P - Short Works
In an entertainment-intensive future, the public hungers for new sensations brought to them by a kind of cerebral implant device which allows them to relive the recorded experiences of others. One of the more popular genres is pain, the mental recordings of people dying horrible deaths. Note the similarity to the situation in Thorns and "Flies".
In this near-to-medium-future story, the United States has fragmented into myriad small nations. The foreign minister of the Empire of San Francisco gets a call that an ambassador has arrived from the Republic of Monterey and requests a meeting.
This story has been worked into the novel The Alien Years. It concerns a computer hacker who specializes in obtaining "pardons" for humans under an oppressive alien regime.
Winner of the Nebula Award for best short story, 1969. Hugo Award nominee. Nasty telepathic aliens have taken over the Earth! At unpredictable times, they seize control of a person's mind and force them to do sometimes bizarre things they might not normally do. Society has sort of adjusted to this: Just ignore him, he's being ridden. (Ridden in the way a voodoo loa spirit rides a human host.) The main character breaks a taboo and contacts a woman he had sex with while ridden. The aliens' motives and capabilities are never explained.
A petty government functionary grows weary of the endless war-related inflation which eats up his savings and kills any hope of advancement he ever had. So he decides to do something about it--he'll enlist in the war effort. Trouble is, they won't take him. So he forges himself a passport application and sets off for Sirius himself to do his part.
Not a science fiction story. one of an unknown number of detective stories Silverberg wrote in the 50s.
Thomas Voigtland is the deposed president of Bradley's World, democratically elected but now fleeing a violent coup in a spaceship. The uprising came so quickly there was not time to bring anyone else, not his family, not his trusted advisors. He is alone with the personality cubes he brought: his wife, his son, and his best friend, as well as the reconstructions of historical personalities of Plato, Hemingway, Shakespeare, Goethe, and others. With company like that, the journey should pass enjoyably. But there's the nagging guilt that running away from the revolution was not the right thing to do.
Nominated for Nebula Award for best short story, 1982. This is the moving story of a long-term chimpanzee sign-language project. When one of the scientists studying the chimps gets leukemia and talks to them about death, the chimps develop a religion. Humans are above chimps, and God is above humans. When humans die, they go to God; when chimps die, they become human. The time period is unspecified (apparently late twentieth century), and there is no technology mentioned. In fact, some might say it's not science fiction at all. An interesting side note is that Silverberg, himself atheist, assumes a more or less Christian perspective for the story. Another odd thing is that the first person narrator is never given a name.
Three hundred years ago, a colony ship crash landed on Beta Andromedae XII. The survivors made do with what they had, and fortunately the planet was warm and bounteous. As generations passed, a religion grew out of the story of the Ship crashing and the founding of World. Then comes another colony ship, this one promised the uninhabited world of Beta Andromedae XII for themselves. It's a group of puritanical Christians who left Earth to escape the influence of unholy sinners. They see only three choices: 1. Go back to Earth; 2. Convert the savages; 3. Kill them.
Became part of The Shrouded Planet.
Harry is a typical teenager of the time, a bit on the nerdy side, insecure, and obsessed with sex. Suddenly he finds he can move things with his mind. It's the standard poltergeist situation, a frustrated kid channeling his energy into a little-used part of his brain. But can he control it? And what should he do with it? And would it make a good X-Files episode?
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Last updated October 21, 2002
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