Bøger af Robert Silverberg

The seductive thrill of uncharted worlds, of distant galaxies... and the unknown threats that lurk in the vastness of the cosmos. From Foundation to Lensman, Star Wars to Guardians of the Galaxy, space opera continues to exert its magnetic pull on us all.

In an archaic, feudal empire on the giant world of Majipoor, Valentine, an itinerant juggler, wakes up one morning with only a vague and troubled idea of who he is. His dreams suggest he is the ruler of Majipor - but no one will believe him.

From Hugo and Nebula Award-winning author, Robert Silverberg comes the classic: The Book of Skulls. Four friends embark on a cross-country trip in search of a legendary monastery. There, they hope to find the secrets of immortality promised in an ancient manuscript, the Book of Skulls There, they will present themselves-and pay the horrific price demanded. For immortality requires sacrifice. Two victims to balance two survivors. One by suicide, one by murder. Beneath the gaze of grinning skulls, the terror begins. . . .

Six Frightened Men, is a classical and a rare book, that has been considered important throughout the human history, and so that this work is never forgotten we at Alpha Editions have made efforts in its preservation by republishing this book in a modern format for present and future generations. This whole book has been reformatted, retyped and redesigned. These books are not made of scanned copies of their original work, and hence their text is clear and readable. This remarkable book falls within the genres of Language and Literatures, American and Canadian literature

The eighth in a series of superb science fiction.The Alpha series of anthologies center on no particular theme except that of literary quality and importance to the science fiction genre.Here is another set of the best stories, stories which were ahead of their epoch when they were new, which display a freshness and vigor that make them almost indistinguishable from the best of today's s-f, and which set the standard by which modern writers have guided their careers.A DUSK OF IDOLS: Not only are the gods cruel, but they can make you like it.THE HUMAN OPERATORS: The great ships possess unlimited cruising range--and unbounded ferocity.WARM: It's just a simple guessing game: to be? or not to be?KLYSTERMAN'S SILENT VIOLIN: Powerful weapons are a fine thing--but you wouldn't want your lover to marry one.THE NEW REALITY: It's amazing how much destruction you can wreak with a few simple tools--if you put your mind to it.These and six other tales of the highest quality--the most amazing conviction

An Alternate History adventure... From Turkish dominated Europe, across the high seas to the land of opportunity-the Aztec Empire- Dan Beauchamp is a young Englishman whose heart longs for fortune and adventure. But industrial Mexico is a long way from primitive Britain, and Dan has a lot to learn. From the city of London-better known as New Istanbul-to the untamed wilderness of North America lies a high adventure not to be missed.

From Hugo and Nebula Award-winning author Robert Silverberg comes, To Open The Sky. The Atom was their God-but there was something stronger... At the beginning of the 22nd century, Earth colonies were established on Mars and Venus. But the ultimate dream - to travel to the stars - was still an impossibility. Cults, fads, madnesses of various kinds swept the population. The maddest--and so far the most permanent--were the Vorst worshipers, the atom adorers, the believers in immortality through technology.Yet there were the Harmonists, who believed that technology could never do it. And the hatred between the two factions was too deep to be reconciled - until a conflict on Venus between a Vorster priest and his Harmonist opponent resulted in unexpected developments.

ICE AGE--NEW YORK CITY 2650 A.D. UNDERGROUND! By 2300, everyone knew what was happening, and why. The sun and all its planets, as they moved together through the galaxy, had been engulfed by a vast cloud of cosmic debris, and an all but infinite number of dust motes was screening and blocking the sun's radiation from Earth. To the eye, everything still looked the same, but so immense was the cloud that it would take centuries for the solar system to pass entirely through it. Nothing could hold back the ice age. Miles beneath the layer of ice that covered Earth in 2650, men survive in the subterranean cities they built to save themselves as the ice crept with killing cold over all living things. For three hundred years no one has seen the surface or communicated with any other city. Until now. Now the few scientific instruments that remain seem to indicate that the Ice Age may be ending; outside temperatures are reaching a level that may make life possible--though not easy--on the outside. But life in the underground cities is comfortable, and those few who are brave enough to be curious about the unknown frozen world above are suspect; troublemakers. A small party of these 'troublemakers, ' led by Dr. Raymond Barnes, with a few scientists and others who think they might prefer freedom to safety, has been allowed to take the long-unused elevator up through the ice to the outside. But they go more as exiles than as a scientific expedition; they are not expected --and may not be allowed--to return.

The universe of the mind is a limitless expanse of wonders, filled with worlds and secrets that cannot be fully explored within the pages of a single novel. Here, science fiction's most beloved and highly honored writers revisit their best-known worlds in perhaps the greatest concentration of science fiction ever in one volume.

The seventh in a series of superb science fiction.The Alpha series of anthologies center on no particular theme except that of literary quality and importance to the science fiction genre.Since its inception in 1970, the Alpha series has been dedicated to the proposition that science fiction can be a literature not only of stimulating and unfamiliar ideas but also of skilful and vigorous writing. Thus far Alpha has offered sixty-odd stories that exemplify the best of science fiction: challenging, provocative views of the universe, presented in crisp, sparkling prose. The volumes in the series offer some of the liveliest work produced in the short-story form anywhere in the world, and not just of the science-fiction category.Alpha serves a secondary purpose: to rescue from oblivion stories that might otherwise be undeservedly forgotten. Herewith, the seventh feast of outstanding fiction.

From the Hugo and Nebula Award-winning author: "High adventure, considerable tension, and--most important--social consciousness" (Harlan Ellison).Simeon Krug is the king of the universe. A self-made man, he is the Bill Gates of the era, having built a megacommercial empire on the backs of his products: androids, genetically engineered human slaves. Having amassed incredible wealth, his next major goal is to communicate with aliens living in an uninhabitable world, sending a mysterious signal. This requires building a mile high tower in the arctic tundra.The androids want civil equality with humans, but are divided on the best means to the goal--political agitation or religious devotion to Krug, their creator. And Krug's son, Manuel, is reluctant to step into his role as heir to his father's empire.

This collection of literature attempts to compile many of the classic, timeless works that have stood the test of time and offer them at a reduced, affordable price, in an attractive volume so that everyone can enjoy them.

In a world where humanity has colonized the solar system and begun to explore more of the local galaxy, a vast audience follows real-life stories presented by wealthy media mogul Duncan Chalk. To satisfy his audience's voyeuristic needs-and his own appetite for others' pain-he pairs Minner Burris, an emotionally withdrawn space explorer who was captured and freakishly surgically altered by aliens, with Lona Kelvin, a suicidal seventeen-year-old girl who donated eggs for a fertility experiment that produced one hundred babies, none of whom she has been allowed to adopt or even see. Chalk promises to solve their personal problems in return for a joint performance tour. Though the love affair doesn't last, Chalk keeps the couple on the hook by making new offers. While Minner and Lona struggle to cope with their newfound celebrity and Chalk's broken promises, they will uncover the true nature of their manipulator-and risk everything to regain the humanity that has been stolen from them... An early exploration of media exploitation and a deep look at freak-show entertainment on a mass scale, this novel was one of the earliest of Silverberg's mature masterworks. "Masterful... This is a sophisticated novel, beautifully written, intelligent and insightful, with wonderful dialogue and a satisfying conclusion." -Fantasy Literature "Silverberg's brooding, post-utopian, rumination has the makings of a great science fiction novel.... A worthwhile read which rambles along a dark path... Well done." -Science Fiction Ruminations

A pilgrimage leads to a shocking revelation in this "deeply affecting and evocative extraterrestrial novel" from the Hugo and Nebula Award-winning author (Locus). The village of Jespodar nestles in the foothills of a world-dominating mountain known to all as "The Wall." Poilar Crookleg has grown up in Jespodar training hard and hoping that he will be chosen for the annual Pilgrimage, a group journey to the top of the mountain from which no pilgrim has ever returned both alive and sane. The pilgrims seek to replicate the legendary journey of a distant ancestor who scaled the mountain and, so the story goes, met with the gods. The Pilgrimage is a a life journey, an overwhelming challenge and a sacred honor and Poilar feels blessed when he is finally chosen to lead it. But not all is as it first seems. Along the journey lie hazards of all kinds, both vilently dangerous and seductively beguiling and to triumph in the climb is to confront a revelation so surprising and so disturbing that none, not even the smartest and best prepared, are likely to survive. What belief and what devotion leads so many to hope for such a challenging task and what will be the ultimate result of such dedication? Only The Wall itself can reveal the destiny for those who undertake the Pilgrimage.

This collection of literature attempts to compile many of the classic works that have stood the test of time and offer them at a reduced, affordable price, in an attractive volume so that everyone can enjoy them.

Hugo Award Winner, from an SF Grandmaster!Conquering warrior Francisco Pizarro found himself... somewhere. Somewhere strange. He didn't know where, but he was sure it wasn't where he should be. After some time, another warrior appeared...About this story Robert Silverberg writes: I wrote this one in October, 1987 for an anthology I was editing myself, the basic idea of which involved using computer-generated simulacra of actual historical figures set in conflict against one another. The ones I chose were Socrates and Francisco Pizarro, and the story very quickly became an exciting thing to write as these two powerful personalities began to clash. I think it's one of the major achievements of my career.It was published in ASIMOV'S SCIENCE FICTION and then in TIME GATE, my anthology, and it was picked for Gardner Dozois' 1989 YEAR'S BEST SCIENCE FICTION anthology. And at the World Science Fiction Convention in Holland in August, 1990, it brought me the Hugo award for Best Novelet.Robert Silverberg is a SFWA Grandmaster and winner of multiple Hugo and Nebula awards.

The ninth in a series of superb science fiction.The Alpha series of anthologies center on no particular theme except that of literary quality and importance to the science fiction genre.The ALPHA series-now in its ninth volume-has by now become an eight-inch shelf of the best in short science-fiction stories. Our editorial bias is doggedly middle-of-the-road, or so we like to think; that is, (writes renowned editor Robert Silverberg) I try to avoid the worst excesses of the avant-garde on the one hand, and the blast-and-slash foolishness of pulp adventure fiction on the other. Of course, one reader's traditional and staid is another's wild experimentalism-very likely the fans of Hugo Gernsback's pioneering Amazing Stories of the 1920's muttered angrily in their soup over the gaudy innovations of John Campbell's Astounding Science Fiction in 1939-and so the best I can do is provide a sampler of the sort of science fiction that pleases me, that defines by example what I think science fiction ought to be, and hope that others will agree.Herewith, another such treasury of bright, sparkling, imaginative fiction!(Note, Alpha 9 is the final volume produced.)DUMB WAITER: The war was over, but nobody had bothered to tell the machines...THE FUNERAL: It was quite a ceremony; after all, it was a world that had died...THE SLICED-CROSSWISE ONLY-ON-TUESDAY WORLD: Man could travel between the stars, but not between the Days...GOODLIFE: The Starship was as ancient as Time itself, but it still remembered its mission: DESTROY MAN!THE DUSTY ZEBRA: There are certain problems involved in setting up an inter-dimensional trading post...NOBODY'S HOME: The children are tired of chasing the sun. They want cruelty, glory and dirt...And mo

The sixth in a series of superb science fiction.The Alpha series of anthologies center on no particular theme except that of literary quality.More of the same, the mixture as before--so Silverberg is tempted to describe this sixth Alpha collection. Not unfair phrases, either, for, like its five predecessors, Alpha Six is a volume of science-fiction stories that have no thematic links, that are held together only by their literary excellence and stimulating science-fictional content. As before, Alpha owes no allegiance to any single literary "school" within the faction-ridden science-fiction cosmos: it hews to a solidly middle-of-the-road line, seeking strong narrative drive and avoiding the excesses of the zap-zap ray-gun school on the one hand and the evanescently precious avant-garde on the other. As always, Silverberg's selection of stories represent the best across a four-dimensional slice of science-fiction publishing.

Captivating and thought-provoking, THE STOCHASTIC MAN is another outstanding novel by award-winning Robert Silverberg. Lew Nichols is been in the business of stochastic prediction--surveys and high-powered guesswork. Nichols has also been the administrative assistant to the mayor of New York City, the contented husband of Sundara Shastri, and a disciple of Martin Carvajal--an odd little man who is capable of seeing the future. But Nichols' life is changing. While under the influence of Carvajal, Nichols seeks the secrets of developing second sight, so he can manipulate the future. With unrivaled skill, Silverberg has created characters with great complexity, whose dilemmas have a strange air of future reality.

A thousand years in the future, the earth has been conquered by an alien race and covered by a single sea. Dovirr Stargan, who is disgusted with the servility of his life on the floating city of Vythain, longs to become one of the Sea-Lords, who roam the sea as powerful protectors of the cities. Dovirr gets his wish, but the return of the alien race brings unexpected and critically dangerous crises to his new life as he learns the real, sometimes terrible, significance of power.

Several decades into the future, the long series of corporate and government decisions that favored short-term profit over long-term solutions to ecological problems and pollution has left the Earth in a state of disaster, almost uninhabitable. The icecap have melted and many coastal communities have been flooded out. The ozone layer is destroyed. There are some areas that are livable with breathing masks and injections that protect the skin from the now-deadly rays of the sun but the refuge, for all who can afford it, has become the near-space orbital colonies built and run by private companies and open only to those who are willing and able to pay.Valparaiso Nuevo is one of these colonies. Those who come to Valparaiso Nuevo have to have special reasons for making that choice. They fall into one of two main classes: those who want to hide, and those who want to seek.Run by a shadowy dictator known only as the Generalissimo, it is haven and a center of action for hustlers, conspirators and people looking for an edge. Victor Farkas, operative of the megacorporation Kyocera-Merck Ltd., is blind but gifted with hypersensitive "blindsight." He comes to the habitat in search of a renegade geneticist of legendary skill. Back on Earth, Nick Rhodes, head of Samurai Industries, which is attempting to breed humans that can thrive in the horrendous conditions expected to prevail on Earth struggles with his conscience as he manipulates genetic structures and lives. Paul Carpenter works for a Japanese mega-corporation, seeking promotion and survival, but loses his job as a ship captain after a mutiny. Rhodes introduces him to an acquaintance of his girlfriend Isabelle. Jolanda is a talented sculptor, a passionate lover and a secret plotter. She embroils Carpenter in a scheme to take over Valparaiso Nuevo along with Enron, an Israeli spy, Farkas, and Rhodes. Their goals are individually motivated but the deadly combination of ambition, distrust, greed, stupidity, and lust leads to a dramatic conclusion that replicates in miniature the history of man's destruction of his own living space on the planet.A bleak picture of future Earth and a complex plot peopled with dark, rich characters, comes together as one of Silverberg's finer novels.

Caught in the midst of a rebellion while visiting a friend thousands of miles from home, Joseph, the young heir to the great House Keilloran, one of the Masters who colonized the planet long ago, finds himself fighting for survival in enemy territory, through which he must travel while facing terrible dangers.Robert Silverberg is a SFWA Grandmaster and winner of multiple Hugo and Nebula awards.

The first in a series of superb science fiction.Alpha is, aside from the first letter of the Greek alphabet, a term that denotes excellence and primacy in a variety of disciplines: in nuclear physics, for example, it is the name of a particle of unusually large mass and charge. It seemed a useful label to attach to this volume, the first of an intended series of collections of science fiction stories.The Alpha series of anthologies will center on no particular theme except that of literary quality. The presence in any one volume of a cluster of stories bearing other thematic resemblance-as in this volume, where there are four or five time-travel stories-will be purely coincidental. I propose to cull the files of the science fiction magazines for stories that an educated and sophisticated reader will find stimulating, and to assemble them in books of roughly equal size that will appear once a year over the next few years. Some of the stories will be fifteen or twenty years old and richly in need of restoration to print. Others will be quite recent: the literary level of the science fiction short story has undergone an extraordinary transformation in the past few years, a fact that demands recognition here.Appropriately enough, this first volume of the ALPHA series covers a roster of writers from A to Z. Specifically, Aldiss to Zelazny-although this coincidence in alphabet is merely incidental to the fact that both these gentlemen, and the several others represented in this anthology, all write superb science fiction.Two criteria were used in the selecting of these stories-literary merit and importance to the genre. The result is that the variety of subjects is matched only by the richness and diversity of their handling-brilliant, frightening, clever, bizarre, powerful, witty, funny-and several steps in-between.So much for policy. The nine volumes of this series provide an exciting cumulative view of a field in which some of the most vigorous and inventive fiction of our times has been produced.Simply put, here is the best science fiction from the best science fiction writers.

The fourth in a series of superb science fiction.The Alpha series of anthologies center on no particular theme except that of literary quality.Two criteria were used in the selecting of these stories-literary merit and importance to the genre. The result is that the variety of subjects is matched only by the richness and diversity of their handling-brilliant, frightening, clever, bizarre, powerful, witty, funny-and several steps in-between. Simply put, here is the best science fiction from the best science fiction writers.While a small number of science fiction writers are immensely well known, the Alpha series is intended, in part, to draw attention to some of the lesser known writers, whose work is equal in vision and artistry of those who have become household names.

In an Earth far into the future, the human race has reverted to a rigid Guild system where every citizen is classified according to function and mandated to strictly abide by the Guild's set of rules. Those who are Guildless are not considered men; they are at the lowest rung of the social ladder and shunned by all. In this universe of specialized citizens, genetic engineering had been done to those who needed special attributes; Fliers had wings and Watchers had the ability to use their minds to scan the outer space for invaders. When a Flier, a Watcher, and a Guildless man decide to travel together, they witness the end of an era as the invasion of enemies from the stars begins. This Hugo-award winning novella, "Nightwings," is only one of the five award contenders included in this new collection of Robert Silverberg's stories. Full of lyricism and melancholic descriptions of the Earth as it was and the Earth as it had been, "Nightwings" had captivated readers when it was first published in the late 1960s and continues to captivate new readers until the present. Those who have read it could not easily forget the images and the emotions evoked by the characters that Silverberg so expertly created. The other stories in this collection--nominated for a Hugo, a Nebula, and Locus awards--highlight the author's mastery of the language and his capacity to engage the reader fully in worlds of his own making. We get to see the irony of the characters' experiences in "When We Went to See the End of the World," sympathize and feel proud of the time traveler in "House of Bones," and quietly applaud the gumption and cleverness of the young girl in "Amanda and the Alien." Like "Nightwings," the story "Beauty in the Night" also haunts with its brutal portrayal of a child's life at a time when the aliens arrived and took over the Earth. Rich in detail and waxing lyrical at some point, it is a quintessential Silverberg story--full of drama of human failures and yet replete as well with instances of great courage that enable the people in his worlds to transcend their fate.

The fifth in a series of superb science fiction.The Alpha series of anthologies center on no particular theme except that of literary quality.Two criteria were used in the selecting of these stories-literary merit and importance to the genre. The result is that the variety of subjects is matched only by the richness and diversity of their handling-brilliant, frightening, clever, bizarre, powerful, witty, funny-and several steps in-between. Simply put, here is the best science fiction from the best science fiction writers.This group of stories gives pleasure by demonstrating the richness and variety of the science-fiction form. The stories show the reader visions he has not previously had, and send him away transformed and enlarged. The fifth volume of this highly acclaimed series features stories by promising new talents and by several of the field's most honored writers.Some of the stories in this year's Alpha show us, with painful clarity, the approaching consequences of our most recent miscalculations; other stories take a longer view, portraying events in the remote galaxies that have only metaphorical applications to our immediate lives. Here are ten more visions of times to come, glimpses of the roads ahead.

The third in a series of superb science fiction. The Alpha series of anthologies center on no particular theme except that of literary quality. Two criteria were used in the selecting of these stories-literary merit and importance to the genre. The result is that the variety of subjects is matched only by the richness and diversity of their handling-brilliant, frightening, clever, bizarre, powerful, witty, funny-and several steps in-between. Simply put, here is the best science fiction from the best science fiction writers. The main intent of the Alpha series is to assemble groups of stories that give pleasure by demonstrating the richness and variety of the science-fiction form. Quality of storytelling is the touchstone; I make no effort to gather the stories in any one volume according to any thematic pattern. Yet thematic patterns seem to creep into the books like insidious invaders from far galaxies. The first Alpha contained a cluster of tales dealing with travel through time-relativity gone topsy-turvy all over the book. The second volume, through no prior intent of the editor, seemed to deal almost entirely with the tensions arising out of man's confrontation with technology. And in this third one, I find, a prevailing theme in nearly every story is the conflict between ourselves and strangers. Again and again, through some odd accident of balance, you will find tales of tense encounters, showing protagonists facing the unknown quantities of time and space. Freud tells us that nothing ever happens by accident. Perhaps so. These anthologies are not assembled in a random process, and no doubt the editor's mind serves as a thematic filter in ways that are not clear to the editor himself except in hindsight. And one can reasonably object that virtually every good science-fiction story deals in meetings with the unknown, so that the supposed theme detected here is no true theme at all, but only a universal characteristic of the genre. In any event, here are ten outstanding stories. I think they achieve what is for me the basic science-fiction accomplishment: they show the reader visions he has not previously had, and send him away transformed and enlarged. Go thou and read. Go and be changed.