Robert Silverberg Books

"By the time this present group of stories was written I had passed through the cultural turbulence that engulfed nearly everyone's life in the wild, stormy period we know as "the Sixties," which for me had actually lasted from 1968 to 1974 or 1975. I had come through my own angry four-year-long retirement from writing in the middle 1970s, and was working again at a steady pace, though not with the frenetic prolificacy of the pre-retirement years. At the beginning of this period my personal life was still pretty chaotic, a carryover from all that Sixties madness, and plenty of new chaos was going to descend on me while some of these stories were written, but I was tiptoeing toward an escape from the various messes that were complicating my life, and by the time the last five stories of this volume were being written I was heading into the stability of my second marriage." -Robert Silverberg, from the Introduction

The stories here, all of them written between March of 1972 and November of 1973, mark a critical turning point in my career. Those who know the three earlier volumes have traced my evolution from a capable journeyman, very young and as much concerned with paying the rent as he was to advancing the state of the art, into a serious, dedicated craftsman now seeking to leave his mark on science fiction in some significant way. Throughout the decade of the 1960s I had attempted to grow and evolve within the field of writing I loved building on the best that went before me, the work of Theodore Sturgeon and James Blish and Cyril Kornbluth and Jack Vance and Philip K. Dick and half a dozen others whose great stories had been beacons beckoning me onward and then, as I reached my own maturity, now trying to bring science fiction along with me into a new realm of development, hauling it along even farther out of its pulp-magazine origins toward what I regarded as a more resonant and evocative kind of visionary storytelling. Robert Silverberg, from his Introduction

Before Robert Silverberg won multiple Hugo and Nebula awards and became Grand Master of science fiction, he was a young man learning the art and craft of writing the genre. In Science Fiction: 101, Silverberg reveals the roots of modern science fiction with thought-provoking essays about some of the field’s most groundbreaking stories—included in this volume—which inspired him and taught him to write. These insightful analyses, along with the skills and strategies Silverberg developed to build his successful career, make this an indispensable volume for readers interested in science fiction history. Featuring Thirteen Classic Stories by Brian W. Aldiss, Alfred Bester, James Blish, Philip K. Dick, Damon Knight, C. M. Kornbluth, Henry Kuttner, C. L. Moore, Frederik Pohl, Bob Shaw, Robert Sheckley, Cordwainer Smith, and Jack Vance

"But, for all that, I went on writing short fiction all through the seventh and eighth decades of my life, and though I'm not very active these days, I would still pay attention if someone were to approach me with an interesting and challenging short-story project, or if some absolutely irresistible story idea were to come into my mind. I will not, at this point, try to claim that the stories that are collected here are the last short stories I will ever write. Surely some editor, in the years ahead, will tickle my imagination with a proposal I can't resist. But I doubt that will be happening very often; and, meanwhile, here's the harvest of the fourteen years that began in 1995-not an enormous number of stories, no, but stories nevertheless that I think are worth reading and reprinting." -Robert Silverberg, from the Introduction

Valentine, a wanderer who knows nothing except his name, finds himself on the fringes of a great city, and joins a troupe of jugglers and acrobats; gradually, he remembers that he is the Coronal Valentine, executive ruler of the vast world of Majipoor, and all its peoples, human and otherwise... Valentine's journey is a long one, a tour through a series of magnificent environments. Fields of predatory plants give way to impossibly wide rivers, chalk-cliffed islands and unforgiving deserts. The prose is unrelentingly dreamlike—no accident given that on Majipoor, dreams rule the minds of great and humble alike. Originally serialized in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction in four parts: November 1979, December 1979, January 1980 and February 1980.

Somehow, for all my outward pretence of cold-eyed professionalism, all my insistence that writing is simply a job like any other, I've discovered to my surprise and chagrin that there's more than that going on around here, that I write as much out of karmic necessity and some inescapable inner need to rededicate my own skills constantly to my-what? My craft? My art? My profession? I wrote these stories because the only way of earning a living I have ever had has been by writing, but mainly, I have to admit, I wrote these stories because I couldn't not write them. Well, so be it. They involved me in a lot of hard work, but for me, at least, the results justify the toil. I'm glad I wrote them. Writing them, it turns out, was important for me, and even pleasurable, in a curiously complex after-the-fact kind of way. May they give you pleasure now too. -Robert Silverberg, from his Introduction

Armchair Fiction presents extra large editions of classic science fiction double novels. The first novel is by sci-fi veteran, Milton Lesser. “Jungle in the Sky” is about hunting big game (alien big game) on far-off Ganymede. They were deep space hunters, and their job was to bring back the rarest and most exotic creatures the distant planets had to offer. They searched for their prey from one end of the solar system to the other. From the hot surface of Mercury to the frozen wastelands of Uranus. The prize catch of these alien creatures were the wild anthrovacs, who roamed freely on the surface of far-off Ganymede. These were the creatures the hunters wanted the most—though not as badly as the anthrovacs wanted the hunters! The second novel, “Recalled to Life” is by one of sci-fi’s best known authors, Robert Silverberg. It deals with bring the dead back to life. It was the supreme irony. Humanity, apparently, feared being recalled to life more than it feared death itself. When Harker joined the little group of scientists, he didn’t realize the problems he would face. Their discovery made it possible to revive corpses to full, healthy life. They thought the world would welcome it as the greatest boon of all time. Instead, the world fought them, bitterly and savagely. Bewildered, they could find no way to fight back. The problem was Harker’s to solve, and there seemed to be only one answer… Harker himself had to die!

A collection of stories that includes "To See the Invisible Man," "Neighbor," "The Sixth Place," "Halfway House," "To the Dark Star," "Going Down Smooth," "Ringing the Changes," and "We Know Who We Are."

Set in the tumultuous fifteenth century, the narrative unfolds the fierce rivalry between the Houses of York and Lancaster as they vie for the English throne. Through gripping storytelling, Robert Silverberg, under the pseudonym Franklin Hamilton, vividly portrays the intense political maneuvers and personal dynamics that characterized this era of civil war. The eventual downfall of both houses and the emergence of the Tudors mark a pivotal shift towards stability in England, making the historical context both engaging and significant.