Robert Silverberg

Updates: Recent Science Fiction Acquisitions N. XVII (Asimov + Silverberg + White + et al.)

/ Joachim Boaz / 10 Comments

I somehow forgot to post these four…..

Because I thoroughly enjoyed James White’s The Watch Below (1966) I procured his first novel, The Secret Visitors (1957).  My expectations are low….

Despite the egregious cover of Silverberg’s The Masks of Time (1968) (“white firmament congregating, emanating?, from floating man’s manhood,” or, “Ball Lightening” as a particularly witty individual posted on Good Show Sir after I submitted the cover), I’ve found that virtually everything that Silverberg wrote in the late 60s and early 70s is on the whole top-notch so I couldn’t help but pick up a copy.

I’m no Asimov fan but I found an old copy of The Currents of Space (1952) at my parents’ house and purloined it —  I read it when I was 12 so it has intense nostalgic value, one of my first science fiction books!

1. The Currents of Space, Isaac Asimov (1952)

(Uncredited cover for the 1953 edition)

Continue reading →

Updates: Recent Acquisitions N. XV (Norton + Silverberg)

/ Joachim Boaz / 12 Comments

After a long time without purchasing books I’ve published two Recent Acquisition lists in quick succession!  Visiting parents = free books + many thanks.  The haul wasn’t the best but I left with a fun selection of works by Andre Norton and Robert Silverberg.

Some of the covers are great (especially Norton’s Sargasso in Space)!

Enjoy!

1. Star Born, Andre Norton (1957)

(Virgil Finlay’s cover for the 1957 edition) Continue reading →

Book Review: Future City, ed. Roger Elwood (1973)

/ Joachim Boaz / 15 Comments

3.25/5 (Average)

According to Future City, the cities of the future are to be avoided at all costs.  There are no utopias here — only overpopulation, pollution, racial warfare, natural disasters, robot takeovers, and eventual reversion to primitivism!  But there’s a trajectory!  In fact, Roger Elwood, the editor of the volume, asked for new stories that fit along this arc.  Elwood claims that there are twenty-two leading science-fiction writers who contributed to the volume.  Unfortunately, three of these leading authors don’t submit stories: Tom Disch contributes a one page poem, Clifford D. Simak a brief introduction, and Frederick Pohl a short afterword.  Also, two of the twenty-two are monikers for Barry N. Malzberg.  Famous authors like Frank Herbert and Ellison contribute substandard short stories.  Many of the other leading figures are not “leading figures” in any sense of the word!

As with most collections there are gems AND complete blunders.  Robert Silverberg, R. A. Lafferty, Ben Bova (and others) all contribute thought-provoking stories making this collection Continue reading →

Adventures in Science Fiction Cover Art: A Selection of Bleak Alien Landscapes

/ Joachim Boaz / 16 Comments

(Alex Schomburg’s cover for the 1953 edition of Space, Space, Space (1953), ed. William Sloane)

Our science fiction heroes are often confronted by bleak alien landscapes adorned with rocks, vast deserts, adverse atmospheres — commonly these vistas are traversed, colonized, tamed…  Spaceships touch down on virgin surfaces, the explorers tentatively step forward, aliens peer from the distance.  When settlements are built the alien vista remains an ever present source of fear and fascination.  The depiction of a convincingly bleak alien landscape (think Arrakis in Frank Herbert’s Dune) can be of paramount importance in conveying not only  otherworldliness but the backdrop for human drama and the challenges our heroes must overcome (by technology or other Continue reading →

Adventures in Science Fiction Cover Art: A Handful of Funny Robots

/ Joachim Boaz / 15 Comments

Unless those arms extend the robot's only use will be to run over people -- which it's about to do.

(Ed Valigursky’s cover for the the 1962 edition of Next Stop The Stars (1962), Robert Silverberg)

While browsing through my rapidly growing collection of cover images on my computer I couldn’t stop laughing at the hilarious robots that pop up every now and then.  From evil looking R2D2s (with legs) to multi-handed flying death robots with unfortunate double smiley faces!  Oh, and the crying rescue robot….

If I were in the robot designing business I’d conjure up a robot that could cry — a good use of time — as useful as Data with his emotion chip talking to his tricorder or finally understanding jokes: “Geordi: The Farpoint mission? Data, that was seven years ago. Data: I know! I just got it! Very Continue reading →

Book Review: Hawksbill Station (variant title: The Anvil of Time), Robert Silverberg (1968)

/ Joachim Boaz / 13 Comments

5/5 (Masterpiece)

Robert Silverberg strikes gold with Hawksbill Station (1968), a dark, restrained, and powerful rumination.  I have found Silverberg’s novels, like those of one of my other sci-fi favorites John Brunner, hit or miss.  The worst of Silverberg’s novels I’ve read, for example The Time Hoppers (1967) and  Master of Life and Death (1957), are cringeworthy.  His best, Downward to the Earth (1970) and The World Inside (1971), rank among my all-time favorites.

Hawksbill Station‘s setting, Earth’s Cambrian era, Continue reading →

Book Review: To Live Again, Robert Silverberg (1969)

/ Joachim Boaz / 5 Comments

3/5 (Average)

To Live Again (1969) is a flawed work from a very fruitful period of Robert Silverberg’s career.  The ideas are original and well-conceived but a downright disgusting strain of misogyny and sexism permeates virtually every page.  Bluntly put, I cannot recall a single instance where a female character does anything without the shape, size, and clothed or unclothed state of her breasts Continue reading →

Updates: Recent Science Fiction Acquisitions N. VI

/ Joachim Boaz / 4 Comments

I’ve held to my promise not to buy any more books this summer considering I have at least 40 unread sci-fi books looming over my shoulder.   However, other people are welcome to procure books FOR me! And they have — all of the following were gifts! Thank you!

1. The Last Starship from Earth (1968), John Boyd (MY REVIEW)

I’ve read multiple reviews which claim that John Boyd’s The Last Starship from Earth is a lost classic.  However, opinion are far from unanimous (for example, the sci-fi author Joanna Russ wrote a scathing review blaming the publishers for subjecting her and fellow readers to Continue reading →