Bøger af Robert Silverberg

Gilgamesh in the Outback. In this Hugo Award winning novella, Ancient Sumerian king Gilgamesh found himself in a Hell not so very different from the kingdom in which he came. Faced with nothing much to do for eternity, he continues as a warrior in the eternity of hell. Gilgamesh's conservatism and scorn for the modern technologies drove a wedge between him and his closest friend, Enkidu. Gilgamesh joins forces with otherdenizens of hell, including fantastic pulp writers H.P. Lovecraft and Robert E. Howard, to foil a plot of Queen Elizabeth's to assemble a fortress at the exit of Hell. "Gilgamesh" is not the only highly-acclaimed master work included within. The other four stories were nominated for multiple major SF awards-and highlight the author's mastery of the language and his capacity to engage the reader fully in worlds of his own making. Included in this collection are such classic tales: as Sundance, Shwartz Between the Galaxies, Gianni, and In Entropy's Jaws.

The Shapeshifters scheme in secret to regain their stolen world, and confusion and chaos are whispered on the winds of Majipoor. To save Majipoor, Valentine faces an agonizing choice--accept the mantle of Pontifex and surrender his high office to his young successor, or use his own great powers to avert a long nightmare of bloodshed.

Hissune, favorite of Lord Valentine, probes the deepest secrets of Majipoor's long past in the depths of the great Labyrinth. To do so, he becomes one with its many peoples--dukes and generals, thieves and murderers, Ghayrogs and Metamorphs--and discovers wonder, terror, longing, and love as he learns the wisdom that will shape his destiny.

Prince Valentine travels the planet Majipoor with a group of eccentric performers. In a quest to discover who Valentine is, his companions help him lay claim to the rewards of birth that await him. But that is only part of his challenge, for he must triumph in the most difficult trial--one that will test his belief, resolve and strength of character.

GUTTER ROADIf only Fred Bauman hadn't stopped that rainy night and offered the young woman a ride, his life wouldn't be such a hell now. How was he to know that Joanne was working a con on him when she enticed him in the front seat of his car? Now he's paying more blackmail than he can afford to keep her from crying rape. Fred certainly doesn't want his wife Ethel to find out about his crazy indiscretion. But what he doesn't know is that Ethel has issues of her own. To stave off sexual boredom, she keeps a hidden bottle of vodka for her afternoons, dreaming of a man who can offer her some excitement of her own. Joanne's simple con sets the wheels in motion, and they're all heading down a road that will change their lives forever. YOU CAN'T STOP ME When Lou Andreas is a teenager, filled with the lust of youth, all he wants to do is lose his virginity. But his first experience is a fiasco, and the young prostitute berates him for his failure. Filled with rage, Andreas finds another prostitute, and kills her. After that, sex and death become all mixed up in his head. He kills only prostitutes, but it becomes a compulsion. Then he meets Tony, and for a while Andreas knows what it's like to have a normal relationship. She is everything he could want in a woman. But Marian makes the mistake of falling in love-she wants marriage, which is the last thing on Andreas' mind. And besides, there are so many more streetwalkers who need killing...

Master of Life and Death, has been regarded as significant work throughout human history, and in order to ensure that this work is never lost, we have taken steps to ensure its preservation by republishing this book in a contemporary format for both current and future generations. This entire book has been retyped, redesigned, and reformatted. Since these books are not made from scanned copies, the text is readable and clear.

This book has been considered important throughout the human history, and so that this work is never forgotten we 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 designed. These books are not made of scanned copies and hence the text is clear and readable.

"The stories in this volume were written between July of 1990 and March of 1995-the second half of the fifth decade of my career as a science-fiction writer. I don't think I could have imagined, when I began that career in the early 1950s, that science-fiction publishing would evolve the way it did over the next forty years. Here, then, is the cream of the Silverberg output, 1990-95. I suppose I wrote more short stories in the first six months of 1957 than in that entire six-year period; but so be it. It's a different world today. I look back nostalgically on the small-town atmosphere of the era in which I began my career, and there are times when I'd be glad to 'call back yesterday, bid time return.' As Shakespeare pointed out, though, that can't be done. The one recourse is the one I have chosen, which is to soldier staunchly onward through the years, come what may, writing a story or two here and a book there, while the world changes out of all recognition around me. And so-to leap neatly from the Bard of Avon to F. Scott Fitzgerald-'so we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.'" -Robert Silverberg, from the Introduction

The stories collected here, written between August of 1987 and May of 1990, demonstrate that I still believe in the classical unities. Of course, what seems to us a unity now might not have appeared that way when H.G. Wells was writing his wonderful stories in the nineteenth century. Wells might have argued that my 'To the Promised Land' is built around two speculative fantastic assumptions, one that the Biblical Exodus from Egypt never happened, the other that it is possible to send rocketships to other worlds. But in fact we've sent plenty of rocketships to other worlds by now, so only my story's alternative-world speculation remains fantasy today. Technically speaking the space-travel element of the plot has become part of the given; it's the other big assumption that forms the central matter of the story. --Robert Silverberg, from his Introduction

This story, "To See the Invisible Man," written in June of 1962, marks the beginning of my real career as a science-fiction writer, I think. The 1953-58 stories collected in To Be Continued, the first of this series of volumes, are respectable professional work, some better than others but all of them at least minimally acceptable--but most of them could have been written by just about anyone. Aside from a few particularly ambitious items, they were designed to slip unobtrusively into the magazines of their time, efficiently providing me with regular paychecks. But now, by freeing me from the need to calculate my way around the risk of rejection, Fred Pohl allowed--indeed, required--me to reach as deep into my literary resources as I was capable of doing. I knew that unless I gave him my very best, the wonderful guaranteed-sale deal I had with him would vanish as quickly as it had appeared. Therefore I would reach deeper and deeper, in the years ahead, until I had moved so far away from my youthful career as a hack writer that latecomers would find it hard to believe that I had been emotionally capable of writing all that junk, let alone willing to do it. In "To See the Invisible Man" the distinctive Silverberg fictional voice is on display for just about the first time. --Robert Silverberg

KILLERHoward Gorman has to have Marie all to himself. She's everything he wants in a woman, and more. But in order to have Marie, he must first get rid of his wife, Ethyl. So Howard hires a hit man, Lee Floyd, a polished professional, to do the job-and remove Ethyl. But Marie has plans of her own, and they don't involve Howard. He's too fat and old for her. Marie is only in it for the money. So when she finds out about the hit man, she decides to get in touch with Lee herself. After all, if he's been paid to shoot Howard's wife, perhaps he can be persuaded to get rid of Howard as well...

"Deep in the future, after a human offense against the natives of Hydros, the human population of the island of Sorve are ordered to leave. Forbidden on all other islands, in a flotilla of ships they seek the semi-mythical island of the Face of the Waters. During their journey they are forced to learn more about themselves, leading to questions about both religion and the purpose of humanity, all while facing danger from outside and within"--

Welcome to Urban Monad 116. Reaching nearly two miles into the sky, the one thousand stories of this building are home to over eight hundred thousand people living in peace and harmony. In the year 2381 with a world population of over seventy-five billion souls, the massive Urbmon system is humanity's salvation.Life in Urbmon 116 is highly regulated, life is cherished, and the culture of procreation is seen as the highest pinnacle of god's plan. Conflict is abhorred, and any who disturb the peace face harsh punishment-even being sent "down the chute" to be recycled as fertilizer.Jason Quevedo, a historian, searches records of the twentieth century hoping to find the root of his discontent with the perfection of Urbmon life.Siegmund Kluver, a young and ambitious administrator, strives to reach the top levels of the Urbmon's government and discovers the civilization's dark truths.Michael Statler, a computer engineer, harbors a forbidden desire. He dreams of leaving the building-of walking in the open air and visiting the far-off sea. This is a dream he must keep secret. If anyone were to find out, he'd face the worst punishment imaginable.The World Inside is a fascinating exploration of society and what makes us human, told by a master of speculative fiction.The World Inside is a 1971 Hugo Award Nominee for Best Novella.

With a new introduction by author Robert Silverberg, and the first-ever map of Borthan, this classic sci-fi novel A Time of Changes, out of print since 1992, will delight fans of dystopian fictionIn the far future, Earth is a worn-out backwater and humanity is spread across the galaxy on worlds that began as colonies, but now feel like home, each with its own long history of a thousand years or more, and each with its own unique culture. One of the strangest is on Borthan, where the founding settlers established the Covenant, which teaches that the self is to be despised, and forbids anyone to reveal his innermost thoughts or feelings to another. On Borthan, the filthiest obscenities imaginable are the words "I" and "me." For the heinous crime of "self-baring," apostates have always paid with exile or death, but after his eyes are opened by a visitor from Earth, Kinnall Darival, prince of Salla, risks everything to teach his people the real meaning of being human.