Born with the Dead: Three novellas about the spirit of man

by Robert Silverberg

This volume demonstrates Robert Silverberg’s extraordinary creative imagination and literary skill; demonstrates why he is considered by aficionados to be one of the top three science fiction writers in the world. The volume includes three novellas:

In “Born with the Dead,” the author explores the ultimate tragedy of death as he creates a hereafter which at first totally occupies the imagination of a man who has lost his wife and then, at last, leaves him indifferent to her fate.

In “Thomas, the Proclaimer,” the author undertakes to cope with an evangelist, a singer of sweet songs, who, in the end, frustrates his followers.

“Going” is a delicate and sad study of mortality in a world where each individual may pick the moment he chooses to go. It’s a thought-provoking piece that only a writer like Silverberg could handle.

All three novellas illustrate both the quality of the author’s prose and the depth of his effect on the spirit of the reader.

Genres: Science Fiction, Fiction, Speculative Fiction, Novella, Collections, Short Stories, Short Story Collection

267 pages, Hardcover

First published June 1, 1974

About the author

There are many authors in the database with this name.

Robert Silverberg is a highly celebrated American science fiction author and editor known for his prolific output and literary range. Over a career spanning decades, he has won multiple Hugo and Nebula Awards and was named a Grand Master by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America in 2004. Inducted into the Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame in 1999, Silverberg is recognized for both his immense productivity and his contributions to the genre's evolution.
Born in Brooklyn, he began writing in his teens and won his first Hugo Award in 1956 as the best new writer. Throughout the 1950s, he produced vast amounts of fiction, often under pseudonyms, and was known for writing up to a million words a year. When the market declined, he diversified into other genres, including historical nonfiction and erotica.
Silverberg’s return to science fiction in the 1960s marked a shift toward deeper psychological and literary themes, contributing significantly to the New Wave movement. Acclaimed works from this period include Downward to the Earth, Dying Inside, Nightwings, and The World Inside. In the 1980s, he launched the Majipoor series with Lord Valentine’s Castle, creating one of the most imaginative planetary settings in science fiction.
Though he announced his retirement from writing in the mid-1970s, Silverberg returned with renewed vigor and continued to publish acclaimed fiction into the 1990s. He received further recognition with the Nebula-winning Sailing to Byzantium and the Hugo-winning Gilgamesh in the Outback.
Silverberg has also played a significant role as an editor and anthologist, shaping science fiction literature through both his own work and his influence on others. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with his wife, author Karen Haber.

Reviews

[Craig · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a collection of three very good novellas. Silverberg always excelled at the novella length; some of his short stories lack detail, some of his novels feel a little padded, but most of novellas are just right. The title story appeared in the April 1974 issue of The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, which was a special Robert Silverberg issue. It had appreciative scholarly essays from Barry N. Malzberg and Thomas D. Clareson, a handy bibliography compiled by Donald H. Tuck, and a terrific cover featuring Silverberg painted by the famous Ed Emshwiller, which was among the last of his long career in the field. It's a thoughtful, scientific look at life after death, published years before zombies became a pop culture craze. It won the Nebula Award for best novella of the year. (The Hugo winning novella was A Song for Lya by somebody named George R.R. Martin... I wonder if he ever went on to write anything else?) Ironically, the other two stories were first published in original anthologies of novellas. Going appeared in Four Futures edited by Robert Silverberg, and Thomas the Proclaimer was first printed in The Day the Sun Stood Still, which didn't have an editor credited. (That one may have been Silverberg, too.) Going is a thought-provoking look at lifespan and humanity, and Thomas the Proclaimer, which has God as one of the characters, is a religion-based tale that explores humanity's reaction to seeing proof of God's existence. The trio collected here are among Silverberg's best serious work.

[Sandy · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Born With the Dead" gathers together three of Robert Silverberg's mid-career sci-fi novellas into one remarkably fine collection. With a length greater than a short story or novelette but shorter than a full-length novel, these three tales clock in at around 55 to 70 pages each, and all display the intelligence, word craft and abundance of detail common to all of Silverberg's work in the late '60s to mid-'70s. Although subtitled "Three Novellas About the Spirit of Man" on its original 1974 release, the collection features a trio of tales that, strive as I might, I cannot find a common denominator among. Two of the stories concern how mankind deals with the subject of death, while the third has man's relation to religion and God as its central theme. OK, I HAVE thought of some commonalities among all three: They are all wonderful exemplars of modern-day sci-fi, all compulsively readable, all memorable and all moving.

The collection kicks off with the title story, "Born With the Dead." This tale takes place in the futuristic world of, uh, 1993, by which time mankind has discovered a way to reanimate the recently deceased by a process known as "rekindling." These "Deads" live separately in their own communes (Cold Towns), apart from the "Warms," and have their own customs and society. We meet Jorge Klein, a teacher who had lost his wife, Sybille, some years before, and who is now engaged in the taboo practice of stalking his rekindled ex around the globe, with the hope of a possible reuniting. The bulk of the tale takes place in exotic Zanzibar (Silverberg had visited East Africa before penning his great novel "Downward to the Earth" in 1970), although the story's two best scenes transpire elsewhere. In the first, Sybille and a group of fellow "Colds" go on a safari in a Tanzanian preserve stocked with genetically reconstructed extinct life forms, such as the dodo, aurochs, even a megatherium; in the second, Jorge disguises himself as one of the rekindled dead to infiltrate a Cold Town in the wilds of southeast Utah! This truly is a remarkable piece of fiction, and well deserving of the Nebula Award that it won for best novella of that year. I have only two quibbles with this tale. First, the Arab state of Oman is on the Gulf of Oman, not the Persian Gulf, as Silverberg writes; and second, a Google Image search will reveal that Zanzibar's Beit al-Ajaib, the House of Wonders, has no "vast cupola," as the author describes it. Still, as I say, a masterful piece of work.

Next up in the collection is the 1972 novella "Thomas the Proclaimer." In this unique story, the God of the Bible has finally chosen to reveal Himself to modern-day mankind. He effects a bona fide miracle, stopping the Earth from rotating and moving along its orbit for a full 24 hours...and with no concomitant calamities! But this great revelation only leads to misery for humanity, as the organized religions become suspicious of God's motives and new religions begin to spring up; one even declares God to be the Devil himself! In the midst of this turmoil we encounter Thomas Davidson of Reno, a former thief and current born-again prophet, whose pleas for sanity go largely unheeded. We see the madness unfold from the viewpoints of a good half dozen characters, in this very clever tale. If I am reading Silverberg correctly, his message is a disheartening one; namely, that even if God exists and one day appeared, it would ultimately do mankind not a lot of good at all. Clearly not a huge fan of organized religions, the author gives us a scene in which a more science-minded group of believers decides to bury all articles of the various world faiths; better have an unabridged dictionary on hand to look up such words as "epitrachelion," "omophorion," "dikerotrikera" and "epigonation"! Interestingly, this novella also features a band of millennial doomsayers called the Apocalyptists, the same band that was spotlighted in Silverberg's 1968 novel "The Masks of Time"!

Finally, the collection gives us the 1971 Silverberg piece simply entitled "Going." In this extremely moving tale, my favorite of the bunch, it is the year 2095. Through medical advancements, the life span of the average human has been greatly extended, and most people live to be at least 150. Deemed a civic duty to "Go" (i.e., die) at the proper time to make way for incoming newborns, each individual must conscientiously choose the proper time for himself or herself to Go. Very much unlike the society in the author's masterful novel of 1971, "The World Inside," this human society deems it a great honor to help keep the world's population down. Whereas the '71 novel had depicted a nightmarish world of appalling overpopulation, the future world of "Going" seems almost like a paradise, and the Going routine that its central character--136-year-old composer Henry Staunt--under, uh, Goes seems as civilized as can be. Indeed, one might almost believe that this is Silverberg's idealized vision of a way to deal with the aged as they approach the end of life. Staunt decides to Go at a House of Leavetaking in the Arizona desert; a U-shaped residence somewhat similar to the U-shaped hospital that mutilated astronaut Minner Burris recuperates in, also in the desert Southwest, in the 1967 Silverberg novel "Thorns." Over the course of the novella, we are given all the facts of Staunt's long life, get to know his family, learn about his tastes, and see him adjust to his decision to Go, vacillating all the while. Ultimately, the story is somewhat sad, of course, but also life affirming; a wonderfully warm and emotional piece of futuristic sci-fi, filled with imaginative touches. As it brings the curtain down on many of its geriatric characters, it also brings down the curtain on this wonderful collection of finely written tales. Truly, three shorter pieces from one of sci-fi's best.

[Tom LA · Rating 5 out of 5]

These 3 novellas are, to put it simply, 3 masterworks by one of the best writer of the 20th century. If you don’t read them, you’ll have missed a very rare kind of beauty.

‘Born with the dead’, the first novella, describes a world where you can choose to come back to life after your death as a “dead”, without passions and emotions. It’s very loosely based on Orpheus and Eurydice.

‘Thomas the Proclaimer’ is a powerful, muscular story about religion, that describes a ‘miracle’ and its aftermath on Earth. Wonderful, wonderful stuff. Very difficult to write. He pulls it off extremely well by using the different POV technique.

‘Going’ is also about death. Maybe a little slower but even more lyrical, touching and profound. 100 years from now, death will be seen very differently, due to the advances in medical sciences. For most people, it won’t be an unpredictably timed event. So when to go? And how? And why? So much intelligence and food for thought in this novella.

Someone said that the stories ‘peter out’ towards the end. That’s incorrect. They all have a great development, only not the one you would expect.

[Nicky · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting collection of three novellas. Robert Silverberg's writing style has something understated about it: you don't feel he's wasting any words. The three novellas are not related in terms of their worlds, but they all deal in some way with living with the dead -- in the first, people can be revived after death, like zombies except without the shambling around or the desire for brains, but the process changes their personalities; in the second, people are waiting for the end times, some believing that they're destined for death and soon; in the third, a man decides to go and die peacefully -- his society's version of exposure -- and the novella follows his decision process.

They're pretty light reading, but they do deal with issues about how death changes people, the necessity of closure, the frenzy of cults...

[Jamie · Rating 2 out of 5]

Nebula Award for Best Novella (1974)
Locus Award for Best Novella (1975)

Chilling tale of death, love and rebirth, masterfully crafted by the eminent SFF Grand Master Robert Silverberg.

[Clark Hallman · Rating 5 out of 5]

Born With The Dead (1974) by Robert Silverberg – This is an excellent novella that won the Nebula and Locus awards and was nominated for several other awards in 1974. In this story people who die can be “rekindled,” i.e., brought to life. Of course, rekindling is a very popular process that creates “warm” populations (normal living people) and “cold” populations (rekindled dead people). While the populations of both warm and cold people intermingle to a certain extent, their relationships are strained and specialized population areas for each come into being. In this wonderful story a “warm” man tries to reestablish his relationship with his “cold” ex-wife. It is a very well-written, interesting and poignant story, which is to be expected from Silverberg. I liked it very much.

[Manny · Rating 3 out of 5]

With the enormous current interest in all things zombie, I'm surprised this book hasn't resurfaced. It's an unusual spin on the zombie idea: there's nothing supernatural, just a medical procedure that allows you to reanimate dead people. The walking dead still have their memories, but they're emotionally different - it's creepy, but in a less straightforward way than is usual in this genre. If you like zombie stories, you might want to check it out.

[Charles · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a collection of three novellas, that are losely related. There were some good ideas here but I remember being disappointed badly with the ending of the title story.

[Philipp · Rating 2 out of 5]

Bought on the basis of the rad cover for one dollaridoo.

Three novellas - Born with the Dead, Thomas the Proclaimer, Going.

Born with the Dead is the best one: rebirth after death is possible thanks to a bunch of weird guys, but the reborn can't really relate to their living relatives, instead spend their days traveling across the world in areas that normal living people are not allowed to enter. The narrator is obsessed with his dead/rekindled wife and follows her around the world, always a few steps behind her. I guess you could read this as an allegory to a messy breakup: the one who is left always aches after the one who left and can't move on, until one day it makes 'click' and the one who's left is ready to finally move on themselves.

The other two novellas I mostly forgot already - Going is about an artist at the end of their life living at an assisted suicide facility looking back at his life, too much navel-gazing for me. Thomas the Proclaimer is about a end-of-the-world prophet who correctly predicts a cataclysmic event, is then pushed to become a huge cult-leader but stops having any insights on what's going on as society deteriorates around him. Too much edgy atheism for me.

[Chuck Byrd · Rating 3 out of 5]

3 stars...was good...not great

[David Drucker · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nice version of the story of Orfeo and Eurydice. The difference here is that the poet doesn't go to hell to retrieve his dead wife, but instead, a 'cold town', where people who have been brought back from the dead inhabit. The dead are 'rekindled' and no longer can be with the living. It's never entirely clear why. They are not zombies, but instead, have rather strange customs and preferences, like hunting extinct animals.

[Moira Crone · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love all the novellas in this collection---Born With the Dead is a marvelous long short story which is also a parable with powerful meaning. The best kind of philosophical sci fi, I was as fascinated by this book as we all are about the concept that something continues and something ceases after life.
Loved it. Inspiring.

[Jerry · Rating 3 out of 5]

These novellas all start out fascinating, and all sort of peter out at the end.

The most durable of the stories is the first, Born with the Dead. It’s a world where people can be revived after death in a sort of superhuman state, but live apart from the living. They have the same memories, and the same bodies, but something (never specified) makes them different people. The main protagonist becomes obsessed with meeting his wife again after she dies, and stalks her. It’s difficult to do because the dead can recognize when someone is not dead, and avoid them.

It’s really a sort of pod person scenario, except that the pod people don’t want to spread themselves to new hosts. Like the rest of the stories, it never really resolves, but it does hang on the longest.

Thomas the Proclaimer is the most potentially fascinating. Thomas is a prophet in modern times, and has successfully, and very publicly, asked God for a Sign, to stop day and night for twenty-four hours. God provides this sign. There’s really no reasonable alternative to it being a divine miracle. The earth doesn’t just slow its rotation just enough to keep the same side toward the sun for the specified period and then resume at the end. It does so without any of the side effects one would expect from either a sudden stopping or a locked facing.

Pretty much the only people trying to explain the miracle away as non-miraculous are religious authorities. Everyone else accepts that it was God or the Devil, either of which is proof of the existence of God. The reaction to this knowledge, however, is more violence, not more peace, because people don’t know what to do with the knowledge.

All three of those—an undeniable sign from God, denied by religious authorities, sowing confusion—should make for an incredible story, but none of them are developed.

It’s also slightly interesting from a historical standpoint, as this is also a seventies Doom book.

And of course everything got much more awful than the doomsayers of the 1970s really expected.

By that the narrator means the environment, the population explosion (“the birth spiral”), and running out of oil.

In Going, medical science has advanced to the point that people can easily live to a hundred and fifty years old and longer. It isn’t specifically stated, but it is implied, that medical science has started advancing faster than people are reaching death, so that no one really has to die. By the time they get to when they would have died, medical science has advanced enough to keep them alive.

In this world, the government sponsors Leavetaking facilities, where people can choose to “Go”. Most of them appear to be people who have aged more than normal, possibly because they were older to begin with when the advancements started coming. The main character is not such a person, however; he’s a successful composer who has, at least initially just become tired of living. He’s done everything he’s wanted to do and has nothing left he wants to do, and decides that he’s ready to Go. In this world, that’s a perfectly reasonable reason to die, and differentiates such Going from suicide. Going because of an emotional setback, for example, is discouraged.

As the story progresses, however, he ends up contradicting most of those reasons, right down to deciding he’s not really ready and has some very interesting things he’d like to do. What that really means for this world’s system of dying, whether Going was never any different from suicide or whether mankind will never be ready for immortality, or even whether governments should ever help people choose to die, isn’t examined. The end just sort of happens when it happens because it might not happen if it were to happen later.

[Science and Fiction · Rating 2 out of 5]

Well, I’ve read this twice now, and that’s enough for me. This type of story is best suited to a short episode of The Twilight Zone and shouldn’t really be considered science fiction at all. In the forward to the 1987 edition Silverberg says that he isn’t interested in hard science fiction, the gee-whiz of gadgets and technology, but is more interested in exploring changes in psychology, sociology or political systems. He considers Jane Ault’s Clan of the Cave Bear science fiction because it documents the first discovery of tools and the wheel; the birth of technology. He would say that somebody from a thousand years ago might marvel about automated wagons traversing on four rubber wheels, but to the person of today, there is hardly any conscious recognition of these everyday matters. But Anyway, I have a problem with suspending disbelief when basic tenets of a story go unexplained.

In a sense this is a strange tale of zombies, called Colds, who live in settlements across the U.S. They don’t generally interact with the living (Warms). None of this is explained, how it came to be, how the process is done, how the cold people built their own settlements, how they bring cars, building supplies, food to their settlement, who pays for all this. Besides that, the story has a fairly large section dedicated to an episode when a group of colds decide to take a vacation to a hunting preserve in Tanzania, stocked with all the latest DNA revivals of Aurochs, Dodos, Passenger Pigeons, Saber Tooth Tigers, and other rare and extinct animals. I was rather exasperated with the antics of a man desperate to visit with his former wife, now a Cold. Even though she has all her former memories, the Colds want nothing to do with the Warm.

Very strange, and nothing I need revisit for a third time.

[Andres Borbon · Rating 3 out of 5]

Inventan un procedimiento médico que permite a los muertos volver a la vida, o algo así. Su temperatura es más baja pero su actividad cerebral es igual o superior a la media y tienen una actitud distante, un afecto aplanado. A medio camino entre humanos y zombies, pues.

La esposa del protagonista es revivida pero ahora ella no tiene el menor interés en relacionarse con él. Vive en uno de los refugios de resucitados a los que los humanos llaman "pueblos fríos". Pero él está obsesionado con rescatar su relación y la persigue por todo el mundo intentando que algo cálido quede en su gélido corazón.

Está bien la novela. No es de altos vuelos pero al menos es algo distinto a los sádicos carniceros descerebrados engendros abominables del inframundo que pueblan la literatura (y la tele) actuales.

[Larry · Rating 4 out of 5]

I think I read this back when I was middle school age or so. I didn't really remember anything other than the title and the mood of the story.

In the future, people will be brought back from the dead somewhat routinely.

They aren't exactly the same, though. In some ways they are still dead.

This is the story of a happy young couple of whom the wife has died. She's back up and walking around. The husband is going nuts. He wants to get back together with her. She doesn't love him any more.

Moody. Atmospheric. Compare with Necromancy in Naat.

[Tony Baker · Rating 3 out of 5]

I believe I only read two of these stories, the title one and "Going." Both were good, but as I recall, I liked "Going" best.

A man tries to reunite with his late wife after discovering that, before she died, she'd volunteered to be "rekindled," and become a host for a race of disembodied alien beings who have settled, as refugees, on Earth. This was adapted as an episode of the '90s/early '00s version of The Outer Limits, if I recall.

"Going," meanwhile, takes place in a future where technology and medicine have conquered death; in order to prevent overpopulation, no new children are allowed to be born until a currently living human agrees to voluntarily "go" (read: be euthanized) and make room.

[Mateusz Wielgosz · Rating 3 out of 5]

Trzy opowiadania, wszystkie mniej lub bardziej traktujące o śmierci i końcu. Ostatnio czytałem zbiór opowiadań ze świata Kultury Banksa i tam najlepsze było na początku. Tu im dalej tym lepiej. Bo w pierwszym opowiadaniu mamy intrygujący setup świata, gdzie umarli mogą żyć dalej, ale całość prowadzi w sumie donikąd. Drugie opowiadanie spod znaku "co by było gdyby" serwuje ciekawy, szeroki rzut oka na ludzkość w ekstremalnej sytuacji. Znów ciekawe, choć trochę pozbawione puenty.
Najlepiej wypada ostatni tekst, który traktuje o eutanazji w futurystycznym świecie, gdzie ludzie standardowo żyją zdecydowanie ponad sto lat. Jedynie gdy ktoś umiera, ktoś inny może uzyskać zgodę na zrobienie sobie potomstwa...
Ogółem - nic zwalającego z nóg, solidne SF.

[James]

His wife was among the rekindled dead now. He'd heard that she was on a plane to Zanzibar with five other rekindled dead. As a "warm" he was not really allowed to make contact with her. The dead liked to stay in their cold-cities. But he'd loved her so much when she was alive, he just had to try. Science Fiction Hall of Fame Pick, Nebula Award(R) Winner, Locus Poll Award Winner, Hugo Award Nominee

[Denis · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is for the story/novella of that title, not the collection of three separate stories compiled in this collection.

It’s generally a modern zombie story without actually use in g the word zombie and the undead don’t look like zombies, they actually look great, however, they are vacant somehow.

Entertaining read though.

[Ray Gardener · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of my favorite novellas. The author perfectly communicates the gulf between the living and the resurrected, no matter how normal the latter may look, and sadly, no matter how much their spouses may love them.

[Matthew · Rating 3 out of 5]

The title story is the best of the three, but each is worth the read.

[Rog Harrison · Rating 1 out of 5]

I did not finish this as per my diary "it was giving me the creeps".

[Robin · Rating 3 out of 5]

First and last stories the best

[Ida Wytrykowska · Rating 4 out of 5]

Simple but pleasant

[Dogg · Rating 3 out of 5]

The surprise came when I finished "Born with the Dead" and found 2 other novellas in this little book. The edition also includes "Thomas the Proclaimer" and "Going".

If you are looking for something shorter to read during you lunch hour and breaks this little book will probably meet your needs. "Born with the Dead" won a Nebula Award back in its day.

I found all three novellas written with a very dry sense of humor. In particular, I found "Born with the Dead" left me with a some very important unanswered questions. But, if you can put this aside, and go with the flow these little books can fill the holes in your day.

[VAle · Rating 3 out of 5]

preso in biblioteca

Mi aspettavo tantissimo da questo libro, dopo averlo inseguito per molto tempo ed essermi risolta a prenderlo in biblioteca perchè esaurito da tempo. Come spesso accade più grandi sono le aspettative più è facile che vengano disattese. Infatti sono rimasta delusa dai 2 racconti che compongono questo libro, li ho trovati un po' banali e poco coinvolgenti, probabilmente nulla di nuovo neppure per il 1975, anno di pubblicazione dell'edizione originale.
Tutto sommato solo due buone distopie, ma penalizzate da una scrittura un po' piatta e poco emozionante.

[Chris Pinkleton · Rating 5 out of 5]

An amazing collection of novellas by a master of graceful and haunting prose. These stories will have you ruminating on the depths of human suffering long after you have finished them.

"Born with the Dead"= the best undead story ever done. Most zombies and vampires can't hold a candle to the casual evil of the "rekindled".

"Thomas the Proclaimer"= a spiritual prequel to " The Leftovers," but far darker.

"Going"= a profound meditation on mortality and meaning.

These 3 novellas are all masterpieces of SF.

[Jim · Rating 4 out of 5]

I hadn't read much science fiction when I discovered this little book, which I still own. I only even read the first two novellas - I couldn't get into Thomas the Proclimer - but the haunting title novella is worth the four stars on its own. It's about a world where the dead are "rekindled" and go on to 'live' in cities of the dead with their own kind and of one man who cannot cope with the loss of his wife to this half-life.

[Adrik · Rating 5 out of 5]

Some people call it a "zombie" story. But to me Silverberg's "rekindled" offer a much closer analogy with the vampires, in the sense that became fashionable in the 1980s with Anne Rice for example: beautiful people that were reborn and got elegant, subtle, serene, aware... cool.