obert Silverberg estimates that since his first fiction sale in 1954, he has published anywhere from 550 to 750 stories. Now he has winnowed that vast output down to a "mere" two dozen or so, many of them novella-length, the creme de la creme of his devoted, passionate prolificacy. Arranged by the six decades of their appearances—from the 1950s to the present—these stories constitute an illustrious pageant of storytelling, shaped to the arcs of Silverberg's career.
From his first decade, we get four tales illustrating the embryonic yet still formidable talents of the young fellow who won a Hugo award for Most Promising Writer shortly after his debut. "Road to Nightfall" has nothing to do with Arthur Clarke and everything to do with a world devastated by war and reverting to savagery, while the Bradburyish "Warm Man" focuses on an empath who is paradoxically both vampiric and beneficial.
The 1960s marked the transition in Silverberg's output from competent professionalism to inspired artistry. Five stories represent this decade, from the early "To See the Invisible Man," in which a novel method of punishment brands a whole caste of society, to the Vancian "Nightwings," detailing a far-future alien invasion and the way it affects a trio of disparate travelers. "Sundance" illustrates Silverberg's abiding fascination with the alien-human interface even more deeply. Into the 1970s, the author continued his ascent, producing several masterpieces, four of which are reproduced here. "Born with the Dead" illuminates a strange world where the recently deceased are "rekindled" to resume a living afterlife. And the homogeneity of our postmodern Earth is contrasted with an exotic interstellar milieu in "Schwartz Among the Galaxies."
For someone who was ostensibly slowing down, Silverberg produced much of value in the 1980s and 1990s. "Sailing to Byzantium," with its jaded immortals recreating various past eras, is one of five entries from the Reagan years, while "Death Do Us Part," one of three Clinton-era gems, examines some of the same themes from a different angle.
Finally, exhibiting his unceasing striving after new narrative frissons, Silverberg brings us two items from his 21st-century output: "The Millennium Express" finds a set of famous rogues determined to revitalize the stale culture of 2999, while "With Casear in the Underworld" explores an alternate timeline where Rome never fell.
The essential Silverberg
Like Harlan Ellison's The Essential Ellison (2001), this generous volume will form a fundamental cornerstone in any self-respecting reader's collection of science fiction. Although Silverberg's career cannot be totally and accurately represented without an accompanying selection of his excellent novels, this book captures enough of his salient virtues to give the full flavor and range of his work. Its copious prefatory material also forms a compact autobiography. And the parade of fiction, with its changing assumptions and modes and themes, also gives a rough sketch of the evolution of SF during these six decades as well. Taken all in all, then, this book offers triple value for the money.
On the matter of his "obsessions," as he himself labels them, the book is fascinating and revelatory. Silverberg's cast of characters—lovers torn apart by fate; solitary individuals estranged from society by quirks of mind or character; decadent immortals and the dispassionate undead; self-serving time-travelers; non-human intelligences—all seem to be deeply felt shards of his own psyche. Put them all together and you begin to get a glimpse of the whole complex character of the man behind the fiction. And as these figures move up and down over the years, retreating from prominence and sometimes returning, we witness the journey of self-exploration that Silverberg has always been embarked on. The evolving prose stylings also contribute to a sense of this journey, as we move from straightforward and blunt to sly and complicated and rich.
The stories also, of course, as artifacts of the marketplace, bear witness to the increasing ambitions and grasp of SF, a wider remit and scope that Silverberg bears much credit for broadening, as he compulsively sought to expand the dimensions of the genre. As he details in his prefaces, he feels that to some extent the revolution he was part of eventually failed. But I think a more charitable interpretation would be that to some significant degree it succeeded and had to live with the dubious consequences of its success, when the revolution's bold rallying cries became simply the ho-hum new standards.
But let no one imagine that this book constitutes some kind of dry, historical document. The stories herein are all pulsing with life, continuing to provide thrills and excitement and moral instruction 10, 30, 50 years after composition. I defy anyone to read, for instance, "The Pope of the Chimps" and not feel as moved as they are when encountering, say, Keyes' Flowers for Algernon (1966) for the first time. Silverberg can rest assured that this volume serves as a formidable monument to a glorious career as yet happily unconcluded.
