Robert Silverberg


Robert Silverberg was born in New York City on 15 January 1935 to Michael and Helen Silverberg, an only child. In 1949 he started a SF fanzine called Spaceship and made his first professional sale to Science Fiction Adventures, a non-fiction piece called "Fanmag," in the December 1953 issue. His first professional fiction publication was "Gorgon Planet" in the February 1954 issue of the British magazine Nebula Science Fiction. His first novel, Revolt on Alpha C , was published in 1955.

In 1956 he graduated from Columbia University, having majored in Comparative Literature, and married Barbara Brown. His literary background would surface eventually in his writing, but for a time, he seems to have kept the "straight" separate from the science fiction he wrote, as it was pure adventure stuff with little that would indicate interests beyond the typical science fiction of the day.

He started publishing short stories in the pulp SF magazines, turning them out at a tremendous rate and earning a Hugo award for his promise. In the summer of 1955, while still pursuing his education, Silverberg had moved in New York.

Silverberg was writing so much on his own, and selling so much of it, that he was obliged to publish under a number of pseudonyms to avoid oversaturating the market. Thus were born David Osborne, Ivar Jorgenson, and Calvin M. Knox, among others. Between 1957 and 1959, he published (using various names) more than 220 short works and 11 novels, most of which have never been reprinted. He also wrote a large number of other genre stories, including mysteries, westerns, and erotica.

In 1959, Robert Silverberg announced that he was retiring from SF. In spite of this retirement, books and stories continued to appear, mostly anthologies of collected stories written during the earlier days and expansions of previous short works into novels. His writing in the early sixties was mostly outside the field of SF. He wrote many non-fiction books, starting with Treasures Beneath the Sea in 1960. Then, with Lost Cities and Vanished Civilizations in 1962, Silverberg moved into the "lucrative" area of hardcover non-fiction for younger readers. Between 1960 and 1972, he published approximately 70 non-fiction books, mostly in his pet fields of pre-history, archaeology, and exploration. Also during this time he wrote a large number of soft-core pornography novels under the name Don Elliot or Eliot.

Frederik Pohl, then editor of Galaxy, is credited with drawing Silverberg back into SF by convincing him that a new, more literate kind of story would sell. Silverberg's new stories showed a much greater depth of characterization and emotion than his earlier work. The plots deepened, the characters started to come to life. He started taking his examples not just from the most successful SF writers of the day, but from the best writers in all fields, from classical Greeks to modern masters, finally integrating that other side of his personality into his work.

By the end of the sixties, Silverberg almost exclusively indulged the darker side of his personality, telling stories of loneliness and isolation. Freed from the practical necessity of a heroic, happy ending, Silverberg's stories took on a darker tone, often ending on a down note or with ambiguity. Along with these heavier themes came a quest for transcendence which surfaced in many stories in many ways.

The major works of this period are Nightwings, Dying Inside, Tower of Glass, Thorns, Downward to the Earth , The Book of Skulls, and Shadrach in the Furnace. Among the excellent shorter works are "Sundance", "Born with the Dead" , "Caliban", and "In Entropy's Jaws". Virtually everything dated from about 1969 to 1974 is of high quality. It is this period which produced the main concentration of awards.

By 1973, he was once again starting to suffer from what we would now call burn-out, though of a different sort than in 1959. That other time, he was frustrated by the low standards prevalent in the field; now he was feeling drained by the intensity of effort required to produce the kind of writing he demanded of himself. He stopped writing short stories altogether, and then turned out a few more novels before publicly announcing his retirement (again). His prodigious output during the preceding decades made this departure both necessary and possible.

Despite much pleading from editors and fans, he held out until 1978, when he found himself working on what became Lord Valentine's Castle. The retirement revealed itself as only a sabbatical. It wasn't until 1980 that he returned to the shorter forms, with "Waiting for the Earthquake", which he had promised Harlan Ellison (in 1975) for the Medea collection.

In general, the works of the 1980s and 90s have been longer and much more satisfying, with great depth of character and plot, though perhaps lacking the personal intensity of his early 70s work. The 1980s brought some more changes: he divorced his first wife Barbara in 1986 and married writer Karen Haber the following year. He has collaborated with Ms Haber on a number of projects, notably the novel The Mutant Season. They have also edited several anthologies together.

Robert Silverberg now lives in the San Francisco area with his wife, Karen Haber.

Awards
Nebula Best Novella nominee (1967) : Hawksbill Station
Nebula Best Novel nominee (1967) : Thorns
Nebula Best Novella nominee (1968) : Nightwings
Hugo Best Novella nominee (1968) : Hawksbill Station
Nebula Best Novel nominee (1968) : The Masks of Time
Hugo Best Novel nominee (1968) : Thorns
Nebula Best Novella nominee (1969) : To Jorslem
Nebula Best Short story winner (1969) : Passengers
Hugo Best Novella winner (1969) : Nightwings
Hugo Best Novella nominee (1970) : To Jorslem
Hugo Best Short story nominee (1970) : Passengers
Nebula Best Novel nominee (1970) : Tower of Glass
Hugo Best Novel nominee (1970) : Up the Line
Nebula Best Short story winner (1971) : Good News from the Vatican
Hugo Best Novella nominee (1971) : The World Outside
Nebula Best Novel winner (1971) : A Time of Changes
Hugo Best Novel nominee (1971) : Tower of Glass
Nebula Best Novel nominee (1972) : Dying Inside
Nebula Best Novel nominee (1972) : The Book of Skulls
Hugo Best Novel nominee (1972) : A Time of Changes
Hugo Best Short story nominee (1973) : When We Went to See the End of the World
Hugo Best Novel nominee (1973) : Dying Inside
Hugo Best Novel nominee (1973) : The Book of Skulls
Nebula Best Novella winner (1974) : Born with the Dead
Hugo Best Short story nominee (1975) : Schwartz Between the Galaxies
Hugo Best Novella nominee (1975) : Born with the Dead
Nebula Best Novel nominee (1975) : The Stochastic Man
Nebula Best Novel nominee (1976) : Shadrach in the Furnace
Hugo Best Novel nominee (1976) : The Stochastic Man
Hugo Best Novel nominee (1977) : Shadrach in the Furnace
Hugo Best Short story nominee (1981) : Our Lady of the Sauropods
Hugo Best Novel nominee (1981) : Lord Valentine's Castle
Nebula Best Short story nominee (1982) : The Pope of the Chimps
Nebula Best Novella nominee (1983) : Homefaring
Nebula Best Novella winner (1985) : Sailing to Byzantium
Nebula Best Novella nominee (1986) : Gilgamesh in the Outback
Hugo Best Novella nominee (1986) : Sailing to Byzantium
Nebula Best Novella nominee (1987) : The Secret Sharer
Hugo Best Novella winner (1987) : Gilgamesh in the Outback
Hugo Best Novella nominee (1988) : The Secret Sharer
Nebula Best Novellette nominee (1989) : Enter a Soldier. Later: Enter Another
Hugo Best Novellette winner (1990) : Enter a Soldier. Later: Enter Another
Collections
Next Stop the Stars (1962)
Godling, Go Home (1964)
To Worlds Beyond (1965)
Needle in a Timestack (1966)
The Calibrated Alligator (1969)
Dimension Thirteen (1969)
Nightfall: And Other Stories (1969) (with Isaac Asimov)
The Cube Root of Uncertainty (1970)
Parsecs and Parables (1970)
Worlds of Maybe: Seven Stories of Science Fiction (1970)
Moonferns and Starsongs (1971)
The Reality Trip: And Other Implausibilities (1972)
Earth's Other Shadow (1973)
Unfamiliar Territory (1973)
Valley Beyond Time (1973)
Born with the Dead (1974)
Sundance: And Other Science Fiction Stories (1974)
The Feast of St. Dionysus (1975)
The Best of Robert Silverberg (1976)
Capricorn Games (1976)
Songs of Summer: And Other Stories (1979)
A Robert Silverberg Omnibus (1981)
Majipoor Chronicles (1982)
World of a Thousand Colors (1982)
Secret Sharers: The Collected Stories of Robert Silverberg, Vol.1 (1983)
The Conglomeroid Cocktail Party (1983)
Beyond the Safe Zone: Collected Short Fiction of Robert Silverberg (1986)
Edge of Light (1988)
Sailing to Byzantium / Seven American Nights (1989)
Ringing the Changes: The Collected Stories of Robert Silverberg Vol.5 (1992)
Pluto in the Morning Light: The Collected Stories of Robert Silverberg (1992)
The Road to Nightfall: The Collected Stories (1996)
Lion Time in Timbuktu: The Collected Stories of Robert Silverberg Vol.6 (2000)
In Another Country: And Other Short Novels (2002)
Non Fiction
Men Who Mastered the Atom
Scientists and Scoundrels: A Book of Hoaxes (1965)
The Golden Dream (1967)
The Morning of Mankind: Prehistoric Man in Europe (1967)
The Search for El Dorado (1967)
Ghost Towns of the American West (1968)
Mound-Builders of Ancient America (1968)
Robert Silverberg (1968)
The South Pole (1968)
Stormy Voyager: The Story of Charles Wilkes (1968)
World of Ocean Depths (1968)
Auk, the Dodo and the Oryx (1969)
The Challenge of Climate: Man and His Environment (1969)
Vanishing Giants: The Story of the Sequoias (1969)
Wonders of Ancient Chinese Science (1969)
The Seven Wonders of the Ancient World (1970)
Mammoths Mastodons and Man (1970)
Clocks for the Ages: How Scientists Date the Past (1971)
Into Space (1971) (with Arthur C Clarke)
The Pueblo Revolt (1971)
To the Western Shore: Growth of the United States, 1776-1853 (1971)
John Muir: Prophet Among the Glaciers (1972)
The Longest Voyage: Circumnavigators in the Age of Discovery (1972)
Mound Builders (1974)
Science Fiction: 101 : Where to Start Reading and Writing Science Fiction (1986)
Treasures Beneath the Sea (1986)
Reflections and Refractions: Thoughts on Science-fiction and Science (1997)
Novels
Revolt on Alpha C (1955)
The 13th Immortal (1957)
Master of Life and Death (1957)
Aliens From Space (1958) (As David Osborne)
Invaders from Earth (1958)
Invisible Barriers (1958)
Lest We Forget Thee, Earth (1958) (As Calvin M Knox)
The Silent Invaders (1958)
Starhaven (1958)
Stepsons of Terra (1958)
The Planet Killers (1959)
The Plot Against Earth (1959) (As Calvin M Knox)
Starman's Quest (1959)
Lost Race of Mars (1960)
Planet of Death (1960)
Collision Course (1961)
Recalled to Life (1962)
The Seed of Earth (1962)
One of Our Asteroids is Missing (1964)
Regan's Planet (1964)
Time of the Great Freeze (1964)
Conquerors from the Darkness (1965)
We the Marauders (1965)
The Gate of Worlds (1967)
Thorns (1967)
Those Who Watch (1967)
The Time Hoppers (1967)
To Open the Sky (1967)
Hawksbill Station (1968)
The Masks of Time (1968)
Across a Billion Years (1969)
The Man in the Maze (1969)
Nightwings (1969)
Three Survived (1969)
To Live Again (1969)
Up the Line (1969)
Downward to the Earth (1970)
Tower of Glass (1970)
World's Fair 1992 (1970)
Son of Man (1971)
A Time of Changes (1971)
The World Inside (1971)
The Book of Skulls (1972)
Dying Inside (1972)
The Second Trip (1972)
The Stochastic Man (1975)
Shadrach in the Furnace (1976)
Shores of Tomorrow (1976)
The Songs of Summer (1979)
The Desert of Stolen Dreams (1981)
Lord of Darkness (1983)
Gilgamesh the King (1984)
Sailing to Byzantium (1985)
Tom O'Bedlam (1985)
Star of Gypsies (1986)
Project Pendulum (1987)
The Secret Sharer (1988)
Springtimes End (1988)
In Another Country (1989)
To the Land of the Living (1989)
Letters from Atlantis (1990)
The New Springtime (1990)
Child of Time (1991) (with Isaac Asimov)
The Face of the Waters (1991)
Kingdoms of the Wall (1992)
The Positronic Man (1992) (with Isaac Asimov)
Thebes of the Hundred Gates (1992)
The Ugly Little Boy (1992) (with Isaac Asimov)
Hot Sky at Midnight (1993)
The Mountains of Majipoor (1995)
Starborne (1995)
The Realm of Prester John (1996)
The Alien Years (1998)
Waiting for the End (1998)
Shadow on the Stars (2000)
Cronos (2001)
Hawksbill Times Two (2002)
The Longest Way Home (2002)
Roma Eterna (2003)
Series
Fire in Winter
The Mutant Season (1989) (with Karen Haber)

Lord Prestimion
Sorcerers of Majipoor (1996)
Lord Prestimion (1999)
The King of Dreams (2001)

Lord Valentine
Lord Valentine's Castle (1980)
Valentine Pontifex (1983)

New Springtime
At Winter's End (1988)
The Queen of Springtime (1989)

Nidorian (writing as Robert Randall)
The Shrouded Planet (1957)
The Dawning Light (1959)
Short Stories
The Silent Colony (1954)
Absolutely Inflexible (1956)
Double Dare (1956)
The Great Kladnar Race (1956) (with Randall Garrett)
Hopper (1956)
Slaves of the Star Giants (1956)
The Songs of Summer (1956)
To be continued (1956)
The Artefact Business (1957)
Blaze of Glory (1957)
En Route to Earth (1957)
Eve and the Twenty - Four Adams (1957)
Hidden Talent (1957)
The Man Who Never Forgot (1957)
One - Way Journey (1957)
The Overlord's Thumb (1957)
Precedent (1957)
Prime Commandment (1957)
The Shrines of Earth (1957)
Solitary (1957)
Sunrise on Mercury (1957)
Warm Man (1957)
World of a Thousand Colors (1957)
The Four (1958)
Alaree (1958)
Back from the Grave (1958)
Birds of a Feather (1958)
Hunt the Space-Witch! (1958)
The Iron Chancellor (1958)
Journey's End (1958)
Passport to Sirius (1958)
Road to Nightfall (1958)
There Was an Old Woman (1958)
Counterpart (1959)
Demons of Cthulhu (1959)
His Brother's Weeper (1959)
Mugwump Four (1959)
The Outbreeders (1959)
Translation Error (1959)
Dark Companion (1960)
The Pain Peddlers (1963)
The Shadow of Wings (1963)
To See the Invisible Man (1963)
The Desiccator (1964)
Force of Mortality (1964)
Godling, Go Home! (1964)
The Lonely One (1964)
The Man With Talent (1964)
Neighbor (1964)
There's No Place Like Space (1964)
Why? (1964)
The World We Left Behind (1964)
The Sixth Palace (1965)
By the Seawall (1966)
Halfway House (1966)
A Man of Talent (1966)
Bride 91 (1967)
Flies (1967)
Hawksbill Station (1967)
The King of the Golden River (1967)
As Is (1968)
Fangs of the Trees (1968)
Going Down Smooth (1968)
Nightwings (1968)
Passengers (1968)
To the Dark Star (1968)
After the Myths Went Home (1969)
How It Was When the Past Went Away (1969)
Sundance (1969)
To Jorslem (1969)
Black is Beautiful (1970)
Ishmael in Love (1970)
The Pleasure of Their Company (1970)
The Reality Trip (1970)
Ringing the Changes (1970)
The Song the Zombie Sang (1970) (with Harlan Ellison)
We Know Who We Are (1970)
The World Outside (1970)
Caliban (1971)
Going (1971)
Good News from the Vatican (1971)
In Entropy's Jaws (1971)
Something Wild Is Loose (1971)
Caught in the Organ Draft (1972)
Now+n Now-n (1972)
Push No More (1972)
Thomas the Proclaimer (1972)
What We Learned from This Morning's Newspaper (1972)
When We Went to See the End of the World (1972)
Breckenridge and the Continuum (1973)
The Feast of St. Dionysus (1973)
Getting Across (1973)
In the Group (1973)
Many Mansions (1973)
MS Found in an Abandoned Time Machine (1973)
The Mutant Season (1973)
The Science Fiction Hall of Fame (1973)
Ship-Sister, Star-Sister (1973)
Some Notes on the Pre-dynastic Epoch (1973)
This Is the Road (1973)
The Wind and the Rain (1973)
Born with the Dead (1974)
Capricorn Games (1974)
The Day the Founder Died (1974)
The Dybbuk of Mazel Tov IV (1974)
In the House of Double Minds (1974)
Schwartz Between the Galaxies (1974)
A Sea of Faces (1974)
Trips (1974)
Our Lady of the Sauropods (1980)
The Desert of Stolen Dreams (1981)
How They Pass the Time in Pelpel (1981)
The Palace at Midnight (1981)
The Regulars (1981)
The Soul Painter and the Shape Shifter (1981)
A Thousand Paces Along the Via Dolorosa (1981)
Waiting for the Earthquake (1981)
Among the Dream - Speakers (1982)
At the Conglomeroid Cocktail Party (1982)
Calantine Explains (1982)
The Changeling (1982)
Crime and Punishment (1982)
The Far Side of the Bell-Shaped Curve (1982)
Gianni (1982)
In the Fifth Year of the Voyage (1982)
Jennifer's Lover (1982)
The Man Who Floated in Time (1982)
Not Our Brother (1982)
The Pope of the Chimps (1982)
Thesme and the Ghayrog (1982)
A Thief in Ni - moya (1982)
The Time of the Burning (1982)
The Trouble With Sempoanga (1982)
Voriax and Valentine (1982)
Amanda and the Alien (1983)
Basileus (1983)
Dancers in the Time-Flux (1983)
Gate of Horn, Gate of Ivory (1983)
Homefaring (1983)
Multiples (1983)
Needle in a Timestack (1983)
The Affair (1984)
Snake and Ocean, Ocean and Snake (1984)
Tourist Trade (1984)
Sailing to Byzantium (1985)
Sunrise on Pluto (1985)
Symbiont (1985)
Against Babylon (1986)
Blindsight (1986)
Gilgamesh in the Outback (1986)
Watchdogs (1986)
Hardware (1987)
The Iron Star (1987)
The Pardoner's Tale (1987)
The Secret Sharer (1987)
The Dead Man's Eyes (1988)
Hannibal's Elephants (1988)
House of Bones (1988)
The Asenion Solution (1989)
Batman in Nighttown (1989) (with Karen Haber)
Chip Runner (1989)
Enter a Soldier. Later: Enter Another (1989)
A Sleep and a Forgetting (1989)
To the Promised Land (1989)
Lion Time in Timbuctoo (1990)
The Perfect Host (1992)
Hot Times in Magma City (1995)
The Red Blaze is the Morning (1995)
Crossing Into the Empire (1996)
Death Do Us Part (1996)
Diana of the Hundred Breasts (1996)
The Martian Invasion Journals of Henry James (1996)
Beauty in the Night (1997)
The Colonel in Autumn (1998)
The Seventh Shrine (1998)
A Hero of the Empire (1999)
A Killing Light (1999) (with Karen Haber)