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Needle in a Timestack
THE PAIN PEDDLERS...A television company pays an old man's relatives $15,000 for rights to televise the amputation of a gangrenous leg—without anesthetic.
TO SEE THE INVISIBLE MAN is a crime itself punishable by invisibility in a society where social deviants are sentenced to be totally ignored by their fellow men.
These are only two of the ten brilliant visions of the future created by Robert Silverberg to parody the cant and cruelty of our own world.
TO SEE THE INVISIBLE MAN is a crime itself punishable by invisibility in a society where social deviants are sentenced to be totally ignored by their fellow men.
These are only two of the ten brilliant visions of the future created by Robert Silverberg to parody the cant and cruelty of our own world.
190 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1966
129 people are currently reading
479 people want to read
About the author
Robert Silverberg
2,160Ìýbooks1,555ÌýfollowersThere are many authors in the database with this name.
Robert Silverberg is a highly celebrated American science fiction author and editor known for his prolific output and literary range. Over a career spanning decades, he has won multiple Hugo and Nebula Awards and was named a Grand Master by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America in 2004. Inducted into the Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame in 1999, Silverberg is recognized for both his immense productivity and his contributions to the genre's evolution.
Born in Brooklyn, he began writing in his teens and won his first Hugo Award in 1956 as the best new writer. Throughout the 1950s, he produced vast amounts of fiction, often under pseudonyms, and was known for writing up to a million words a year. When the market declined, he diversified into other genres, including historical nonfiction and erotica.
Silverberg’s return to science fiction in the 1960s marked a shift toward deeper psychological and literary themes, contributing significantly to the New Wave movement. Acclaimed works from this period include Downward to the Earth, Dying Inside, Nightwings, and The World Inside. In the 1980s, he launched the Majipoor series with Lord Valentine’s Castle, creating one of the most imaginative planetary settings in science fiction.
Though he announced his retirement from writing in the mid-1970s, Silverberg returned with renewed vigor and continued to publish acclaimed fiction into the 1990s. He received further recognition with the Nebula-winning Sailing to Byzantium and the Hugo-winning Gilgamesh in the Outback.
Silverberg has also played a significant role as an editor and anthologist, shaping science fiction literature through both his own work and his influence on others. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with his wife, author Karen Haber.
Robert Silverberg is a highly celebrated American science fiction author and editor known for his prolific output and literary range. Over a career spanning decades, he has won multiple Hugo and Nebula Awards and was named a Grand Master by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America in 2004. Inducted into the Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame in 1999, Silverberg is recognized for both his immense productivity and his contributions to the genre's evolution.
Born in Brooklyn, he began writing in his teens and won his first Hugo Award in 1956 as the best new writer. Throughout the 1950s, he produced vast amounts of fiction, often under pseudonyms, and was known for writing up to a million words a year. When the market declined, he diversified into other genres, including historical nonfiction and erotica.
Silverberg’s return to science fiction in the 1960s marked a shift toward deeper psychological and literary themes, contributing significantly to the New Wave movement. Acclaimed works from this period include Downward to the Earth, Dying Inside, Nightwings, and The World Inside. In the 1980s, he launched the Majipoor series with Lord Valentine’s Castle, creating one of the most imaginative planetary settings in science fiction.
Though he announced his retirement from writing in the mid-1970s, Silverberg returned with renewed vigor and continued to publish acclaimed fiction into the 1990s. He received further recognition with the Nebula-winning Sailing to Byzantium and the Hugo-winning Gilgamesh in the Outback.
Silverberg has also played a significant role as an editor and anthologist, shaping science fiction literature through both his own work and his influence on others. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with his wife, author Karen Haber.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 52 reviews
January 19, 2016
Having read some two dozen novels by Robert Silverberg over the past couple of years, I recently decided that it was high time for me to see what the Grand Master has accomplished in the area of the shorter form. As if by serendipity, while shopping the other day at the Brooklyn sci-fi bookstore extraordinaire Singularity, I found a volume of Silverberg short stories that, as it's turned out, has fit the bill for me very nicely. Released in 1966, "Needle in a Timestack" gathers 10 short tales together from the period 1956-�65, out of the 581 (!) short stories, novellas and novelettes that Silverberg has thus far given us. (Readers who are understandably dubious regarding that seemingly superhuman number are urged to go to the author's Quasi-Official Web Site for a complete listing and enumeration.) Oddly enough, the Silverberg story "Needle in a Timestack" does NOT appear in this collection; it first appeared in the June '83 issue of "Playboy" magazine.
The collection is subtitled "An acidulous collection of science fiction stories," and for good reason: Every single one of these stories ends on a downbeat note. Readers going into this particular bunch of tales should be prepared for a succession of deliciously written bummers...not that things grow repetitive or dreary as a result. Displaying Silverberg's abundant and wide-ranging imagination, wit, intelligence and craftsmanship, each of the stories herein is a gem; no fillers in this assortment, that's for certain!
The collection kicks off with "The Pain Peddlers," which originally appeared in the August '63 issue of "Galaxy." In a prescient foreshadowing of today's "reality TV," Silverberg gives us a world in which the masochistic home audience is able to watch live surgical operations, as well as vicariously feel the pain being experienced by the UNanesthetized patients, thanks to EEG amplifiers and at-home, slip-on helmets. But things wind up getting just a tad out of hand for the executive producer of this truly unpleasant television program...
In "Passport to Sirius" (which made its first appearance in the 4/58 issue of "Worlds of If"), David Carman, 27th century wage slave, decides to chuck his droning, dead-end job and, using some adroit forgery, finagles himself a visa to the titular star system, to help fight in the war going on there. However, the interstellar war in question is not what it seems, and those who have read Philip K. Dick's "The Penultimate Truth" may perhaps divine where this mordant blast at futuristic economics is heading. Silverberg DOES make a small boo-boo in this tale when he tells us that the Andromeda Nebula is 900,000 light-years away; that number should be more like 2 million.
Up next we have "Birds of a Feather" (from the 11/58 "Galaxy"), a delightful and hilarious tale that yet manages to conclude on a sour note. Here, we meet J.F. Corrigan, proprietor of the Corrigan Institute of Morphological Science; that is, a zoo containing almost 700 specimens from all over the galaxy. These specimens haven't been captured, but rather hired, and in this amusing romp, we witness the travails that J.F. encounters on a typical recruiting day while in the Caledonia Cluster.
In "There Was an Old Woman" (11/58, "Infinity Science Fiction"), Donna Mitchell, an experimental biochemist, has manipulated one of her own zygotes, cultivating it in nutrient tanks, and thus causing to develop 31 identical sons, on whom she plans to do some further nature/nurture research. This is a wonderfully written story that actually allows us to get to know all 31 brothers, and one that ends on a decidedly shocking note. Mitchell, by the way, can almost be seen as a warm-up for the Lona Kelvin character in Silverberg's 1967 novel "Thorns"; a 17-year-old mother of 100 babies..."centuplets"!
"The Shadow of Wings" (7/63, "Worlds of If") is, for my money, the slightest tale in the collection. Here, a 21st century linguist who has translated the alien Kethlani language, based on some relics found on Mars and Venus, is called in to interpret when an actual Kethlan is captured in a small spaceship. Our linguist must overcome his initial terror at the alien's appearance and grapple for understanding in this short yet atmospheric story.
"Absolutely Inflexible" (7/56, "Fantastic Universe") is an absolutely first-rate time paradox story. Here, a corps of men in the 28th century is tasked with capturing "time jumpers" from the past--whose germ-contaminated bodies might pose a threat to 28th century Earth--and shipping them off to the moon for perpetual imprisonment. As I've written elsewhere, many of these temporal paradox stories give me a borderline migraine, but I found this one to be remarkably clever and satisfying.
"His Brother's Weeper" (3/59, "Fantastic Universe") is another humorous outing, in which Peter Martlett uses a "deserializer" (a time/transportation device that IS somewhat headache inducing, as described) to take the 283-year journey to the planet Marathon, in order to wind up his deceased brother's affairs...including the thorny matter of TWO women whom he was engaged to! Wonderful entertainment, this one!
In "The Sixth Palace" (2/65, "Galaxy"), two desperate men try to get past a killer robot that is guarding a vast treasure horde on an airless world of Valzar. This tale is plainly an updating of the Oedipus and the Sphinx myth, and can also be seen as a warm-up to Silverberg's 1969 novel "The Man in the Maze." It is a genuinely suspenseful affair, and quite a grim one.
Up next we have "To See the Invisible Man" (4/63, "Worlds of Tomorrow"), in which our narrator, for the crime of "coldness" in the year 2104, is given a one-year sentence of "invisibility"; that is, although anyone can actually see him, he is absolutely shunned by society. The telltale emblem on his forehead results in a year of complete isolation for our narrator, though he walks freely amongst his fellow men. Silverberg here gets to explore the ramifications of such a state, both the pros (the ability to do anything one wishes while being utterly ignored) and the cons (such as the inability to order food in a restaurant or to secure medical assistance); ultimately, it is a brilliant tale of enforced loneliness, the cactus symbolism of which again acts as a harbinger of "Thorns."
The final tale in this collection, "The Iron Chancellor" (5/58, "Galaxy"), is one of the very best. In it, the overweight Carmichael family purchases a new domestic robot to help prepare dietetic and nutritious meals. But when a mechanical short circuit causes the robot to lock the family indoors and institute a killer diet regimen, the family members get far more (or perhaps I should say "less"!) than they had planned to chew on! Still another witty and suspenseful tale, culminating in still another depressing Silverberg finale.
So there you have it...10 wonderful and wonderfully entertaining pieces, told in Silverberg's best manner. Small surprise that the future Grand Master should have such a winning way with the shorter form, as well as the long. Please don't let those downbeat endings put you off from seeking this one out, dear reader. Paradoxically, you'd be hard put to find a more delightful collection....
(By the way, this review originally appeared on the FanLit website at ... a perfect destination for all fans of Robert Silverberg....)
The collection is subtitled "An acidulous collection of science fiction stories," and for good reason: Every single one of these stories ends on a downbeat note. Readers going into this particular bunch of tales should be prepared for a succession of deliciously written bummers...not that things grow repetitive or dreary as a result. Displaying Silverberg's abundant and wide-ranging imagination, wit, intelligence and craftsmanship, each of the stories herein is a gem; no fillers in this assortment, that's for certain!
The collection kicks off with "The Pain Peddlers," which originally appeared in the August '63 issue of "Galaxy." In a prescient foreshadowing of today's "reality TV," Silverberg gives us a world in which the masochistic home audience is able to watch live surgical operations, as well as vicariously feel the pain being experienced by the UNanesthetized patients, thanks to EEG amplifiers and at-home, slip-on helmets. But things wind up getting just a tad out of hand for the executive producer of this truly unpleasant television program...
In "Passport to Sirius" (which made its first appearance in the 4/58 issue of "Worlds of If"), David Carman, 27th century wage slave, decides to chuck his droning, dead-end job and, using some adroit forgery, finagles himself a visa to the titular star system, to help fight in the war going on there. However, the interstellar war in question is not what it seems, and those who have read Philip K. Dick's "The Penultimate Truth" may perhaps divine where this mordant blast at futuristic economics is heading. Silverberg DOES make a small boo-boo in this tale when he tells us that the Andromeda Nebula is 900,000 light-years away; that number should be more like 2 million.
Up next we have "Birds of a Feather" (from the 11/58 "Galaxy"), a delightful and hilarious tale that yet manages to conclude on a sour note. Here, we meet J.F. Corrigan, proprietor of the Corrigan Institute of Morphological Science; that is, a zoo containing almost 700 specimens from all over the galaxy. These specimens haven't been captured, but rather hired, and in this amusing romp, we witness the travails that J.F. encounters on a typical recruiting day while in the Caledonia Cluster.
In "There Was an Old Woman" (11/58, "Infinity Science Fiction"), Donna Mitchell, an experimental biochemist, has manipulated one of her own zygotes, cultivating it in nutrient tanks, and thus causing to develop 31 identical sons, on whom she plans to do some further nature/nurture research. This is a wonderfully written story that actually allows us to get to know all 31 brothers, and one that ends on a decidedly shocking note. Mitchell, by the way, can almost be seen as a warm-up for the Lona Kelvin character in Silverberg's 1967 novel "Thorns"; a 17-year-old mother of 100 babies..."centuplets"!
"The Shadow of Wings" (7/63, "Worlds of If") is, for my money, the slightest tale in the collection. Here, a 21st century linguist who has translated the alien Kethlani language, based on some relics found on Mars and Venus, is called in to interpret when an actual Kethlan is captured in a small spaceship. Our linguist must overcome his initial terror at the alien's appearance and grapple for understanding in this short yet atmospheric story.
"Absolutely Inflexible" (7/56, "Fantastic Universe") is an absolutely first-rate time paradox story. Here, a corps of men in the 28th century is tasked with capturing "time jumpers" from the past--whose germ-contaminated bodies might pose a threat to 28th century Earth--and shipping them off to the moon for perpetual imprisonment. As I've written elsewhere, many of these temporal paradox stories give me a borderline migraine, but I found this one to be remarkably clever and satisfying.
"His Brother's Weeper" (3/59, "Fantastic Universe") is another humorous outing, in which Peter Martlett uses a "deserializer" (a time/transportation device that IS somewhat headache inducing, as described) to take the 283-year journey to the planet Marathon, in order to wind up his deceased brother's affairs...including the thorny matter of TWO women whom he was engaged to! Wonderful entertainment, this one!
In "The Sixth Palace" (2/65, "Galaxy"), two desperate men try to get past a killer robot that is guarding a vast treasure horde on an airless world of Valzar. This tale is plainly an updating of the Oedipus and the Sphinx myth, and can also be seen as a warm-up to Silverberg's 1969 novel "The Man in the Maze." It is a genuinely suspenseful affair, and quite a grim one.
Up next we have "To See the Invisible Man" (4/63, "Worlds of Tomorrow"), in which our narrator, for the crime of "coldness" in the year 2104, is given a one-year sentence of "invisibility"; that is, although anyone can actually see him, he is absolutely shunned by society. The telltale emblem on his forehead results in a year of complete isolation for our narrator, though he walks freely amongst his fellow men. Silverberg here gets to explore the ramifications of such a state, both the pros (the ability to do anything one wishes while being utterly ignored) and the cons (such as the inability to order food in a restaurant or to secure medical assistance); ultimately, it is a brilliant tale of enforced loneliness, the cactus symbolism of which again acts as a harbinger of "Thorns."
The final tale in this collection, "The Iron Chancellor" (5/58, "Galaxy"), is one of the very best. In it, the overweight Carmichael family purchases a new domestic robot to help prepare dietetic and nutritious meals. But when a mechanical short circuit causes the robot to lock the family indoors and institute a killer diet regimen, the family members get far more (or perhaps I should say "less"!) than they had planned to chew on! Still another witty and suspenseful tale, culminating in still another depressing Silverberg finale.
So there you have it...10 wonderful and wonderfully entertaining pieces, told in Silverberg's best manner. Small surprise that the future Grand Master should have such a winning way with the shorter form, as well as the long. Please don't let those downbeat endings put you off from seeking this one out, dear reader. Paradoxically, you'd be hard put to find a more delightful collection....
(By the way, this review originally appeared on the FanLit website at ... a perfect destination for all fans of Robert Silverberg....)
March 24, 2025
Needle in a Timestack is a collection of ten short fictions by Silverberg that was first published by Ballantine in 1966 with a trippy Richard Powers cover. It's confusing because when it was reprinted by Sphere in 1979 six of the original stories were replaced by others, and Ace reprinted that edition in 1985. More recently, a third iteration appeared in 2019 as Needle in a Timestack and Other Stories with yet a different table of contents; note that there was no individual story with that title until June of 1983's issue of Playboy appeared. Anyway, the edition I read was from 1966. (Silverberg was kind of notorious for having the same story in different collections.) The ten stories first appeared in the genre digest magazines of 1955 - '63: four from Galaxy, a pair each from Fantastic Universe and If, and one each from Infinity and Worlds of Tomorrow. (They had magical names for the magazines back in the day, didn't they!?) The description on the cover reads: "An acidulous collection of science fiction stories..." which is neat, tidy, and accurate. He jumps from serious drama to sharp satire quite easily, with wit and occasional humor. His style is slick and direct, and I'll give him acidulous, too. My favorites were To See the Invisible Man, The Iron Chancellor, and The Pain Peddlers. There aren't any knock-your-sox-off classics like some of his work from the '70s, but they're quite entertaining and enjoyable.
August 28, 2020
Needle in a Timestack (Robert Silverberg) - 5 Stars
The Pain Peddlers (1963) - 5 Stars
Passport to Sirius (1958) - 3.5 Stars
Birds of a Feather (1958) - 5 Stars
There Was an Old Woman (1958) - 4 Stars
The Shadow of Wings (1963) - 3 Stars
Absolutely Inflexible (1966) - 3.5 Stars
His Brother's Weeper (1959) - 3 Stars
The Sixth Palace (1955) - 5 Stars
To See the Invisible Man (1963) - 5 Stars
The Iron Chancellor (1958) - 4.5 Stars
The Pain Peddlers (1963) - 5 Stars
Passport to Sirius (1958) - 3.5 Stars
Birds of a Feather (1958) - 5 Stars
There Was an Old Woman (1958) - 4 Stars
The Shadow of Wings (1963) - 3 Stars
Absolutely Inflexible (1966) - 3.5 Stars
His Brother's Weeper (1959) - 3 Stars
The Sixth Palace (1955) - 5 Stars
To See the Invisible Man (1963) - 5 Stars
The Iron Chancellor (1958) - 4.5 Stars
Read
January 24, 2018I listened to the podcast (see details below) and enjoyed Silverberg's writing and ideas.
StarShipSofa 501 Robert Silverberg
9/6/17 by Tony C Smith
Web player:
Episode:
Main Fiction: "Needle in a Timestack" by Robert Silverberg
Originally published in Asimov's
Robert Silverberg has been a professional writer since 1955, and is widely known for his science fiction and fantasy stories. He is the winner of four Hugo, six Nebula awards, and three Locus awards. He was named to the Science Fiction Hall of Fame in 1999, and was designated as a Grand Master by the Science Fiction Writers of America in 2004. His books and stories have been translated into forty languages. Among his best-known titles are Nightwings, Dying Inside, The Book of Skulls, and the three volumes of the Majipoor Cycle: Lord Valentine’s Castle, Majipoor Chronicles, and Valentine Pontifex. He and his wife Karen and an assorted population of cats live in the San Francisco Bay Area, in a sprawling house surrounded by exotic plants. He can be found online at the Quasi-Official Robert Silverberg Web Site
StarShipSofa 501 Robert Silverberg
9/6/17 by Tony C Smith
Web player:
Episode:
Main Fiction: "Needle in a Timestack" by Robert Silverberg
Originally published in Asimov's
Robert Silverberg has been a professional writer since 1955, and is widely known for his science fiction and fantasy stories. He is the winner of four Hugo, six Nebula awards, and three Locus awards. He was named to the Science Fiction Hall of Fame in 1999, and was designated as a Grand Master by the Science Fiction Writers of America in 2004. His books and stories have been translated into forty languages. Among his best-known titles are Nightwings, Dying Inside, The Book of Skulls, and the three volumes of the Majipoor Cycle: Lord Valentine’s Castle, Majipoor Chronicles, and Valentine Pontifex. He and his wife Karen and an assorted population of cats live in the San Francisco Bay Area, in a sprawling house surrounded by exotic plants. He can be found online at the Quasi-Official Robert Silverberg Web Site
January 24, 2021
Fun collection of science fiction short stories. Some are humorous. Nothing groundbreaking, but certainly entertaining. Good to take on the train or subway.
October 6, 2018
Excellent and entertaining as always. Some short stories from the late 50s. I already knew a couple of them.
January 23, 2025
A very 'Eh' collection of stories. Some to like, a lot with not much going on, and then one which is exceptionally racist.
Spoilers.
The Iron Chancellor:
A family purchases a robot to help regulate their weight loss. It's funny to see what concerns about weight were like in the 70s, and the story is weakened severely by its lack of imagination here- we are given the weight of the characters, and they simply aren't That fat. Their weight loss goals are generally only 10 pounds. For a rather silly story concept, everything feels less dramatic when it's so mundane.
The robot chef quickly glitches, and decides to lock the family in the house and feed them very little until they hit their goal weights. But oh no! The glitch means the goal weight information has been erased, so it'll instead slowly starve them to death.
The premise of 'robot chef who is determined to cause weight loss NO MATTER WHAT' leads itself obviously to say, dismemberment. But instead it's the least interesting route and a bit of a shrug all around.
The retro-future vision is always a blast though. These robots roll around on treads and use tapes, but there's a House-Brain and particle privacy shields.
The Reality Trip
My favourite of the collection. It's a shame I can't really recommend the others, because this one is enjoyable and fairly funny. I love an alien point of view where they feel distinctly alien, and are trying to just blend casually in on Earth.
A lonely alien bonds with a lonely human, but is alarmed to find she has fallen in love with him. He attempts to scare her off by revealing his true form, but she's just... 100% down. She's like 'okay I get it, you're a space crab, I still love you'. He tries to drive her off by arranging she walks in on him having freaky crab sex, and she's like. 'okay I get it. I'm into this actually. Can I date you both'.
It's fun and I have an affection for alien crabs these days (long story) so. Kinda a banger.
The Shrines of Earth
Like so many pulp writers, Silverberg's stories all have a certain sense of humour. Sometimes they prompted a Sensible Chuckle from me, but often his jokes last too long. Or the whole story is a bit, and the punchline has already come and gone, and you're left wondering why there's still a few pages left.
The Earth has been at peace for a long time, transformed into national heritage parks with various preserved cultural structures and little else. Native Terrans have worked out a hostile alien race is coming to Earth soon, but rather than warn the far-off settled Earth colonies, arrange for the nations to think they're at threat from each other instead. France, America, and Russia arrange for preemptive guarding of their prized monuments, stuck in a cold war of suspicion from a threat which isn't real. When the aliens show up, Earth is perfectly defended.
You understand what is going on immediately, and the rest of the story is Extended Bits about space nations panicking about each other. It's very.... Eh, which is how I felt after finishing most of these stories.
Black is Beautiful
Man...
Alright, I was worried about this one from the moment the insight blurb promised a 'weird and wonderful' take on racial identity in the 21st century. Silverberg is a white jewish man from NYC, there's nothing to say he couldn't write a good commentary on race... but the odds are incredibly stacked against him, and overall there's a lingering question of 'why did you think you were the one who needed to say this'.
The problems are immediate and obvious, and the quotes are too much for me to want to share. The story is about the year 2000, where NYC is now vastly populated by black people as whites have fled for the countryside. Most people celebrate this shift in dynamics and having such a city where black culture is everywhere and black people hold every position of power. The MC is a teen who resents it, feeling this is merely more segregation, angry people feel the battle is over when white people (and many white businesses) abandoned the city to them- but still come as tourists to gawk. He hates white people, and goes to stab a white tourist, only to be stopped. A family friend tells him to be thankful they have what they have.
When I put it like that, it doesn't sound that bad. It is trying to be somewhat exaggerated satire at points, and is clearly commentary which stands against segregation. Okay. I believe he had some well meaning behind this story. However.
The story is written in a limited POV to our lead, in AAVE, littered with slurs. Perhaps this POV 'makes sense', but it does not feel authentic, and the reminder of who the author is ever reinforces that. There's stereotypes everywhere, and particularly gross hypersexualization of black women's bodies. All throughout, bizarrely, are quotes from black civil rights leaders, expressing a variety of opinions- these do not link to the surrounding story particularly, and represent a head-scratching choice.
Reading the story is grimace-inducing. It doesn't feel like it should have ever been written, it expresses the point I believe it wishes to make poorly, and the whole time it's haunted by an exaggerated mockery of the people and voices it is trying to speak for.
Ringing the Changes
Perhaps the least anything story in the collection, this feels like a creative writing exercise. An accident in the body swap machine leaves minds and bodies mixed up, and the lab attempts to put the correct mind into each body. One mind hops from body to body, each time getting flashes of memories. At last he decides to lie about which body is his, and it's revealed the one he stole had a terminal disease, allowing him to happily die in a few weeks. Most of the story are these memory flashbacks to random lives (lesbian sex, deep sea diving, baseball, a stockbroker, the president) without much of anything else going on. And then it abruptly ends.
Translation Error
An alien who visited Earth during WW1 to hinder humanity's development returns and finds his actions had no effect. Humans, predicted to be the most powerful and intelligent race ever when they enter space, are close to landing on the moon. Oh no! Then he learns he's in the wrong timeline- the one where he hindered humanity is a different one. He returns there, and finds his actions have had an effect... but now instead of spacefarers, humans have evolved to become extremely advanced psychics and pose even more of a threat.
Most of this story is quite dry. An alien recounts history, is confused by it not going as he predicted, and freaks out about humans being The Best.
The Shadow of Wings
It's my second favourite maybe, but it's another story with very little going on outside the premise. The ending is so sudden it feels like the prologue to a book.
A linguist who studies an ancient alien language is contacted by the government when a living member of that species arrives on Earth. He enters the ship to communicate with the alien and learn what it is here for.
He's utterly disgusted and horrified to see the alien is a giant fluffy bat. Can't relate. I have been really into alien space bats recently (long story), and his utter horror at this polite, pleasant alien is ridiculous. Dude, you've studied their language your whole life. Aliens existing is a fact of life. Stop being rude.
The bat alien offers to make friends with humanity and seals it with a hug, which the linguist is disgusted and terrified of but accepts. The end.
Absolutely Inflexible
An extremely straightforward bootstrap paradox. I'm going to call this one also a bit bland. It's worth noting I enjoy a lot of minor details around these stories, aspects of tech or culture that are more unique, but the plots and characters are generally just flat.
In the future, time travellers are all quarantined on the moon due to the risk of infectious disease. There's no such thing as backwards time travel, so travellers are constantly arriving and having to be locked away. One shows up with what he claims is a two way travelling device. The moon warden is intrigued and tries it out, winding up in the past... but when he returns to the future, he's mistaken for yet another traveller and sent to the moon by himself. He's the man who had the device in the first place, the cycle continues.
His Brother's Weeper
"Women, amirite?" -this story
A man teleports to a distant planet to settle his brother's estate. His brother disappeared in a teleporting accident. The brother, who won't stop mentioning how they're nearly identical despite his brother being younger and far more charismatic, learns his brother had promised to marry two different women before his disappearance. The women immediately seize upon the lead and attempt to seduce him, begging he marry them instead. The man finishes up with the estate and plans to flee from the women, but discovers his brother is still alive- he's just hiding from the women he promised to marry. The two women storm the brothers' home, and the men decide they'll just have to pick one each to marry and deal with it.
There's some idea the women are both golddiggers, but the story also doubts it- they're just beautiful wealthy women desperately horny for these men, and the men hate this. They're written to be unpleasant, yes, but in that very stereotypical 'needy, simpleminded woman who won't shut up about marriage' way. It's not like they get character development or any traits to separate them, the brother just promised to marry both of them and decided to fake his death rather than do anything.
Overall:
This is an aggressively midtier collection. 'Black is Beautiful' makes me rate it as 1 star, but I still wouldn't have rated it higher than 2. There's sometimes an interesting idea, or a fun enough joke, but there's nothing here I haven't seen before and little to recommend. The prose is nothing exciting, the plots typical, the endings sudden, and end result exceptionally generic.
Spoilers.
The Iron Chancellor:
A family purchases a robot to help regulate their weight loss. It's funny to see what concerns about weight were like in the 70s, and the story is weakened severely by its lack of imagination here- we are given the weight of the characters, and they simply aren't That fat. Their weight loss goals are generally only 10 pounds. For a rather silly story concept, everything feels less dramatic when it's so mundane.
The robot chef quickly glitches, and decides to lock the family in the house and feed them very little until they hit their goal weights. But oh no! The glitch means the goal weight information has been erased, so it'll instead slowly starve them to death.
The premise of 'robot chef who is determined to cause weight loss NO MATTER WHAT' leads itself obviously to say, dismemberment. But instead it's the least interesting route and a bit of a shrug all around.
The retro-future vision is always a blast though. These robots roll around on treads and use tapes, but there's a House-Brain and particle privacy shields.
The Reality Trip
My favourite of the collection. It's a shame I can't really recommend the others, because this one is enjoyable and fairly funny. I love an alien point of view where they feel distinctly alien, and are trying to just blend casually in on Earth.
A lonely alien bonds with a lonely human, but is alarmed to find she has fallen in love with him. He attempts to scare her off by revealing his true form, but she's just... 100% down. She's like 'okay I get it, you're a space crab, I still love you'. He tries to drive her off by arranging she walks in on him having freaky crab sex, and she's like. 'okay I get it. I'm into this actually. Can I date you both'.
It's fun and I have an affection for alien crabs these days (long story) so. Kinda a banger.
The Shrines of Earth
Like so many pulp writers, Silverberg's stories all have a certain sense of humour. Sometimes they prompted a Sensible Chuckle from me, but often his jokes last too long. Or the whole story is a bit, and the punchline has already come and gone, and you're left wondering why there's still a few pages left.
The Earth has been at peace for a long time, transformed into national heritage parks with various preserved cultural structures and little else. Native Terrans have worked out a hostile alien race is coming to Earth soon, but rather than warn the far-off settled Earth colonies, arrange for the nations to think they're at threat from each other instead. France, America, and Russia arrange for preemptive guarding of their prized monuments, stuck in a cold war of suspicion from a threat which isn't real. When the aliens show up, Earth is perfectly defended.
You understand what is going on immediately, and the rest of the story is Extended Bits about space nations panicking about each other. It's very.... Eh, which is how I felt after finishing most of these stories.
Black is Beautiful
Man...
Alright, I was worried about this one from the moment the insight blurb promised a 'weird and wonderful' take on racial identity in the 21st century. Silverberg is a white jewish man from NYC, there's nothing to say he couldn't write a good commentary on race... but the odds are incredibly stacked against him, and overall there's a lingering question of 'why did you think you were the one who needed to say this'.
The problems are immediate and obvious, and the quotes are too much for me to want to share. The story is about the year 2000, where NYC is now vastly populated by black people as whites have fled for the countryside. Most people celebrate this shift in dynamics and having such a city where black culture is everywhere and black people hold every position of power. The MC is a teen who resents it, feeling this is merely more segregation, angry people feel the battle is over when white people (and many white businesses) abandoned the city to them- but still come as tourists to gawk. He hates white people, and goes to stab a white tourist, only to be stopped. A family friend tells him to be thankful they have what they have.
When I put it like that, it doesn't sound that bad. It is trying to be somewhat exaggerated satire at points, and is clearly commentary which stands against segregation. Okay. I believe he had some well meaning behind this story. However.
The story is written in a limited POV to our lead, in AAVE, littered with slurs. Perhaps this POV 'makes sense', but it does not feel authentic, and the reminder of who the author is ever reinforces that. There's stereotypes everywhere, and particularly gross hypersexualization of black women's bodies. All throughout, bizarrely, are quotes from black civil rights leaders, expressing a variety of opinions- these do not link to the surrounding story particularly, and represent a head-scratching choice.
Reading the story is grimace-inducing. It doesn't feel like it should have ever been written, it expresses the point I believe it wishes to make poorly, and the whole time it's haunted by an exaggerated mockery of the people and voices it is trying to speak for.
Ringing the Changes
Perhaps the least anything story in the collection, this feels like a creative writing exercise. An accident in the body swap machine leaves minds and bodies mixed up, and the lab attempts to put the correct mind into each body. One mind hops from body to body, each time getting flashes of memories. At last he decides to lie about which body is his, and it's revealed the one he stole had a terminal disease, allowing him to happily die in a few weeks. Most of the story are these memory flashbacks to random lives (lesbian sex, deep sea diving, baseball, a stockbroker, the president) without much of anything else going on. And then it abruptly ends.
Translation Error
An alien who visited Earth during WW1 to hinder humanity's development returns and finds his actions had no effect. Humans, predicted to be the most powerful and intelligent race ever when they enter space, are close to landing on the moon. Oh no! Then he learns he's in the wrong timeline- the one where he hindered humanity is a different one. He returns there, and finds his actions have had an effect... but now instead of spacefarers, humans have evolved to become extremely advanced psychics and pose even more of a threat.
Most of this story is quite dry. An alien recounts history, is confused by it not going as he predicted, and freaks out about humans being The Best.
The Shadow of Wings
It's my second favourite maybe, but it's another story with very little going on outside the premise. The ending is so sudden it feels like the prologue to a book.
A linguist who studies an ancient alien language is contacted by the government when a living member of that species arrives on Earth. He enters the ship to communicate with the alien and learn what it is here for.
He's utterly disgusted and horrified to see the alien is a giant fluffy bat. Can't relate. I have been really into alien space bats recently (long story), and his utter horror at this polite, pleasant alien is ridiculous. Dude, you've studied their language your whole life. Aliens existing is a fact of life. Stop being rude.
The bat alien offers to make friends with humanity and seals it with a hug, which the linguist is disgusted and terrified of but accepts. The end.
Absolutely Inflexible
An extremely straightforward bootstrap paradox. I'm going to call this one also a bit bland. It's worth noting I enjoy a lot of minor details around these stories, aspects of tech or culture that are more unique, but the plots and characters are generally just flat.
In the future, time travellers are all quarantined on the moon due to the risk of infectious disease. There's no such thing as backwards time travel, so travellers are constantly arriving and having to be locked away. One shows up with what he claims is a two way travelling device. The moon warden is intrigued and tries it out, winding up in the past... but when he returns to the future, he's mistaken for yet another traveller and sent to the moon by himself. He's the man who had the device in the first place, the cycle continues.
His Brother's Weeper
"Women, amirite?" -this story
A man teleports to a distant planet to settle his brother's estate. His brother disappeared in a teleporting accident. The brother, who won't stop mentioning how they're nearly identical despite his brother being younger and far more charismatic, learns his brother had promised to marry two different women before his disappearance. The women immediately seize upon the lead and attempt to seduce him, begging he marry them instead. The man finishes up with the estate and plans to flee from the women, but discovers his brother is still alive- he's just hiding from the women he promised to marry. The two women storm the brothers' home, and the men decide they'll just have to pick one each to marry and deal with it.
There's some idea the women are both golddiggers, but the story also doubts it- they're just beautiful wealthy women desperately horny for these men, and the men hate this. They're written to be unpleasant, yes, but in that very stereotypical 'needy, simpleminded woman who won't shut up about marriage' way. It's not like they get character development or any traits to separate them, the brother just promised to marry both of them and decided to fake his death rather than do anything.
Overall:
This is an aggressively midtier collection. 'Black is Beautiful' makes me rate it as 1 star, but I still wouldn't have rated it higher than 2. There's sometimes an interesting idea, or a fun enough joke, but there's nothing here I haven't seen before and little to recommend. The prose is nothing exciting, the plots typical, the endings sudden, and end result exceptionally generic.
September 13, 2015
3/5 Rating Review coming 9/17 and will posted first at as part of the group read.
Follow along with #TimeTravelThursday
Follow along with #TimeTravelThursday
January 6, 2023
I haven't read any of this author's works since the 1980s and then primarily his Lord Valentine series. This collection of short stories doesn't past the test of time. Too many of the stories were so dated—primarily in their view of women—I found them offensive. And the author's introductions to each story didn't help matters. He is so full of himself!
March 31, 2016
Uhm...this guy writes some great stories, but always ends them with a "BAM, TWILIGHT ZONE TWIST ENDING". That gets annoying...and it seems kind of lazy.
All the stories are great until that happens.
All the stories are great until that happens.
June 6, 2023
Several months ago I bought a stack of old Sci-Fi paperbacks and most of them are still sitting unread. So I thought I should start working on them occasionally. This is a collection of short stories, all written in the fifties and sixties, by Robert Silverberg. Most of them, were to me, a little silly but entertaining. For example, one is about a man who goes through great effort to enlist for a war with Sirius but when he gets there he finds out it was all a hoax to improve the economy on Earth. Huh? Anyway, one of the things I enjoy most about old sci-fi is the complete inability to predict the advances in technology and so the writer usually has them using enhanced versions of the technology from the period that the book is written in. I find it entertaining to look for these sorts of things and I'm sure that we are just as incapable of predicting advances and so , in the distant future, readers will be looking at today's sci-fi and find it humorous, also.
November 22, 2021
2 Stars / 0 Steam Fans
Video review available in Week 44: Oct 31 � Nov 6, 2021, full weekly book reviews available on Steph's Romance Book Talk Patreon.
For other bookish content, check out my YouTube Channel: Steph's Romance Book Talk.
Video review available in Week 44: Oct 31 � Nov 6, 2021, full weekly book reviews available on Steph's Romance Book Talk Patreon.
For other bookish content, check out my YouTube Channel: Steph's Romance Book Talk.
December 2, 2023
Picked up as an afterthought at a used book sale. Little did I know I was grabbing a treasure trove of short stories. Banger. After. Banger. Asimov is right. The rat writes excellent stories.
June 19, 2023
A great collection of 20 stories by the very accomplished and talented Robert Silverberg. I didn't enjoy all of them, but on the whole they were excellent.
They were:
1) Needle in a Timestack.
In a future age of time travel, a man, Nick Mikkelsen senses his wife and his life being stolen from him by his wife's rich ex. When he loses her, he travels back in time to try to reverse the change. When he returns to the present he's forgotten all about her, but then meets her and has a good feeling.
2) There was an Old Woman.
A strong woman, rich and determined and a biologist decides to conduct an experiment, to have 32 sons. She decides all of their careers, their futures. But as they grow to adulthood, they are all disillusioned with her choices of their vocation. They all want to do different things. They agree to kill her, split the spoils and separate which they do going off to decide their own destinies.
3) The Pain Peddlers.
A TV executive on a reality show arranges for a dying old man to have his leg amputated live on camera without any anaesthetic. The patient dies. The family are financially rewarded but are unhappy. A sacked colleague gets his revenge on the executive, Northrup, when Northrup is attacked savagely by the patient's son and is recorded dying in agony as the colleague films it for himself.
4) The Sixth Place.
Lipescu and Bolzano seek treasure on an alien planet. Octave Merlin has videotaped the treasure 100 years previously. A robot 10 ft high guards the gate to the treasure on the planet. The treasure is a collection of spoils from 1,000 or more worlds. Lipescu goes down to the planet in his spacesuit to face the robot and attempt to pass and collect the treasure. The two men had collected as much knowledge as possible in a small portable computer attached to their suits. The robot questions Lipescu up to the 18th question. The robot then kills him. Bolzano goes down to the planet to face the robot. Greed outweighs sense. The robot says it wants truth, inwardness and understanding. It questions Bolzano who gives philosophical replies instead of factual ones. The robot allows him to enter. He collects some treasures and starts to leave but the robot challenges him. He is still being tested. He is honest but dies. He had not answered with truth, inwardness and understanding. He had replied honestly. Rationally, factually but not with universal truth.
5) In Entropy's Jaws.
John Skein travels through space at many times lightspeed on a liner as they enter the Panama Canal, as it is called. The forces send Skein back in time to an old memory of doing a deal for a client. Coustakis seeks a solution to his matter transfer problem. Skein aims to enable this. He connects telepathically to Nissenson, a problem solver, and to Coustakis. It goes wrong and Skein is overloaded back in real time in the ship. Skein wakes up to a crowd trying to revive him. Skein continues to travel back and forth in his own timeline visiting past and future and seeing on the planet he's travelling to the answer. An old man and a creature buried deep in the sand point the way to healing and wholeness, his talents restored when he reaches that time and place. He is able to go back in time willingly and fix the past. Fix the problem in the future. He is the old man helping himself to be healed.
6) Absolutely Inflexible.
All time jumpers are exiled in quarantine to the moon lest they infect anyone in the disease free 28th century. A time jumper in a contamination suit is brought to Mahler. He doesn't protest but accepts his fate to go to the prison colony on the moon, but he claims he has a two-way time machine. Mahler doesn't believe him but once the man has gone he tests the device and goes back in time there. He has a short adventure then returns home earlier than he left. He is dragged before his own self in his own office and is exiled by himself to the moon.
7) This is the Road.
Crown and company are seeking to raise an army against the deadly beings the Teeth. They travel west in Crown's wagon through purple rain and mud. They meet on route the Invisibles and the Tree People who demand the pick of their possessions in return for access to and save passage across their land. Crown, the leader refuses but the other three decide to accept the Tree People's demands, but Crown kills Sting while Leaf and Shadow escape, submit to the Trees and go on to join with the Sky People to meet whatever destiny awaits them.
8) The Pope of the Chimps.
After Hal dies the intelligent chimps form a religion of their own and decide Hal has gone to heaven and the chimps can go too if they follow their new creed. One chimp, Leo, becomes their leader, their Pope, but they start killing chimps to send them to heaven. The humans play along but signal the chimps that God doesn't want them to send anyone to heaven early. They stop killi but continue to develop their religion.
9) The Dead Man's Eyes.
Loren Frazier, in a moment of jealous rage, murders Herwith, his wife's lover, and goes on the run for several years. The police recover images of the murder from the dead man's eyes proving his guilt. He changes his name, his nationality and his face. But on meeting his wife who he still loves and seeing her apathy towards him, he hands himself in to the police. After a light sentence, he carries on his life alone.
10) The Road to Nightfall.
In the future after a brutal, no-win war, humanity is starving. Food has run out and people are turning to cannibalism. The large Paul Katterson is offered a job obtaining bodies for food. He holds out as long as he can but eventually close to starvation gives in and goes to find a job obtaining bodies. When he arrives he collapses with hunger, desperation and resignation.
11) Multiples.
In a society where some people have multiple personalities and happily coexist with them. Cleo, a singleton, meets Van, a multiple, and falls in love with him. She tries to be a multiple via surgery but the process fails. She leaves Van and goes home as she feels he will tire of her single nature but she is restless and is drawn back to the multiples scene.
12) Many Mansions.
The story was about Ted and Alice. Alice uses a time machine to go back and kill Ted or Martin, his grandfather, or not. There are many different possibilities and permutations of what happens. Who knows what the real one is. This was confusing.
13) (Now+N, Now-N).
The story concerns Aram Kevorkian and Selene Hughes. Aram can talk with his future and past selves to play the stock market and win huge gains. He meets and falls in love with Selene, but she flits around in time stabilised by a necklace or amulet that stops her gift, but also his ability to talk to the past and future. As a solution, she is able to obtain stock market reports from the future in the form of newspapers making them very rich so she can keep the amulet on and stay in the present. Even though he can't talk to his other future and past selves, they work to develop their gifts together and remain together in love.
14) Enter a Soldier. Later: Enter Another.
A gifted scientist creates an artificial intelligence called Francisco Pizarro an American conquistador, who achieves a state of consciousness. They interrogate the character who is very interested in their world and how he has come to be alive in it. Socrates is introduced. Socrates and Pizarro engage in philosophical discussion and achieve a kind of kinship, a bond of friendship.
15) The Reality Trip.
This story concerns Elizabeth Cooke, an amateur poet and an alien called Mr Knecht. Mr. Knecht's job is to study Earth and report back every night. Lonely Elizabeth Cooke, his neighbour, falls in love with him. Despite his best efforts to dissuade her, he involves another of his kind, but it doesn't work. Eventually he too falls in love with her and he severs all connection with his home world and goes off to marry her and stay on Earth.
16) Chip Runner.
An anorexic kid intent on shrinking to the subatomic level by starvation meets a therapist trying to help, but as he slowly begins to understand what the kid Timothy was trying to do, the kid dies.
17) Call Me Titan.
Titan has been a prisoner of Zeus buried 3 miles below ground for 50,000 years. Through a freak accident of nature he is freed, healed and heads for the surface. He explores modern Greece looking for Zeus, his old enemy who imprisoned him under Mount Etna. He finds no-one except on Mykonos, Aphrodite. They enjoy love, passion but Titan cannot forget Zeus and continues to keep watch for him ready for their final encounter.
18) Defenders of the Frontier.
In a fort designed for 10,000 men, 11 only remain guarding the land from spies who if found are killed. With no enemy and supplies dwindling and no reinforcements, the men decide after the captain says so to go and seek what is left of their empire. But after several days travel, tired and depleted, the surveyor kills the captain and takes over ordering them all to return to the fort, the home they have become used to.
19) Ishmael in Love.
A very intelligent, communicative dolphin falls in love with its human contact, Elizabeth, but it's love is unrequited.
20) The Secret Sharer.
Onboard a spaceship called Sword of Iron there is a young, inexperienced commander called Adam and a stowaway called Leeleaine. She is a matrix, a free electronic spirit who goes by the name of Vox. She is 17 years old from Kansas 4, a planet. She is a soul matrix going to fill a vacant body on a new world. There are 16 crewmen on board. Adam allows Vox to enter him and take up refuge inside him like a spirit possessing a body. As the crew find out about her and the net closes in, she decides to leav the ship and float away to experience the universe while she can before she dissipates.
A fantastic collection of stories.
They were:
1) Needle in a Timestack.
In a future age of time travel, a man, Nick Mikkelsen senses his wife and his life being stolen from him by his wife's rich ex. When he loses her, he travels back in time to try to reverse the change. When he returns to the present he's forgotten all about her, but then meets her and has a good feeling.
2) There was an Old Woman.
A strong woman, rich and determined and a biologist decides to conduct an experiment, to have 32 sons. She decides all of their careers, their futures. But as they grow to adulthood, they are all disillusioned with her choices of their vocation. They all want to do different things. They agree to kill her, split the spoils and separate which they do going off to decide their own destinies.
3) The Pain Peddlers.
A TV executive on a reality show arranges for a dying old man to have his leg amputated live on camera without any anaesthetic. The patient dies. The family are financially rewarded but are unhappy. A sacked colleague gets his revenge on the executive, Northrup, when Northrup is attacked savagely by the patient's son and is recorded dying in agony as the colleague films it for himself.
4) The Sixth Place.
Lipescu and Bolzano seek treasure on an alien planet. Octave Merlin has videotaped the treasure 100 years previously. A robot 10 ft high guards the gate to the treasure on the planet. The treasure is a collection of spoils from 1,000 or more worlds. Lipescu goes down to the planet in his spacesuit to face the robot and attempt to pass and collect the treasure. The two men had collected as much knowledge as possible in a small portable computer attached to their suits. The robot questions Lipescu up to the 18th question. The robot then kills him. Bolzano goes down to the planet to face the robot. Greed outweighs sense. The robot says it wants truth, inwardness and understanding. It questions Bolzano who gives philosophical replies instead of factual ones. The robot allows him to enter. He collects some treasures and starts to leave but the robot challenges him. He is still being tested. He is honest but dies. He had not answered with truth, inwardness and understanding. He had replied honestly. Rationally, factually but not with universal truth.
5) In Entropy's Jaws.
John Skein travels through space at many times lightspeed on a liner as they enter the Panama Canal, as it is called. The forces send Skein back in time to an old memory of doing a deal for a client. Coustakis seeks a solution to his matter transfer problem. Skein aims to enable this. He connects telepathically to Nissenson, a problem solver, and to Coustakis. It goes wrong and Skein is overloaded back in real time in the ship. Skein wakes up to a crowd trying to revive him. Skein continues to travel back and forth in his own timeline visiting past and future and seeing on the planet he's travelling to the answer. An old man and a creature buried deep in the sand point the way to healing and wholeness, his talents restored when he reaches that time and place. He is able to go back in time willingly and fix the past. Fix the problem in the future. He is the old man helping himself to be healed.
6) Absolutely Inflexible.
All time jumpers are exiled in quarantine to the moon lest they infect anyone in the disease free 28th century. A time jumper in a contamination suit is brought to Mahler. He doesn't protest but accepts his fate to go to the prison colony on the moon, but he claims he has a two-way time machine. Mahler doesn't believe him but once the man has gone he tests the device and goes back in time there. He has a short adventure then returns home earlier than he left. He is dragged before his own self in his own office and is exiled by himself to the moon.
7) This is the Road.
Crown and company are seeking to raise an army against the deadly beings the Teeth. They travel west in Crown's wagon through purple rain and mud. They meet on route the Invisibles and the Tree People who demand the pick of their possessions in return for access to and save passage across their land. Crown, the leader refuses but the other three decide to accept the Tree People's demands, but Crown kills Sting while Leaf and Shadow escape, submit to the Trees and go on to join with the Sky People to meet whatever destiny awaits them.
8) The Pope of the Chimps.
After Hal dies the intelligent chimps form a religion of their own and decide Hal has gone to heaven and the chimps can go too if they follow their new creed. One chimp, Leo, becomes their leader, their Pope, but they start killing chimps to send them to heaven. The humans play along but signal the chimps that God doesn't want them to send anyone to heaven early. They stop killi but continue to develop their religion.
9) The Dead Man's Eyes.
Loren Frazier, in a moment of jealous rage, murders Herwith, his wife's lover, and goes on the run for several years. The police recover images of the murder from the dead man's eyes proving his guilt. He changes his name, his nationality and his face. But on meeting his wife who he still loves and seeing her apathy towards him, he hands himself in to the police. After a light sentence, he carries on his life alone.
10) The Road to Nightfall.
In the future after a brutal, no-win war, humanity is starving. Food has run out and people are turning to cannibalism. The large Paul Katterson is offered a job obtaining bodies for food. He holds out as long as he can but eventually close to starvation gives in and goes to find a job obtaining bodies. When he arrives he collapses with hunger, desperation and resignation.
11) Multiples.
In a society where some people have multiple personalities and happily coexist with them. Cleo, a singleton, meets Van, a multiple, and falls in love with him. She tries to be a multiple via surgery but the process fails. She leaves Van and goes home as she feels he will tire of her single nature but she is restless and is drawn back to the multiples scene.
12) Many Mansions.
The story was about Ted and Alice. Alice uses a time machine to go back and kill Ted or Martin, his grandfather, or not. There are many different possibilities and permutations of what happens. Who knows what the real one is. This was confusing.
13) (Now+N, Now-N).
The story concerns Aram Kevorkian and Selene Hughes. Aram can talk with his future and past selves to play the stock market and win huge gains. He meets and falls in love with Selene, but she flits around in time stabilised by a necklace or amulet that stops her gift, but also his ability to talk to the past and future. As a solution, she is able to obtain stock market reports from the future in the form of newspapers making them very rich so she can keep the amulet on and stay in the present. Even though he can't talk to his other future and past selves, they work to develop their gifts together and remain together in love.
14) Enter a Soldier. Later: Enter Another.
A gifted scientist creates an artificial intelligence called Francisco Pizarro an American conquistador, who achieves a state of consciousness. They interrogate the character who is very interested in their world and how he has come to be alive in it. Socrates is introduced. Socrates and Pizarro engage in philosophical discussion and achieve a kind of kinship, a bond of friendship.
15) The Reality Trip.
This story concerns Elizabeth Cooke, an amateur poet and an alien called Mr Knecht. Mr. Knecht's job is to study Earth and report back every night. Lonely Elizabeth Cooke, his neighbour, falls in love with him. Despite his best efforts to dissuade her, he involves another of his kind, but it doesn't work. Eventually he too falls in love with her and he severs all connection with his home world and goes off to marry her and stay on Earth.
16) Chip Runner.
An anorexic kid intent on shrinking to the subatomic level by starvation meets a therapist trying to help, but as he slowly begins to understand what the kid Timothy was trying to do, the kid dies.
17) Call Me Titan.
Titan has been a prisoner of Zeus buried 3 miles below ground for 50,000 years. Through a freak accident of nature he is freed, healed and heads for the surface. He explores modern Greece looking for Zeus, his old enemy who imprisoned him under Mount Etna. He finds no-one except on Mykonos, Aphrodite. They enjoy love, passion but Titan cannot forget Zeus and continues to keep watch for him ready for their final encounter.
18) Defenders of the Frontier.
In a fort designed for 10,000 men, 11 only remain guarding the land from spies who if found are killed. With no enemy and supplies dwindling and no reinforcements, the men decide after the captain says so to go and seek what is left of their empire. But after several days travel, tired and depleted, the surveyor kills the captain and takes over ordering them all to return to the fort, the home they have become used to.
19) Ishmael in Love.
A very intelligent, communicative dolphin falls in love with its human contact, Elizabeth, but it's love is unrequited.
20) The Secret Sharer.
Onboard a spaceship called Sword of Iron there is a young, inexperienced commander called Adam and a stowaway called Leeleaine. She is a matrix, a free electronic spirit who goes by the name of Vox. She is 17 years old from Kansas 4, a planet. She is a soul matrix going to fill a vacant body on a new world. There are 16 crewmen on board. Adam allows Vox to enter him and take up refuge inside him like a spirit possessing a body. As the crew find out about her and the net closes in, she decides to leav the ship and float away to experience the universe while she can before she dissipates.
A fantastic collection of stories.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
June 18, 2023
Overall:
All of these stories feel terribly dated, and even accounting for that none of them seem that great. There are a lot of interludes between the stories where Silverberg tells about his career as a science fiction writer � which is interesting � and when he kept saying about how he was generating something like a million words per year in some years I was like, "Yeah, I'm not surprised" given the relatively low quality of the output here. I've liked other work by Silverberg, but it's not exactly the deepest science fiction I've encountered.
By Story:
Needle in a Timestack - 3 of 5 stars
This is one of the better stories in the collection, and apparently they . The time travel mechanism is pretty sketchy, but if you take that for granted, it's interesting to see Silverberg grappling with the consequences of It could be interesting to see a more philosophical treatment of the same story, though at its heart the problem relies on an incoherent time travel mechanism, so I don't think anyone thinking it through too much could make headway here.
There Was an Old Woman - 2 of 5 stars
This one feels amateurish mainly because "nature vs nurture" is one of those questions that amateurs like to speculate on and have strong opinions about independent of any sort of evidence, and that bleeds through here. This is another one of those things that's extremely dated, because the science of heredity has advanced so much since it was written (despite what "blank slate" proponents would want you to believe).
The Pain Peddlers - 2.5 of 5 stars
This story is about a future world where you can record and vicariously experience sensations, and there are networks that pay to capture people's dying moments, including manipulating them into dying painfully. The idea is interesting but amateurishly executed. Reminds me of general propaganda about how evil markets are and doesn't ring true at all to me.
The Sixth Place - 2 of 5 stars
This one reminded me of The Man in the Maze or (to a lesser extent) Rogue Moon . Weirdly, I was about to say Rogue Moon was the best of the three, but I apparently gave that one 2/5 stars despite the fact that it has haunted me in my memory since reading it a few years ago.
In Entropy's Jaws - 2.5 of 5 stars
Weird psychological thriller and . It was just OK.
Absolutely Inflexible - 2.5 of 5 stars
I get the impression that this was maybe supposed to be Silverberg's take on . It may just be genre conventions that didn't exist at the time, but I feel like I could see the twist coming from the very beginning.
This is the Road - 2 of 5 stars
I think this was supposed to be a bit of world-building. He says he reused this short story in the Majipoor Chronicles, he may have also re-used some of the bones of the world-building itself as well? I think the general idea of the world is basically one where humans have started to speciate more and specialize in various ecological and psychic niches. Other books have done this better, including Greg Egan's Diaspora .
The Pope of the Chimps - 1 of 5 stars
Possibly the weakest of the bunch. Scientists accidentally start a chimp cult.
The Dead Man's Eyes - 2 of 5 stars
This one definitely feels very dated. I dunno really what to say about it. It's about a rich guy who semi-intentionally murders his wife's lover, but it's in a world where you can change your appearance at will, and his wife is famous enough that he sees copies of her around all the time (he is living under an assumed identity).
The Road to Nightfall - 2 of 5 stars
This one is about a declining mostly post-apocalyptic world where food basically runs out and people start resorting to cannibalism. The main character tries to resist the temptation to do so. I found the whole thing fairly overblown and uninteresting, but also I don't feel the taboo against eating human meat very strongly (as compared to the taboo against murder, which I do feel very strongly), so it doesn't really hit me that hard. I suspect even if you did feel that taboo strongly, you would have already encountered other stories that would already make you consider the idea (including true ones!)
Multiples - 1 of 5 stars
This was the cringiest story I've read in a long time. It reads like a tumblr blog about how great multiple personality disorder is.
Many Mansions - 2 of 5 stars
I am not sure I followed what was going on in here. Is it a many worlds type situation? Every character seems to be going back in time to lust for or kill former versions of each other. A bit confusing and I didn't see the point.
(Now + n, Now - n) - 3 of 5 stars
This was another of the stories in this collection that was actually mildly interesting. The idea of being psychically connected to yourself from the future and the past and the idea of are both interesting concepts. I'm not quite sure that Silverberg does them justice, I feel like someone like Greg Egan should probably take on the first concept. Silverberg seems like he mainly focuses on the love story aspect of it.
Enter a Soldier. Later: Enter Another - 2.5 of 5 stars
AI simulation of historical figures takes on a life of its own, via basically magical means. Feels very amateurish and not at all engaged in the actually interesting concepts here.
The Reality Trip - 2.5 of 5 stars
Also a fairly interesting one. An alien in disguise on Earth ends up getting entangled against his will with a human woman, and things go horribly awry. He fails to get recalled to his home planet.
Chip Runner - 1.5 of 5 stars
Weird anorexia story about a kid who thinks he can starve himself down to the size of an electron or something. It would be interesting if true, but just bizarre given that it's not.
Call Me Titan - 3.5 of 5 stars
Not sure what this one was doing in the collection, it's about a Titan awaking from slumber and running around like Godzilla destroying stuff. Kind of a fun one, though not amazingly interesting on an intellectual level.
Defenders of the Frontier - 2.5 of 5 stars
Soldiers on a frontier, out of contact with the center of power for long enough that they aren't even sure that the war is going on decide to head back into civilization. Kind of an interesting set-up, but it didn't make a strong impression.
Ishmael in Love - 3 of 5 stars
This was a kind of weird one. It's about a dolphin who falls in love with his human trainer in a world where humans have the technology to communicate with dolphins. If you like more advanced dolphin stories, Startide Rising (and the Uplift series in general) is better for this.
The Secret Sharer - 2.5 of 5 stars
This is a story that takes place on a ship in a world where human souls can be separated from their bodies to exist as a "matrix". One of these matrices apparently escapes and ghosts around in the ship, which means it should be given the death penalty. It's kind of weird and not super coherent, and the motivations of basically everyone involved didn't resonate with me very strongly.
All of these stories feel terribly dated, and even accounting for that none of them seem that great. There are a lot of interludes between the stories where Silverberg tells about his career as a science fiction writer � which is interesting � and when he kept saying about how he was generating something like a million words per year in some years I was like, "Yeah, I'm not surprised" given the relatively low quality of the output here. I've liked other work by Silverberg, but it's not exactly the deepest science fiction I've encountered.
By Story:
Needle in a Timestack - 3 of 5 stars
This is one of the better stories in the collection, and apparently they . The time travel mechanism is pretty sketchy, but if you take that for granted, it's interesting to see Silverberg grappling with the consequences of It could be interesting to see a more philosophical treatment of the same story, though at its heart the problem relies on an incoherent time travel mechanism, so I don't think anyone thinking it through too much could make headway here.
There Was an Old Woman - 2 of 5 stars
This one feels amateurish mainly because "nature vs nurture" is one of those questions that amateurs like to speculate on and have strong opinions about independent of any sort of evidence, and that bleeds through here. This is another one of those things that's extremely dated, because the science of heredity has advanced so much since it was written (despite what "blank slate" proponents would want you to believe).
The Pain Peddlers - 2.5 of 5 stars
This story is about a future world where you can record and vicariously experience sensations, and there are networks that pay to capture people's dying moments, including manipulating them into dying painfully. The idea is interesting but amateurishly executed. Reminds me of general propaganda about how evil markets are and doesn't ring true at all to me.
The Sixth Place - 2 of 5 stars
This one reminded me of The Man in the Maze or (to a lesser extent) Rogue Moon . Weirdly, I was about to say Rogue Moon was the best of the three, but I apparently gave that one 2/5 stars despite the fact that it has haunted me in my memory since reading it a few years ago.
In Entropy's Jaws - 2.5 of 5 stars
Weird psychological thriller and . It was just OK.
Absolutely Inflexible - 2.5 of 5 stars
I get the impression that this was maybe supposed to be Silverberg's take on . It may just be genre conventions that didn't exist at the time, but I feel like I could see the twist coming from the very beginning.
This is the Road - 2 of 5 stars
I think this was supposed to be a bit of world-building. He says he reused this short story in the Majipoor Chronicles, he may have also re-used some of the bones of the world-building itself as well? I think the general idea of the world is basically one where humans have started to speciate more and specialize in various ecological and psychic niches. Other books have done this better, including Greg Egan's Diaspora .
The Pope of the Chimps - 1 of 5 stars
Possibly the weakest of the bunch. Scientists accidentally start a chimp cult.
The Dead Man's Eyes - 2 of 5 stars
This one definitely feels very dated. I dunno really what to say about it. It's about a rich guy who semi-intentionally murders his wife's lover, but it's in a world where you can change your appearance at will, and his wife is famous enough that he sees copies of her around all the time (he is living under an assumed identity).
The Road to Nightfall - 2 of 5 stars
This one is about a declining mostly post-apocalyptic world where food basically runs out and people start resorting to cannibalism. The main character tries to resist the temptation to do so. I found the whole thing fairly overblown and uninteresting, but also I don't feel the taboo against eating human meat very strongly (as compared to the taboo against murder, which I do feel very strongly), so it doesn't really hit me that hard. I suspect even if you did feel that taboo strongly, you would have already encountered other stories that would already make you consider the idea (including true ones!)
Multiples - 1 of 5 stars
This was the cringiest story I've read in a long time. It reads like a tumblr blog about how great multiple personality disorder is.
Many Mansions - 2 of 5 stars
I am not sure I followed what was going on in here. Is it a many worlds type situation? Every character seems to be going back in time to lust for or kill former versions of each other. A bit confusing and I didn't see the point.
(Now + n, Now - n) - 3 of 5 stars
This was another of the stories in this collection that was actually mildly interesting. The idea of being psychically connected to yourself from the future and the past and the idea of are both interesting concepts. I'm not quite sure that Silverberg does them justice, I feel like someone like Greg Egan should probably take on the first concept. Silverberg seems like he mainly focuses on the love story aspect of it.
Enter a Soldier. Later: Enter Another - 2.5 of 5 stars
AI simulation of historical figures takes on a life of its own, via basically magical means. Feels very amateurish and not at all engaged in the actually interesting concepts here.
The Reality Trip - 2.5 of 5 stars
Also a fairly interesting one. An alien in disguise on Earth ends up getting entangled against his will with a human woman, and things go horribly awry. He fails to get recalled to his home planet.
Chip Runner - 1.5 of 5 stars
Weird anorexia story about a kid who thinks he can starve himself down to the size of an electron or something. It would be interesting if true, but just bizarre given that it's not.
Call Me Titan - 3.5 of 5 stars
Not sure what this one was doing in the collection, it's about a Titan awaking from slumber and running around like Godzilla destroying stuff. Kind of a fun one, though not amazingly interesting on an intellectual level.
Defenders of the Frontier - 2.5 of 5 stars
Soldiers on a frontier, out of contact with the center of power for long enough that they aren't even sure that the war is going on decide to head back into civilization. Kind of an interesting set-up, but it didn't make a strong impression.
Ishmael in Love - 3 of 5 stars
This was a kind of weird one. It's about a dolphin who falls in love with his human trainer in a world where humans have the technology to communicate with dolphins. If you like more advanced dolphin stories, Startide Rising (and the Uplift series in general) is better for this.
The Secret Sharer - 2.5 of 5 stars
This is a story that takes place on a ship in a world where human souls can be separated from their bodies to exist as a "matrix". One of these matrices apparently escapes and ghosts around in the ship, which means it should be given the death penalty. It's kind of weird and not super coherent, and the motivations of basically everyone involved didn't resonate with me very strongly.
July 17, 2021
Ordinary intelligence would not work. Odyssean cleverness was the only salvation.
A decent anthology—a rarity in science fiction. Silverberg serves generous offerings from across his career, with introductory comments for each tale. Most involve some form of time travel.
The poor old shattered moon, souvenir of an era long gone: it seemed a scratchy mirror for the tormented planet that owned it, for the fragmented race of races that was mankind.
Though first published in 1966, the current version of this collection includes little of the original and much that wasn’t, including the eponymous Needle story. Some materials were as recent as 2019.
"Still, life is all there is, so you want as much of it as you can. Which means getting gold, and power, and fame.� “Which you had. And apparently have no longer. Friend Pizarro, where are we now?� “I wish I knew.� “So do I,� said Socrates soberly.
My personal favorite was “Enter a soldier. Later: Enter another.�
Even to an old soldier like me it is all very sad. He was a man like us, enemy though he was, and he died far from home.
A decent anthology—a rarity in science fiction. Silverberg serves generous offerings from across his career, with introductory comments for each tale. Most involve some form of time travel.
The poor old shattered moon, souvenir of an era long gone: it seemed a scratchy mirror for the tormented planet that owned it, for the fragmented race of races that was mankind.
Though first published in 1966, the current version of this collection includes little of the original and much that wasn’t, including the eponymous Needle story. Some materials were as recent as 2019.
"Still, life is all there is, so you want as much of it as you can. Which means getting gold, and power, and fame.� “Which you had. And apparently have no longer. Friend Pizarro, where are we now?� “I wish I knew.� “So do I,� said Socrates soberly.
My personal favorite was “Enter a soldier. Later: Enter another.�
Even to an old soldier like me it is all very sad. He was a man like us, enemy though he was, and he died far from home.
January 10, 2023
Silverberg is definitely a card-carrying member of the Mid-Century White Male Science Fiction Writers of Two-Dimensional Female Characters, right up there with Asimov, Heinlein, etc. I can still appreciate the concepts presented and good writing when done, but wince-inducing portrayals of women as props make it so I can only take so much of these guys at a time. The Audible narration using the same breathy, little-girl tone for almost every woman as well didn’t help.
A mixed bag as in almost any short story collection. It collects works from the 1950s to the �80s or �90s. Some interesting concepts and methods, and some stories drag on way too long.
A mixed bag as in almost any short story collection. It collects works from the 1950s to the �80s or �90s. Some interesting concepts and methods, and some stories drag on way too long.
August 28, 2013
Classic, clever, Time Travel -- a short story of life in the not-too-distant future, when "Time Jaunts" are for everyone. Go to the distant past to witness great moments, or to a more recent time to tidy up your life. Trouble is, with so many traveling, things can go wrong. A sudden twitch in your eye or a taste of cotton in your mouth and you know you've been "Time-phased" again. But this time it's no accident, and it's worse than you could have imagined.
Great concept and a fun read.
Great concept and a fun read.
December 15, 2018
“Needle in a Timestack� by Robert Silverberg
Always interesting reading sci-fi when the date (in this case, 2017) is close to my reading date, even though the story was written much earlier (in this case, 1983).
“To enter the past is like poking a baseball bat into a spiderweb: it can't be done subtly or delicately.�
Always interesting reading sci-fi when the date (in this case, 2017) is close to my reading date, even though the story was written much earlier (in this case, 1983).
“To enter the past is like poking a baseball bat into a spiderweb: it can't be done subtly or delicately.�
September 12, 2023
Like most short story collections there are good stories and not as good stories. None I'd say are really bad. Some are obviously a little dated as they were written in the 50s or 60s. Nothing I'd say that's really offensively dated like ethnic stereotypes but most of the main characters probably are white, straight, and male. You can complain if you want, but it is what it is.
I bought it because I'd watched the 2021 movie made from the title story and wanted to see how it compared. Since it's a short story and the movie was about 2 hours long, there's a lot more detail in the movie but the framework is pretty much the same.
"The Secret Sharer" at the end was probably the best one. Ironically I'd say the characters are most fleshed out; it's ironic because one character in the story literally is a disembodied consciousness with no flesh. "Ishmael in Love" was the funniest one as it concerns a dolphin in love with a human woman--as told by the dolphin. And it's not THAT kind of love so get your mind out of the gutter. "Call Me Titan" was another fairly funny one about a Titan (sort of like a kaiju from a Godzilla movie) who's freed from his prison only to find the Greek gods gone as the world has changed. "The Reality Trip" was pretty fun; it's about an alien pretending to be human sort of like Resident Alien; only instead of murder it's about how the alien becomes the target of a pesky human woman. "There Was an Old Woman" was somewhat funny in that it's about a woman who makes like 30 different clones to raise on a farm in Wisconsin and assigns each one a career path--which they all end up hating, along with her.
"The Pain Peddlers" was ahead of its time as it's basically about a reality TV show where they do surgeries live on the air. It's told from the perspective of a guy who pays families to let their dying relatives appear on the air. In a Twilight Zone-type twist he gets a comeuppance. "Absolutely Inflexible" is another one with a Twilight Zone-type twist leading to a comeuppance, only it involves time travel. "Entropy's Jaws" is a much longer story with a similar time travel theme. "Defenders of the Frontier" was decent but a little too long. It's about a group of soldiers who have basically been abandoned in a desert frontier and have to decide whether to try to go home or stay where they are.
"Pope of the Chimps" was a good one and not too long either. It's about how the death of a human caretaker prompts some chimps in a zoo to create a sort of religion. "Enter a Soldier. Later: Enter Another" is pretty interesting. It's about creating simulations of historical figures, sort of like in the holodeck in Star Trek TNG and came out about the time that show first aired.
"This is the Road," a fantasy one with a bunch of characters in a wagon was the worst just because it droned on and on without a lot of point. There are a few more that are just forgettable as in I really do not remember what they were called or much of what they were about and in a couple of weeks will likely have completely erased them. A couple involved time travel and one involved a guy who kills his wife's lover and goes on the run, which if it hasn't already been a movie would be a decent one in the style of Philip K Dick ones like Minority Report or Paycheck.
I always like in short story collections, especially with authors who have been around for decades, when they put notes in. Not only does it tell you how the story came about, it also provides some insight into the publishing business back in the old days. When Silverberg started there were a lot of science fiction magazines to publish to, which is how he got experience and money to continue writing while also doing longer projects, which were probably easier to get published back then than today.
Interestingly, the title story did not exist until the 3rd edition of the collection. As Silverberg tells it, his editor just plucked the title out of the air for a short story collection and ran with it in 1966 and then eventually there was a second collection markedly different but with the same title. Only later did he conceive the title as an actual story after an incident at a sci-fi convention and sold the story to Playboy in 1983--when you could still do things like that. An unnamed movie studio optioned it--twice--before John Ridley, the writer of 12 Years a Slave finally bought it and turned it into a movie. Though unfortunately that movie came out in pandemic times so it was largely forgotten. But a third short story collection with this title came out; it's the first to actually feature the title story as the title story.
Silverberg also talks about "The Road to Nightfall," which involves cannibalism in post-apocalyptic times, that was deemed "too dark" for anyone to publish until a friend--a young Harlan Ellison--helped to get someone to publish it. The result isn't bad, especially if you're a fan of post-apocalyptic stuff.
For the price I paid this was definitely a good deal just for the notes alone.
That is all.
I bought it because I'd watched the 2021 movie made from the title story and wanted to see how it compared. Since it's a short story and the movie was about 2 hours long, there's a lot more detail in the movie but the framework is pretty much the same.
"The Secret Sharer" at the end was probably the best one. Ironically I'd say the characters are most fleshed out; it's ironic because one character in the story literally is a disembodied consciousness with no flesh. "Ishmael in Love" was the funniest one as it concerns a dolphin in love with a human woman--as told by the dolphin. And it's not THAT kind of love so get your mind out of the gutter. "Call Me Titan" was another fairly funny one about a Titan (sort of like a kaiju from a Godzilla movie) who's freed from his prison only to find the Greek gods gone as the world has changed. "The Reality Trip" was pretty fun; it's about an alien pretending to be human sort of like Resident Alien; only instead of murder it's about how the alien becomes the target of a pesky human woman. "There Was an Old Woman" was somewhat funny in that it's about a woman who makes like 30 different clones to raise on a farm in Wisconsin and assigns each one a career path--which they all end up hating, along with her.
"The Pain Peddlers" was ahead of its time as it's basically about a reality TV show where they do surgeries live on the air. It's told from the perspective of a guy who pays families to let their dying relatives appear on the air. In a Twilight Zone-type twist he gets a comeuppance. "Absolutely Inflexible" is another one with a Twilight Zone-type twist leading to a comeuppance, only it involves time travel. "Entropy's Jaws" is a much longer story with a similar time travel theme. "Defenders of the Frontier" was decent but a little too long. It's about a group of soldiers who have basically been abandoned in a desert frontier and have to decide whether to try to go home or stay where they are.
"Pope of the Chimps" was a good one and not too long either. It's about how the death of a human caretaker prompts some chimps in a zoo to create a sort of religion. "Enter a Soldier. Later: Enter Another" is pretty interesting. It's about creating simulations of historical figures, sort of like in the holodeck in Star Trek TNG and came out about the time that show first aired.
"This is the Road," a fantasy one with a bunch of characters in a wagon was the worst just because it droned on and on without a lot of point. There are a few more that are just forgettable as in I really do not remember what they were called or much of what they were about and in a couple of weeks will likely have completely erased them. A couple involved time travel and one involved a guy who kills his wife's lover and goes on the run, which if it hasn't already been a movie would be a decent one in the style of Philip K Dick ones like Minority Report or Paycheck.
I always like in short story collections, especially with authors who have been around for decades, when they put notes in. Not only does it tell you how the story came about, it also provides some insight into the publishing business back in the old days. When Silverberg started there were a lot of science fiction magazines to publish to, which is how he got experience and money to continue writing while also doing longer projects, which were probably easier to get published back then than today.
Interestingly, the title story did not exist until the 3rd edition of the collection. As Silverberg tells it, his editor just plucked the title out of the air for a short story collection and ran with it in 1966 and then eventually there was a second collection markedly different but with the same title. Only later did he conceive the title as an actual story after an incident at a sci-fi convention and sold the story to Playboy in 1983--when you could still do things like that. An unnamed movie studio optioned it--twice--before John Ridley, the writer of 12 Years a Slave finally bought it and turned it into a movie. Though unfortunately that movie came out in pandemic times so it was largely forgotten. But a third short story collection with this title came out; it's the first to actually feature the title story as the title story.
Silverberg also talks about "The Road to Nightfall," which involves cannibalism in post-apocalyptic times, that was deemed "too dark" for anyone to publish until a friend--a young Harlan Ellison--helped to get someone to publish it. The result isn't bad, especially if you're a fan of post-apocalyptic stuff.
For the price I paid this was definitely a good deal just for the notes alone.
That is all.
July 3, 2024
There have been three editions of this short story collection, each with a significantly different table of contents. In truth, it might be more accurate to say there have been three different collections with the same title. This is a review of the original 1966 edition.
Absolutely Inflexible -- Mahler is the government official charged with finding time travelers from the past and exiling them before they can infect humanity with diseases eradicated long ago. However, he finds himself caught in an infinite causality loop after he is presented with a device that can travel both forwards and backwards in time. The contagion angle to time travel is a fun spin (this idea is also used to good effect in The Witcher books). The paradox angle is not particularly sophisticated.
To See the Invisible Man -- In a totalitarian future where the government monitors his every action, a man is convicted of the crime of "coldness" towards his fellow man. His punishment is to be branded as an Invisible. For one year, no one can speak to him or acknowledge his existence in any way. The leads both to opportunities for crime and voyeurism, as well as crippling emotional isolation. Adapted into a Twilight Zone episode.
There Was an Old Woman -- A woman raises 31 identical twins in a social experiment with a dark result. This story is more sophisticated than it sounds. The author was decades ahead of his time in describing in vitro fertilization, a topic that he would also later address in his novel Thorns.
The Sixth Palace -- Two adventurers vie for the right to claim a priceless ancient treasure, but first they must solve the riddle of the robot that stands guard. Features a great opening line: "There was the treasure, and there was the guardian of the treasure. And there were the whitening bones of those who had tried in vain to make the treasure their own."
The Shadow of Wings -- A xenolinguist who specializes in dead Kethlani languages is thrilled when a live Kethlan is captured. However, first contact is complicated by the fact Kethlans evolved from bats, and the alien reminds him of a vampire. Similar to the author's 1959 novelette "Vampires from Outer Space".
Passport to Sirius -- Bored with his existence as a Consumer Sixth Class, a low-level government employee fakes a passport to join the war effort on Sirius IV. He is shocked to learn the conflict is a media fabrication. This story feels prescient in predicting how governments will manufacture crises in order to manipulate economies.
The Pain Peddlers -- In 2008, unscrupulous television networks broadcast feeds of medical patients being operated on without anesthetics. This visceral, punchy story anticipates the rise of virtual reality.
The Iron Chancellor -- A robotic chef with a built-in dieting function goes berserk and tries to starve its owners to death. A funny tale that deliberately resembles the works of Henry Kuttner.
His Brother's Weeper -- Peter travels to the paradise world of Marathan to take care of his brother’s estate. When he arrives, he becomes ensnared in the wiles of two women, both of whom claim to be his dead brother's fiancée. This is a fun comedy, but the detail that stands out is Silverberg's unique Deserializer device. It functions much like the transporter in Star Trek except that when a person rematerializes, he is shifted back in time as well.
Birds of a Feather -- A showman signing aliens for a trip to earth is outfoxed by another con man in this fun, light-hearted story.
Absolutely Inflexible -- Mahler is the government official charged with finding time travelers from the past and exiling them before they can infect humanity with diseases eradicated long ago. However, he finds himself caught in an infinite causality loop after he is presented with a device that can travel both forwards and backwards in time. The contagion angle to time travel is a fun spin (this idea is also used to good effect in The Witcher books). The paradox angle is not particularly sophisticated.
To See the Invisible Man -- In a totalitarian future where the government monitors his every action, a man is convicted of the crime of "coldness" towards his fellow man. His punishment is to be branded as an Invisible. For one year, no one can speak to him or acknowledge his existence in any way. The leads both to opportunities for crime and voyeurism, as well as crippling emotional isolation. Adapted into a Twilight Zone episode.
There Was an Old Woman -- A woman raises 31 identical twins in a social experiment with a dark result. This story is more sophisticated than it sounds. The author was decades ahead of his time in describing in vitro fertilization, a topic that he would also later address in his novel Thorns.
The Sixth Palace -- Two adventurers vie for the right to claim a priceless ancient treasure, but first they must solve the riddle of the robot that stands guard. Features a great opening line: "There was the treasure, and there was the guardian of the treasure. And there were the whitening bones of those who had tried in vain to make the treasure their own."
The Shadow of Wings -- A xenolinguist who specializes in dead Kethlani languages is thrilled when a live Kethlan is captured. However, first contact is complicated by the fact Kethlans evolved from bats, and the alien reminds him of a vampire. Similar to the author's 1959 novelette "Vampires from Outer Space".
Passport to Sirius -- Bored with his existence as a Consumer Sixth Class, a low-level government employee fakes a passport to join the war effort on Sirius IV. He is shocked to learn the conflict is a media fabrication. This story feels prescient in predicting how governments will manufacture crises in order to manipulate economies.
The Pain Peddlers -- In 2008, unscrupulous television networks broadcast feeds of medical patients being operated on without anesthetics. This visceral, punchy story anticipates the rise of virtual reality.
The Iron Chancellor -- A robotic chef with a built-in dieting function goes berserk and tries to starve its owners to death. A funny tale that deliberately resembles the works of Henry Kuttner.
His Brother's Weeper -- Peter travels to the paradise world of Marathan to take care of his brother’s estate. When he arrives, he becomes ensnared in the wiles of two women, both of whom claim to be his dead brother's fiancée. This is a fun comedy, but the detail that stands out is Silverberg's unique Deserializer device. It functions much like the transporter in Star Trek except that when a person rematerializes, he is shifted back in time as well.
Birds of a Feather -- A showman signing aliens for a trip to earth is outfoxed by another con man in this fun, light-hearted story.
September 15, 2021
5 / 5 for 'Needle In A Timestack' by Robert Silverberg
*The version of this book is the revised edition from 1978, with the included stories as follows:- The Iron Chancellor, The Reality Trip, The Shrines Of Earth, Black Is Beautiful, Translation Error, The Shadow Of Wings, Absolutely Inflexible, His Brother's Weeper.
Another 5/5, absolutely perfect, short story collection from Silverberg. Again, despite some technological clunkiness (due when these stories were written), they feel as if they could have been written last year. Silverberg feels like a modern storyteller, very similar in tone and delivery to Stephen King, which is a huge compliment and plus point for me.
Every single one of these 8 stories was absolutely wonderful. Some more sci-fi than others, some more humorous than others, some more serious than others, but they were all wonderful. Silverberg introduces new concepts, some quite complex, in a quick and easy manner.
He has a wonderful knack for setting the scene without the reader really realising that it's happening. His dialogue is excellent, as is his characterisation and exposition - especially when you consider that these stories are all reasonably short. Some of the stories possess an immense feeling of weight, of gravity, whilst others feel like swift, punchy adventures, but ALL were utterly riveting and even quite moving.
My personal favourites were; The Reality Trip, Translation Error and Absolutely Inflexible...but all of the stories were excellent. I do not have a single negative for this book - I loved it. Robert Silverberg is one of the best writers of short stories I've ever read. I've literally just ordered 3 more of his books on eBay.
Anyone that has an interest in sci-fi or short stories, please buy some Silverberg. He is fast becoming one of my favourite authors.
5 / 5
*The version of this book is the revised edition from 1978, with the included stories as follows:- The Iron Chancellor, The Reality Trip, The Shrines Of Earth, Black Is Beautiful, Translation Error, The Shadow Of Wings, Absolutely Inflexible, His Brother's Weeper.
Another 5/5, absolutely perfect, short story collection from Silverberg. Again, despite some technological clunkiness (due when these stories were written), they feel as if they could have been written last year. Silverberg feels like a modern storyteller, very similar in tone and delivery to Stephen King, which is a huge compliment and plus point for me.
Every single one of these 8 stories was absolutely wonderful. Some more sci-fi than others, some more humorous than others, some more serious than others, but they were all wonderful. Silverberg introduces new concepts, some quite complex, in a quick and easy manner.
He has a wonderful knack for setting the scene without the reader really realising that it's happening. His dialogue is excellent, as is his characterisation and exposition - especially when you consider that these stories are all reasonably short. Some of the stories possess an immense feeling of weight, of gravity, whilst others feel like swift, punchy adventures, but ALL were utterly riveting and even quite moving.
My personal favourites were; The Reality Trip, Translation Error and Absolutely Inflexible...but all of the stories were excellent. I do not have a single negative for this book - I loved it. Robert Silverberg is one of the best writers of short stories I've ever read. I've literally just ordered 3 more of his books on eBay.
Anyone that has an interest in sci-fi or short stories, please buy some Silverberg. He is fast becoming one of my favourite authors.
5 / 5
October 2, 2022
Rating 3
As with most short story collections wether by a singular author or many, this one was a bit of a mixed bag for me.
The majority concerned time travel in some form, either by traditional technology means, by psychic connection to future/past selves, by someone being unstuck in time (as in time travellers wife), or recreating historical characters with very advanced self learning autonomous AI.
Overall I thought most of the stories had interesting ideas at the core but some I just didn’t like, the majority were okay reads but nothing really made me go mad for them and a few were very good imo
As with most short story collections wether by a singular author or many, this one was a bit of a mixed bag for me.
The majority concerned time travel in some form, either by traditional technology means, by psychic connection to future/past selves, by someone being unstuck in time (as in time travellers wife), or recreating historical characters with very advanced self learning autonomous AI.
Overall I thought most of the stories had interesting ideas at the core but some I just didn’t like, the majority were okay reads but nothing really made me go mad for them and a few were very good imo
January 24, 2021
Who can resist a collection with such a great title and a kick-ass cover? Silverberg has presented ten well written stories. I particularly liked To See the Invisible Man, The Sixth Palace, and Passport to Sirius. Fun fact: when the audience for pulp sci-fi ebbed, Silverberg turned to other genre of writing including porn (which were written under the pen name Don Elliott). He made no apology and defended his work saying, “I think they were outstanding erotic novels.� I’ll bet they were.
June 4, 2020
Full review:
"*Review for the 1966 edition. The 1979 and 1985 editions were revised.*
Needle in a Timestack (1966) is an uneven collection of ten short stories from the late 50s and early 60s by Robert Silverberg. By the late 60s and early 70s Silverberg was producing his masterpieces. However, earlier in his career he wrote mostly [...]"
"*Review for the 1966 edition. The 1979 and 1985 editions were revised.*
Needle in a Timestack (1966) is an uneven collection of ten short stories from the late 50s and early 60s by Robert Silverberg. By the late 60s and early 70s Silverberg was producing his masterpieces. However, earlier in his career he wrote mostly [...]"
February 5, 2022
In the future rich people can travel back in time causing a slight "wave". When a man who is in love with his wife feels this "wave" he thinks her former husband is trying to change the past, and he will loose his wife. He saves his money and travels back himself, changing his future. What will happen?
December 25, 2024
Bureaucratic workplace sci-fi horrors played out in a aesthetic which I would guess is retrofuturist. It’s a product of its time (especially in its gravely lacking female characters) but the yarns are scrumptious and each tale of woe spirals in a pleasingly grim fashion. As Isaac Asimov writes in the pull quote on the cover (the reason I picked this one up), “The rat writes excellent stories.�
May 9, 2017
My favourite 3:
Iron Chancellor
Translation Error
Absolutely Inflexible
Classic pulp sci-fi stories from the 60s with the occasional 'Hmm, I'm not sure if this story is racist/sexist or not' story.
Read it in a couple hours though, so it filled in my plane journey nicely.
Iron Chancellor
Translation Error
Absolutely Inflexible
Classic pulp sci-fi stories from the 60s with the occasional 'Hmm, I'm not sure if this story is racist/sexist or not' story.
Read it in a couple hours though, so it filled in my plane journey nicely.
October 18, 2021
A bonkers story. Good, but I don't believe for a moment that Janine could accept the erasure of her children so easily, and are we supposed to accept as part of the happy ending that they still don't exist? Very strange, almost psychopathic writing.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
May 8, 2017
An enjoyable enough collections of short SF. Some stories are fun if a little inconsequential, whereas a few, like "To See The invisible Man", have something a little deeper and darker to say.
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