M - Short Works
A reworking of "The Man with Talent". Emil Vilar is the last truly talented poet on Earth, but he lives in a society where real poetry, the kind written by the likes of Yeats or Pound, is not valued. So he decides to go somewhere else--the colony world of Rigel Seven, settled centuries ago by sixteen families. Surely they would appreciate a true poet. But when he gets there, he finds that everyone is a poet. And a musician. And a painter. The arts are cultivated in all people, and a mere poet seems pitifully under-cultured.
From the introductory blurb in Best SF 4: "Every so often, something gets mislaid in editorial offices. In this case a story wasn't published for years after it was bought. Hence we have a brand-new middle period Silverberg." Given the publication in New Worlds, I'm not entirely sure what this means.
A man claims to have traveled by a kind of astral projection to various times and places throughout human history. But he can't (so he says) control where or when he visits, and he can't bring back any evidence of his travels. Is he a nut or what? And if he wanted to teach you how to do it, would you accept the offer?
A story about the difficulties a person might face having a perfect memory. A lot of the little lies people tell ("I can't come over tonight," said the minister. "I have a sermon to write." When you remember him saying to someone else, "I've written all my sermons for the next three weeks.") would make life very difficult for you. Unless you find a way to come to terms with your gift...
Later reworked as "A Man of Talent".
This is a mixture of contradictory tableaux centered around Ted, Alice, and Martin Porter. Ted and Alice have been married eleven years and pretty much detest each other. Ted contemplates suicide every night, Alice plans Ted's murder. Martin is Ted's grandfather, an old man in a nursing home who likes to fantasize about Alice. Into the situation comes the advent of time travel, and they confront the "grandfather paradox" in a literal way. Alice thinks, What if I travel back and kill Martin before Ted's mother was conceived? That would make it so Ted was never born, wouldn't it? Different possible scenarios from all three characters are presented
A tribute to HG Wells's War of the Worlds.
Maybe this story worked better in its original time (late 60s-early 70s), but this tale of social protest and time travel doesn't work anymore. That's not because of the disjointed narrative style or even the dated slang. Or maybe it is, I don't know.
This is one of those boy-did-I-get-a-wrong-number stories. An average Joe from 1959 accidentally gets connected to the switchboard of a mutant group planning to take over the world. They decide he's dangerous and knows too much, so they pop him into their time machine. In the future he finds himself surrounded by mutants (who now rule the world). They assume he's a spy, so they pop him into their machine...
Picture if you will a society where multiple personality disorder is regarded, at least in some quarters, as not a disorder at all (to be cured or treated), but an interesting lifestyle, to be respected and nurtured. Of course San Francisco is the center of this new, enlightened attitude, and it is to San Francisco that Cleo comes in search of the company of multiples. Cleo herself is an ordinary singleton, but she is fascinated, even obsessed, by the rich variety and excitement in the multiple community, so she poses as a multiple, inventing alter personalities and acting out their lives. But can she pass among the real multiples? And how will they treat her if she is found out?
This very short story is the kernel that sprouted into the novel of the same name. In a beachfront community, a year-round resident notices a change in the clientele who rent out the cabins along the waterfront during the holiday seasons. The new people have green skins and levitate, but so long as they don't bother anything, they're fine. But what if your daughter wanted to date one?
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Last updated October 21, 2002
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