S - Novels
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From the cover blurb (Signet):
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From the cover blurb (Ace Double):
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| The seed
(ouch) of this novel was the short story "The
Winds of Siros". The
version published in Galaxy was shortened to about 35,000
words. (Note: The unrelated story "Journey's End" was originally published as "The Seed
of Earth", renamed by an editor.) Citizens must register for colonization when they turn twenty, and are eligible for Selection until the age of forty. Every day 60,000 randomly chosen colonists leave Earth, one hundred per starship, to planets deemed habitable by survey teams. There is no effort made to include persons with medical or any other specialized training, and once the colonists are dropped off on their new worlds, they are on their own. The reasoning given is that there are millions of planets out there with no other intelligent species yet found, so it is the destiny of the human race to spread its seed as broadly as possible. The lottery system is used because not very many people volunteer for this noble cause. The situation is intriguing enough--strangers thrust together unwillingly on a new planet, torn from their previous lives and forging new relationships in an adverse setting--but it only takes a little thought to come up with dozens of economic and philosophical reasons that it would never work. Still, I can't help trying to think of reasons to make it work, which says something about the appeal of the scenario. An observation: although the colonists of Osiris were allegedly selected at random from the pool of all Americans between the ages of twenty and forty (fifty men, fifty women), it seems that every one of the colonists in the story is white. Given when the story was written, this may not be surprising, but looking back today it's intriguing to think what a more representative population would be like in such a situation. |
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From the dust jacket (Bobbs-Merrill):
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| Nominated for Nebula Award for best novel, 1976. I remember liking it a lot when I read it in high school, but that's so long ago I can't say anything more specific. I'll reread it someday and post more details. | |
From the cover blurb (Ace):
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| The stories "The Chosen People", "The Promised Land", and "False Prophet" were worked into this novel of the planet Nidor and its dealings with the Earthmen. The story continues in The Dawning Light. | |
The Silent Invaders (1963)
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From the cover blurb (Hamlyn edition):
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| An expansion of the novella of the same name. There is an amusing intoroduction to the 1977 Ace edition (and the Hamlyn as well) in which Silverberg tells of his surprise when he saw this book on a newsstand in 1973 and couldn't remember having written it. | ||
From the cover blurb (Del Rey):
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| Clay is a man from the
20th Century, an educated person who considers himself
open-minded. His mind is in for quite a trip when he is
caught up in a "time-flux" and whisked untold
billions of years into the future (not the beginning of
time). The earth of this distant era retains no
recognizable features from our time, and its population
consists of wildly variant life forms. In the intervening
eons, the human race has taken many forms, from
squid-like aquatic creatures to tyrannosaur-like eating
machines to grotesque goat-like creatures. Clay is
befriended (if that's the word) by a group of humans
called Skimmers, who can change form at will, sometimes
male, sometimes female, sometimes a pale gray cloud that
can travel interstellar space. All of the strange human
forms are called "sons of men," races descended
from Homo sapiens. With the Skimmers, and in
spite of them, Clay goes on a journey of discovery which
takes him around the future earth into the depths of his
own soul. What is it to be human? How do I fit in? These
are some of the questions Clay must answer. The technology of this distant future is pure magic, quite bizarre, and utterly fascinating. Silverberg set up a situation where pretty much anything can happen. It's a wild riot of imagination, probably not for the casual reader, and captures that rare feeling of cosmic vision, an expansive view of the universe. Everything has meanings within meanings. As an interesting sideline, James Tiptree Jr took the title of the novel Brightness Falls from the Air from a passage of this book. Silverberg revisited this world in the story "Dancers in the Time-Flux", which explains a little about the origin of the time-flux. |
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From the dust jacket:
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| It pains me greatly to say
I have reservations about this installment in the
history of the big planet. The writing and invention are
superb as always, and the plot is exciting enough to keep
a reader interested, but I have a problem with it. It has been one of my peeves that many people refer to Lord Valentine's Castle and the other Majipoor books as fantasy. They are science fiction. They take place on a distant planet and all the wonders are accomplished by technological means. There is no magic (barring the use of telepathy, which is admittedly a gray area). The title of this book is a clue that something is different in this volume. Although there are skeptics among the characters in the story (Prestimion is one), it is clear that in this version of Majipoor magic is real. I can no longer say this is a science fiction novel without going into more rationalization than Silverberg includes in this entire lengthy book. His attempts at explaining sorcery are minimal, even half-hearted. And honestly, the ending, while it makes sense in an obvious plotting way, is completely unbelievable. While I personally am not thrilled with some aspects of this book, the next Majipoor book is Lord Prestimion, a direct continuation of this story and tone. The Prestimion trilogy will conclude with The King of Dreams. |
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From the cover blurb (Questar):
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| This
novel ties in with the scenario of Letters
from Atlantis, taking
it into the far future, when a human empire spans the
galaxy and Rom are the only ones who can pilot starships
through hyperspace. It's full of inventive
world-building, colorful characters, practical wisdom,
and political intrigue. Yakoub is a big, blustery man who
enjoys life to the fullest and tries to do the right
thing, like a widely traveled uncle with tall tales you
never know if you should believe. He presents himself
warts and all for our entertainment, with reflections on
government, relationships, slavery, and family. A truly
wonderful book. Brian Stableford, writing in the Encyclopedia of Science Fiction, notes that Yakoub, "waiting in self-imposed exile for his one-time followers to realize how badly they need him, might be reckoned an ironic self-portrait." I'm not convinced of that, but either way, it's a good read. |
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From the cover blurb (Bantam paperback):
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| A reworking and expansion of "Ship-sister, Star-sister". | |
An expansion of "Thunder over Starhaven".
From the cover blurb:
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| Silverberg's
second novel, a "juvenile". There is some interesting social extrapolation in this book. Earth of the 37th century is a heavily populated place where employment is difficult to come by and virtually all jobs are taken by the members of hereditary guilds. This is combined with a kind of enforced consumerism: it is considered improper to save money; in order to preserve the jobs of others, everyone must buy, buy, buy. Interstellar travel is possible but expensive, so few can escape the crowding or relentless economic pace by moving offworld. The only legal profession open to the non-guilded is gambling (which of course does a very good job of keeping currency circulating). It's hard to imagine this book being reprinted today. Although the story is engaging, combining realistic science with fairly well-drawn characters, there are a number of features that take it far enough out of "political correctness" to make it anathema to publishers. Primary among these failings is the fact that Alan, once on Earth, supports himself as a gambler. In the context of the book, this is a perfectly logical choice, but it's certainly not something you'd see today. So Our Hero finds himself in a world of smoky game parlors, casual drinking and drugs, and criminal activities. As a side note, there is no mention of sex or prostitution in any of this. In fact, aside from one annoying teenage girl with a crush on Alan, there are no female characters in the story at all. (This is probably as much a reflection of the market for which Silverberg wrote it as anything else.) Putting the social issues aside, the science in the book is good. Silverberg takes the famous Twin Paradox of relativity and puts it into a book intended for young readers. The fact of time dilation is the central problem of the plot, though I noticed not a single mention of Albert Einstein by name. Now for a spoiler-containig observation... When Alan gets started building the hyperdrive which will end the necessity of time dilation for space travelers, he doesn't do it all himself, like you might expect in a Tom Swift type adventure. He hires mathematicians and other experts to help him. That is a nice touch that departs from the long-accepted standards of the genre. |
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From the cover blurb (Ace 1976):
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| This is primarily a
time-travel paradox story, for the solution to Ewing's
problem involves a small backwards trip and a bunch of
tricky thinking. A well-thought-out plot, if not
especially deep. One of the more interesting tidbits is
the manifestation of the 39th Century Earthers'
decadence. The fashion is rather extreme body
modification: elaborate piercings, jeweled studs
implanted the skull, even to ears and other parts
removed. An interesting prediction given today's
fashions, and the oldest mention I've seen of this
particular theme. Silverberg has returned many times to
the possibility of humans altering their appearance. By Silverberg's count, this is his sixth novel. As a special note in correction of some other listings: A Man Called Destiny, the other side of the Ace Double, was not written by Silverberg, but by Lan Wright, whom Silverberg describes as an British writer of unknown current whereabouts. |
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From the cover blurb:
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Webster's Unabridged:
Nominated for Nebula Award for best novel, 1975. |
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Last updated October 21, 2002
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