of the planet Majipoor was remarked upon by several reviewers, including Patrick Parrinder, writing in the Times Literary Supplement. “Silverberg’s invention,” Parrinder wrote, “is prodigious throughout. The early sections… are a near-encyclopaedia of unnatural wonders and weird ecosystems. I suspect this book breaks all records in the coinage of new species.” John Charnay, writing in the Los Angeles Times Book Review, although believing the book “lacks depth of dialogue and emotion to match the grandeur of scenery and plot,” still found that “Silverberg’s inventiveness is intriguing.”
The success of Lord Valentine’s Castle drew Silverberg back into the writing life. He began to write stories for Omni magazine, where several old friends were working. In 1982 he published Majipoor Chronicles, a novel fashioned from several short stories set on the planet introduced in Lord Valentine’s Castle. Each story is an episode from Majipoor’s history, which has been stored on an experience-record. By using a futuristic reading machine, a young boy is able to relive these historical events. “As a result,” Michael Bishop commented in the Washington Post Book World, “the stories become something more than stories—vivid initiation experiences in the boy’s struggle to manhood. A neat trick, this.”
With the novel Valentine Pontifex, Silverberg did what he had once vowed he would never do: write a sequel to Lord Valentine’s Castle. Colin Greenland, writing in the Times Literary Supplement, who had maintained that Lord Valentine’s Castle was a weak novel that “satisfied readers’ wishes for a great big safe world where nice things flourish and evil succumbs to forgiveness,” saw Silverberg’s sequel as an “act of conscience for Lord Valentine’s Castle.” In Valentine Pontifex, Lord Valentine, now restored to his position as ruler of Maji-poor, faces opposition from the Piurivars, an aboriginal race dispossessed years before by Earthling colonists. The Piurivars release plagues and deadly bio-engineered creatures upon the humans. Finding that “the lazy pace through time and space” found in Lord Valentine’s Castle gives way in this novel “to a dance of conflicting emotions and political intrigue,” a reviewer for the Voice Literary Supplement regarded Lord Valentine’s Castle, Majipoor Chronicles, and Valentine Pontifex as related works forming a loose trilogy that “becomes a whole in a way that the form rarely achieves.”
Silverberg continued the Majipoor series with The Mountains of Majipoor, Sorcerers of Majipoor, and Lord Prestimion. The Mountains of Majipoor “is a modest story,” recounted Roland Green in Booklist, “but the marvelously well realized world of Majipoor and Silverberg’s graceful prose carry it along in a fashion that most lovers of Majipoor will find highly satisfying.” Lord Prestimion, published in 1999, was also well received by critics. Jackie Cassada in Library Journal wrote: “Silverberg excels at balancing strong characters and complex plotting to achieve a rare example of epic fantasy told with a scientist’s eye for detail.”
In the years since his return from self-imposed “early retirement,” Silverberg has continued his work in the genre with both novels and short stories that expand upon his view of future worlds. Among those are 1988’s At Winter’s End, the following year’s To the Land of the Living, and Kingdoms of the Wall, which Silverberg published in 1993. Compared by one reviewer to the works of nineteenth-century fantasy writer Lord Dunsany, Kingdoms of the Wall follows the pilgrimage of a group of young alien beings to the summit of a daunting mountain range called Kosa Saag, or “the Wall.” The purpose of the pilgrimage is to learn from the gods who live at that great height. Traditionally, few pilgrims have ever returned from this annual trip, and none have ever returned sane. On the way, the group passes through numerous “worlds” at different levels of the mountains’ ascent, at one point coming across a space traveler, an “Irtiman” (Earthman), who has been stranded on their planet. He is weak from hunger and eventually dies. Finally, nearing the summit, the surviving members of the group are tempted to end their quest when they discover a land of magic where they can remain perpetually young. New York Times Book Review critic Gerald Jonas viewed the work as a religious parable “about the dangers of seeking more intimate contact with the powers that control the universe.” Disregarding the novel’s social or spiritual implications, Paul Di-Filippo lauded Kingdoms of the Wall in his Washington Post Book World review “for its first two-thirds, pure witchery, a Bosch-like canvas of strange creatures and places.… Kingdoms of the Wall proves once more, if it needed proving, that scaling and comprehending Robert Silverberg is just as exciting as tackling Kosa Saag.”
In Hot Sky at Midnight Silverberg examines the ecologic horrors that could result from an Earth polluted almost beyond habitability. Most areas of the planet cannot sustain life, and even in the more livable areas, residents must wear breathing masks and protect themselves from the sun with injections of a substance called screen, which darkens their skin. Huge stations in orbit around the planet provide more hospitable environments for humans. Victor Farkas, a blind corporate representative with heightened senses, travels to one of these stations, Nuevo Valparaiso, in search of a prodigiously talented genetic scientist who has fled the planet’s surface. Elsewhere on Earth, Nick Rhodes is CEO of a company involved in dubious experiments to create a new breed of humans hardy enough to survive in the harsh environment of the devastated Earth. Silverberg “delivers powerful images of a world blighted by ecological abuse, and a satisfying novel as well,” remarked a Publishers Weekly reviewer.
Starborne finds humanity on the cusp of colonizing new worlds when the first interstellar exploration mission is launched. Aboard the starship Wotan are fifty young, brilliant scientists, all assigned the mission of finding and claiming a new and healthy outpost for the human race. They maintain contact with Earth via a crewmember named Noelle, a blind telepath. Their first attempt to explore a promising new world proves deadly, however, and the disastrous mission results in a dead crewmember and apparent damage to Noelle’s telepathic link to Earth. As the story progresses, the crew of the Wotan starts to believe that an outside alien force is interfering with their attempt to establish a foothold for mankind on other worlds. Booklist critic Carl Hays called the novel a “profound, masterfully rendered chronicle of humanity’s first voyage to the stars.”
Many of Silverberg’s works have been supplemented in bookstores by reprints and limited editions of earlier, often unpublished works. His 1964 nonfiction work, Great Adventures in Archaeology, which contained the stories of ten working archaeologists of the time, was reprinted in 2002. Library Journal reviewer Michael Rogers mused that the “spirit of adventure is alive” within the book. In the Beginning: Tales from the Pulp Era contains sixteen of Silverberg’s earliest science fiction stories from the nascent years of the genre, as well as “autobiographical insights, glimpses into his creative process, and a mini-history of SF’s flaming pulp youth,” observed a Publishers Weekly reviewer. Though the stories are often rough-hewn and lacking in the subtlety and nuance of craft that would characterize Silverberg’s later work, they “do the job they were expected to do: entertain,” commented Booklist reviewer Regina Schroeder. To Be Continued: The Collected Stories of Robert Silverberg, Volume 1, inaugurates a series intended to gather together the majority of the author’s output. The first volume opens with his very first short fiction sale, “The Gorgon Years,” and includes two dozen tales from the first five years of Silverberg’s career, from 1953 to 1958. The collected tales in this volume “illustrate his apprenticeship and presage the Grand Master he has become,” observed a reviewer in Publishers Weekly. The second volume, To the Dark Star, 1962-69: The Collected Stories of Robert Silverberg, includes twenty-one stories that comprise Silverberg’s “first notable work,” pieces that will allow modern, younger readers of science fiction to “finally learn what all the completely justifiable fuss was about, commented another Publishers Weekly contributor.
Several other collections have drawn together some of Silverberg’s best short fiction from the 1970s and 1980s. The Conglomeroid Cocktail Party, released in 1984, collects several short stories from the early 1980s. Stan Gebler Davies, writing in Punch, praised Silverberg’s ability to portray time travel realistically. Citing included works, such as “Needles in a Timestack” and “Jennifer’s Lover,” Davies noted that “SSilverberg is hooked on time-travel and comes as near as any writer to getting away with it.” Also with the publication of the first part of The Collected Stories of Robert Silverberg in 1992, Silverberg devotees were able to sample twenty-four of his most critically acclaimed short stories of the 1980s. In addition to the novella “Sailing to Byzantium,” winner of the Nebula Award, and Enter a Soldier. Later: Enter Another,” a Hugo winner, are lesser-known but equally well-written works, each prefaced by the author’s own introduction, which puts the story into the context of the author’s total oeuvre. James Sallis, in a Los Angeles Times Book Review piece, observed of Silverberg: “This man who speaks so insistently of simple craftsmanship again and again delivers, surreptitiously and a little abashedly, it seems, a rare kind of art.”
In addition to his voluminous work as a writer, Silverberg has also influenced science fiction with his work as an editor. For example, in Far Horizons: All New Tales from the Greatest Worlds of Science Fiction, Silverberg collects tales from notable authors who use the stories to revisit worlds and venues they popularized in their longer works. Orson Scott Card contributes a story related to his Ender series; Joe Haldeman goes back to the world he created in The Forever War; Ursula K. LeGuin again writes of the universe portrayed in her novel The Left Hand of Darkness; and Frederick Pohl revisits the Heechee. The stories “deliver good first-contact experiences for series novices as well as happy reading for longtime fans,” commented Sally Estes in Booklist. Library Journal critic Jackie Cassada named the book a “ssampler of the best of the genre.” Legends: Short Novels by the Masters of Modern Fantasy and Legends II: New Short Novels by the Masters of Modern Fantasy serve a similar function for the fantasy genre, allowing noted writers to craft new adventures in their familiar fantasy worlds. In Legends, Stephen King pens a new tale for his Dark Tower series; Terry Pratchett offers a new Discworld story; Raymond Feist writes from his Riftwar universe; and Silverberg himself contributes a new work based in Majipoor. Booklist reviewer Ray Olson called Legends II “excellent introductions for newcomers to the authors’ series: solid fare for established readers.”
Over a writing career spanning several decades, Silverberg has produced an immense body of original fiction in several genres, authored numerous nonfiction works, and edited several highly praised collections. Commenting on Silverberg’s diversity, Martin reflected that “few writers, past or present, have had careers quite as varied, dramatic, and contradictory as that of Robert Silverberg.” As a writer of nonfiction, Silverberg has enjoyed success, but as a writer of science fiction, he is among a handful of writers who have helped to shape the field into what it is today. He is, Elliot declared, “a titan in the science fiction field.” There are “few science fiction readers,” Elliot continued, who “have not been enriched and inspired by his contributions to the genre, contributions which reflect his love of the field, and his deep respect for its readers.”
In his introduction to Galactic Dreamers: Science Fiction as Visionary Literature, Silverberg explains what he has been striving to attain in his work: “To show the reader something he has never been able to see with his own eyes, something strange and unique, beautiful and troubling, which draws him for a moment out of himself, places him in contact with the vastness of the universe, gives him for a sizzling moment a communion with the fabric of space and time, and leaves him forever transformed, forever enlarged.”
BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:
BOOKS
Aldiss, Brian, and Harry Harrison, editors, Hell’s Cartographers: Some Personal Histories of Science-Fiction Writers, Harper (New York, NY), 1975.
Children’s Literature Review, Volume 59, Gale (Detroit, MI), 2000.
Clareson, Thomas D., editor, Voices for the Future: Essays on Major Science Fiction Writers, Volume 2, Bowling Green State University Popular Press (Bowling Green, OH), 1976.
Clareson, Thomas D., Robert Silverberg, Starmont House (New York, NY), 1983.
Clareson, Thomas D., Robert Silverberg: A Primary and Secondary Bibliography, G.K. Hall (Boston, MA), 1983.
Contemporary Literary Criticism, Volume 7, Gale (Detroit, MI), 1977.
Dictionary of Literary Biography, Volume 8: Twentieth-Century American Science Fiction Writers, Gale (Detroit, MI), 1981.
Elliot, Jeffrey M., Science Fiction Voices #2, Borgo Press (San Bernardino, CA), 1979.
Magill, Frank N., editor, Survey of Science Fiction Literature, Salem Press (Englewood Cliffs, NJ), 1979.
Platt, Charles, Dream Makers: The Uncommon Men’ Women Who Write Science Fiction, Berkley Books (New York, NY), 1983.
Rabkin, Eric S., and others, editors, No Place Else, Southern Illinois University Press (Carbondale, IL), 1983.
Schweitzer, Darrell, editor, Exploring Fantasy Worlds: Essays on Fantastic Literature, Borgo Press (San Bernardino, CA), 1985.
Silverberg, Robert, editor, Galactic Dreamers: Science Fiction as Visionary Literature, Random House (New York, NY), 1977.
Stableford, Brian M., Masters of Science Fiction, Borgo Press (San Bernardino, CA), 1981.
Staicar, Tom, editor, Critical Encounters II, Unga(New York, NY), 1982.
Walker, Paul, Speaking of Science Fiction: The Paul Walker Interviews, Luna Publications (Oradell, NJ), 1978.
PERIODICALS
Atlantic, April, 1972, review of The Book of Skulls.
Booklist, February 1, 1995, review of The Mountains of Majipoor, p. 993; May 15, 1996, Carl Hays, review of Starborne, p. 1573; April 1, 1997, review of Reflections and Refractions: Thoughts on Science-Fiction, Science, and Other Matters, p. 1277; August, 1998, Sally Estes, review of Legends: Short Novels by the Masters of Modern Fantasy, p. 1924; January 1, 1999, review of Legends, p. 781; April 1, 1999, Stephanie Zvirin, review of Legends, p. 1401; May 15, 1999, Sally Estes, review of Far Horizons: All New Tales from the Greatest Worlds of Science Fiction, p. 1676; March 15, 2001, review of Nebula Awards Showcase, 2001, p. 1361; May 1, 2001, Roland Green, review of The King of Dreams, p. 1672; April 15, 2002, John Mort, review of The Longest Way Home, p. 1390; May 1, 2003, Roland Green, review of Roma Eterna, p. 1586; January 1, 2004, Ray Olson, review of Legends II: New Short Novels by the Masters of Modern Fantasy, p. 839; May 15, 2004, Frieda Murray, review of Phases of the Moon: Stories of Six Decades, p. 1604; February 1, 2006, Regina Schroeder, review of In the Beginning: Tales from the Pulp Era, p. 38; September 1, 2006, Roland Green, review of To Be Continued: The Collected Stories of Robert Silverberg, Volume 1, p. 67; April 15, 2007, Roland Green, review of To the Dark Star, 1962-69: The Collected Stories of Robert Silverberg, Volume 2, p. 26.
Kirkus Reviews, April 1, 2002, review of The Longest Way Home, p. 461; March 15, 2003, review of Roma Eterna, p. 434.
Kliatt, May, 2002, Judith H. Silverman, review of Legends, p. 30.
Library Journal, June 15, 1997, Susan Hamburger, review of Sorcerers of Majipoor, p. 101; August, 1998, Jackie Cassada, review of The Alien Years, p. 139; September 1, 1998, Michael Rogers, review of Great Adventures in Archaeology, p. 224; October 15, 1998, Jackie Cassada, review of Legends, p. 103; May 15, 1999, Jackie Cassada, review of Far Horizons, p. 130; August, 1999, review of Lord Prestimion, p. 147; June 15, 2001, Jackie Cassada, review of The King of Dreams, p. 106; July, 2002, Jackie Cassada, review of The Longest Way Home, p. 127; March 15, 2003, Jackie Cassada, review of The Science Fiction Hall of Fame, 1929-1964, p. 121; April 15, 2003, Jackie Cassada, review of Roma Eterna, p. 129; December, 2003, Jackie Cassada, review of Legends II, p. 172; February 15, 2005, Michael Rogers, review of Star of Gypsies, p. 172.
Locus, March, 1992, review of Thebes of the Hundred Gates, p. 60; April, 1992, review of Murasaki, p. 15; October, 1992, review of Murasaki, p. 33; January, 1993, review of Kingdoms of the Wall, pp. 22-23; February, 1994, review of Hot Sky at Midnight, p. 27.
Los Angeles Times Book Review, May 18, 1980, John Charnay, “In the Exotic Land of Vroons and Skan-dars,” review of Lord Valentine’s Castle, p. S7; September 13, 1987, review of Robert Silverberg’s Worlds of Wonder, p. 2; January 10, 1993, James Sallis, review of The Collected Stories of Robert Silverberg, Volume 1, p. 6.
MAGAZINE OF FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION, MAY, 1988, ORSON SCOTT CARD, REVIEW OF ROBERT SILVERBERG’S WORLDS OF WONDER, p. 82.
National Review, November 3, 1970, review of Science Fiction Hall of Fame, Volume 1, p. 1170.
New Statesman, June 18, 1976, review of The Stochastic Man, p. 821.
New York Times Book Review, May 9, 1965, review of Scientists and Scoundrels: A Book of Hoaxes, p. 12; November 3, 1968, review of Ghost Towns of the American West, p. 28; March 5, 1972, review of The World Inside, p. 37; August 24, 1975, review of Born with the Dead, p. 29; August 3, 1980, review of Lord Valentine’s Castle, p. 12; November 23, 1986, review of Star of Gypsies, p. 30; July 24, 1988, review of At Winter’s End, p. 25; December 31, 1989, review of The Mutant Season, p. 4; May 13, 1990, review of Universe 1, p. 35; May 3, 1992, review of Murasaki, p. 38; March 14, 1993, review of Kingdoms of the Wall, p. 14; November 14, 1993, review of The Positronic Man, p. 74; March 13, 1994, review of Hot Sky at Midnight, p. 30; June 30, 1996, review of Starborne, p. 28; July 28, 2002,
People, January 8, 1990, David Hiltbrand, review of The Mutant Season, p. 24; May 28, 1990, David Hiltbrand, review of The New Springtime, p. 31.
Publishers Weekly, August 31, 1990, Sybil Steinberg, review of Nightfall, p. 52; August 23, 1991, review of A Whisper of Blood, p. 44; August 30, 1991, review of The Face of the Waters, p. 71; August 24, 1992, review of To Be Continued, p. 76; September 21, 1992, review of The Ugly Little Boy, p. 80; November 1, 1993, review of The Positronic Man, p. 70; December 20, 1993, review of Hot Sky at Midnight, p. 54; January 16, 1995, review of The Mountains of Majipoor, p. 444; May 27, 1996, review of Starborne, p. 69; January 27, 1997, review of Reflections and Refractions, p. 86; June 16, 1997, review of Sorcerors of Majipoor, p. 49; June 29, 1998, review of The Alien Years, p. 40; September 21, 1998, review of Legends, p. 78; April 12, 1999, review of Far Horizons, p. 58; July 26, 1999, review of Lord Prestimion, p. 68; April 30, 2001, review of The King of Dreams, p. 61; May 6, 2002, review of The Longest Way Home, p. 40; April 7, 2003, review of Roma Eterna, p. 50; November 3, 2003, review of Legends II, p. 58; May 3, 2004, review of Phases of the Moon, p. 176; November 21, 2005, review of In the Beginning, p. 31; August 14, 2006, review of To Be Continued, p. 184; April 9, 2007, review of To the Dark Star, 1962-69, p. 36.
Punch, March 6, 1985, review of The Conglomeroid Cocktail Party, p. 54.
School Library Journal, March, 2003, Christine C. Menefee, review of The Longest Way Home, p. 259.
Times Literary Supplement, June 12, 1969, review of Anvil of Time, p. 643; March 15, 1974, review of Dying Inside, p. 269; November 7, 1980, review of Lord Valentine’s Castle, p. 1265; August 3, 1984, review of Valentine Pontifex, p. 875; January 2, 1987, review of Tom O’Bedlam, p. 21.
Voice Literary Supplement, December, 1983, review of Valentine Pontifex, p. 25.
Voice of Youth Advocates, June, 1993, review of To Be Continued, p. 104; August, 1993, review of Kingdoms of the Wall, p. 170.
Washington Post Book World, February 28, 1982, review of Majipoor Chronicles, p. 8; May 8, 1983, review of Lord of Darkness, p. 6; September 28, 1986, review of Star of Gypsies, p. 8; September 27, 1987, review of Robert Silverberg’s Worlds of Wonder, p. 10; May 27, 1990, review of Universe 1, p. 8; March 28, 1993, review of Kingdoms of the Wall, p. 9.
Writer, August, 2004, “Silverberg’s War with Sci-fi,” profile of Robert Silverberg, p. 12.
ONLINE
Infinity Plus,http://www.infinityplus.co.uk/ (August 10, 2007), Claude Lalumiere, review of Legends.
Robert Silverberg Home Page,http://www.majipoor.com (August 10, 2007).