The stories here, all of them written between March of 1972 and November of 1973, mark a critical turning point in my career. Those who know the three earlier volumes have traced my evolution from a capable journeyman, very young and as much concerned with paying the rent as he was to advancing the state of the art, into a serious, dedicated craftsman now seeking to leave his mark on science fiction in some significant way. Throughout the decade of the 1960s I had attempted to grow and evolve within the field of writing I loved—building on the best that went before me, the work of Theodore Sturgeon and James Blish and Cyril Kornbluth and Jack Vance and Philip K. Dick and half a dozen others whose great stories had been beacons beckoning me onward—and then, as I reached my own maturity, now trying to bring science fiction along with me into a new realm of development, hauling it along even farther out of its pulp-magazine origins toward what I regarded as a more resonant and evocative kind of visionary storytelling.
—Robert Silverberg, from his introduction
Table of Contents
- Introduction
- In the Group
- Getting Across
- Ms. Found in an Abandoned Time Machine
- The Science Fiction Hall of Fame
- A Sea of Faces
- The Dybbuk of Mazel Tov IV
- Breckenridge and the Continuum
- Capricorn Games
- Ship-Sister, Star-Sister
- This is the Road
- Trips
- Born with the Dead
- D.V. Perrot: Teach Yourself Swahili
- Schwartz Between the Galaxies
- In the House of Double Minds
From Publishers Weekly (Starred Review):
"Thought-provoking and deeply ironic, these stories and the others in this volume are as powerful today as they were when they first saw print."
From Booklist:
“The introductions to the whole volume and each story represent new installments of Silverberg’s literary autobiography and make it more obvious that the series is an invaluable resource to sf readers and scholars alike.”
From SF Site:
"'Born with the Dead,' which went on to win a Nebula Award for Silverberg, is perhaps the most successful of the stories included, but others, such as the titular 'Trips' or 'The Dybbuk of Mazel Tov IV' stand the test of time. These stories show that no matter how much Silverberg was feeling that times were changing around him, he could still tell a good story."
- authors_list:
- Robert Silverberg
- book_case:
- None
- book_length:
- 416 pages
- book_type:
- Collection
- country_of_manufacturer:
- United States
- is_subpress:
- Yes
- print_status:
- In Print
- badge:
- eBook Edition
