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The Stochastic Man
Hugo and Nebula Award This tale of an encounter between a probability expert and a psychic is “a treasure” (San Francisco Examiner).
Lew Nichols can predict the future. Not see the future, just make predictions based on research and statistics. Nichols is damn good at it, though, and his accuracy makes him a valuable addition to Paul Quinn’s political campaign for New York City Mayor and possibly the White House. But, when Nichols meets eccentric millionaire Martin Carvajal, predictions suddenly seem petty and flippant. You see, Carvajal can actually see the future—not trends, not options—a signal line of events stretching out ahead. It’s a gift Nichols can learn from this “mentor,” but at what price? Will knowing the future make the present meaningless?
Lew Nichols can predict the future. Not see the future, just make predictions based on research and statistics. Nichols is damn good at it, though, and his accuracy makes him a valuable addition to Paul Quinn’s political campaign for New York City Mayor and possibly the White House. But, when Nichols meets eccentric millionaire Martin Carvajal, predictions suddenly seem petty and flippant. You see, Carvajal can actually see the future—not trends, not options—a signal line of events stretching out ahead. It’s a gift Nichols can learn from this “mentor,” but at what price? Will knowing the future make the present meaningless?
300 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 1975
59 people are currently reading
1022 people want to read
About the author
Robert Silverberg
2,342 books1,601 followersThere 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.
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.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 94 reviews
January 17, 2016
sto·chas·tic stəˈkastik/
adjective: stochastic: randomly determined; having a random probability distribution or pattern that may be analyzed statistically but may not be predicted precisely.
First published in 1975 and nominated for the Hugo, Nebula and John W. Campbell Memorial awards, The Stochastic Man is one of Silverberg’s darker novels.
Lew Nichols is a predictor of future events, following trends and forecasting popular inclinations for a New York politician with national ambitions. He is then confronted with a mentor who can make more exact predictions.
Similar to Stephen King’s 1979 The Dead Zone, there is an air of impending doom reminiscent of King or Richard Mathieson. This is also comparable to Robert Penn Warren’s All the King's Men and Messiah by Gore Vidal, with an atmosphere of heady and tense proclivity to power.
Silverberg uses this setting as a vehicle to examine themes of free will determination, existential angst and acceptance of paranormal evidence.
adjective: stochastic: randomly determined; having a random probability distribution or pattern that may be analyzed statistically but may not be predicted precisely.
First published in 1975 and nominated for the Hugo, Nebula and John W. Campbell Memorial awards, The Stochastic Man is one of Silverberg’s darker novels.
Lew Nichols is a predictor of future events, following trends and forecasting popular inclinations for a New York politician with national ambitions. He is then confronted with a mentor who can make more exact predictions.
Similar to Stephen King’s 1979 The Dead Zone, there is an air of impending doom reminiscent of King or Richard Mathieson. This is also comparable to Robert Penn Warren’s All the King's Men and Messiah by Gore Vidal, with an atmosphere of heady and tense proclivity to power.
Silverberg uses this setting as a vehicle to examine themes of free will determination, existential angst and acceptance of paranormal evidence.
September 28, 2021
I just can’t stop raving about Robert Silverberg. He is simply a phenomenal writer. His best known novel, Dying Inside, is about a US academic who was born with the gift of telepathy, and who in late middle-age finds it departing him. How do you cope with the loss of something that defines who you are? How do you face the death of what makes you, you? That novel floored me. One of the best I’ve ever read.
Here, we have a very different question: What would it be like to know precisely your own future? Silverberg explored this idea in several short stories, to best effect in this 1975 novel.
Lew Nichols is a pollster and statistician in the futuristic America of 1999. He’s one of the best, and he’s tied his already risen star to a young politician named Paul Quinn who Lew thinks has the potential to go all the way to the White House. Lew’s confident that nobody can guess the shape of the future better than he can.
The 1970’s permeate Siverberg’s near future narrative. New York City at the turn of the millennium is a degeneration of what New York looked like in the early 1970’s.
Lew and his wife Sundara, a glamorous woman of Indian origin, live a very good life. Lew’s stochastic firm brings in an enviable income, as does Sundara’s art gallery. They attend exclusive parties where the elite mingle and choose sexual partners for later in the evening. A variety of legal drugs keep the party going. All very 1970’s - in fact, Science Fiction is always inevitably a comment about the author’s present.
"The terrors and traumas of New York City seemed indecently remote as we stood by our long crystalline window, staring into the wintry moonbright night and seeing only our own reflections, tall fairhaired man and slender dark woman, side by side, side by side, allies against the darkness… Actually neither of us found life in the city really burdensome. As members of the affluent minority we were isolated from much of the crazy stuff…"
In the first chapters, Lew Nichols, as first-person narrator, reveals most of the plot developments. Lew will become a consultant to the political campaign of the charismatic Quinn, who is the great hope of a city and country seeking to rejuvenate itself. Lew describes him as "potentially the most dangerous man in the world." He imagines that American voters dream of being able to withdraw the votes that as Lew is telling the story they will not place for another four or five years.
And then comes the real strong point of the novel: the enigmatic character of Martin Carvajal, an elderly multimillionaire who knows a way to go beyond Lew’s stochastic methods and is able to literally see the future.
Lew calls him a "wild card in the flow of time." Carvajal’s resigned, passive nature comes from the fact that for him the future and history are one and the same.
Based on a very intriguing premise, ok, but this is clearly a difficult novel to write, to pull off - and Silverberg nails it as wonderfully as always.
The tension between Carvajal’s absolute determinism and Lew’s wife’s weird religion that drives her to behave in a totally erratic way builds up throughout the novel as a perfect metaphor for one of the Big Questions of human life: does free will really exist? And if so, to what extent? What’s between determinism and full personal agency?
The ontological polarity between freedom and destiny is at the core of the author’s reflections.
Silverberg’s stance seems to be a pessimistic one, (and you could not be a Science Fiction author in the 60s and 70s without being a RAGING atheist) but in my opinion what transpires most vividly is the playfulness and the joy of crafting an inventive plot, rather than a desire to preach.
I also love the constant references to classic literature and ancient history that Silverberg always peppers his writings with.
A fantastic read. On to the next Silverberg book.
Here, we have a very different question: What would it be like to know precisely your own future? Silverberg explored this idea in several short stories, to best effect in this 1975 novel.
Lew Nichols is a pollster and statistician in the futuristic America of 1999. He’s one of the best, and he’s tied his already risen star to a young politician named Paul Quinn who Lew thinks has the potential to go all the way to the White House. Lew’s confident that nobody can guess the shape of the future better than he can.
The 1970’s permeate Siverberg’s near future narrative. New York City at the turn of the millennium is a degeneration of what New York looked like in the early 1970’s.
Lew and his wife Sundara, a glamorous woman of Indian origin, live a very good life. Lew’s stochastic firm brings in an enviable income, as does Sundara’s art gallery. They attend exclusive parties where the elite mingle and choose sexual partners for later in the evening. A variety of legal drugs keep the party going. All very 1970’s - in fact, Science Fiction is always inevitably a comment about the author’s present.
"The terrors and traumas of New York City seemed indecently remote as we stood by our long crystalline window, staring into the wintry moonbright night and seeing only our own reflections, tall fairhaired man and slender dark woman, side by side, side by side, allies against the darkness… Actually neither of us found life in the city really burdensome. As members of the affluent minority we were isolated from much of the crazy stuff…"
In the first chapters, Lew Nichols, as first-person narrator, reveals most of the plot developments. Lew will become a consultant to the political campaign of the charismatic Quinn, who is the great hope of a city and country seeking to rejuvenate itself. Lew describes him as "potentially the most dangerous man in the world." He imagines that American voters dream of being able to withdraw the votes that as Lew is telling the story they will not place for another four or five years.
And then comes the real strong point of the novel: the enigmatic character of Martin Carvajal, an elderly multimillionaire who knows a way to go beyond Lew’s stochastic methods and is able to literally see the future.
Lew calls him a "wild card in the flow of time." Carvajal’s resigned, passive nature comes from the fact that for him the future and history are one and the same.
Based on a very intriguing premise, ok, but this is clearly a difficult novel to write, to pull off - and Silverberg nails it as wonderfully as always.
The tension between Carvajal’s absolute determinism and Lew’s wife’s weird religion that drives her to behave in a totally erratic way builds up throughout the novel as a perfect metaphor for one of the Big Questions of human life: does free will really exist? And if so, to what extent? What’s between determinism and full personal agency?
The ontological polarity between freedom and destiny is at the core of the author’s reflections.
Silverberg’s stance seems to be a pessimistic one, (and you could not be a Science Fiction author in the 60s and 70s without being a RAGING atheist) but in my opinion what transpires most vividly is the playfulness and the joy of crafting an inventive plot, rather than a desire to preach.
I also love the constant references to classic literature and ancient history that Silverberg always peppers his writings with.
A fantastic read. On to the next Silverberg book.
March 4, 2019
L'uomo stocastico (casuale, probabilistico), è il nostro protagonista, un certo Lew, giovane uomo che tenta di entrare, a tutti costi, nell'amministrazione di un giovane uomo, futuro...
Siamo nella New York del futuro: fine XX, inizio XXI secolo (il romanzo è stato scritto nel 1975), il mondo è in fermento, tutti fumano una "strana" droga, le libertà sessuali sono estreme, ci sono dottrine spirituali più o meno invasive. Romanzo prettamente fantapolitico, ma anche satirico, con punte di humour che mi hanno ricordato i racconti di Sheckley. La scrittura è molto coinvolgente, si fa leggere benissimo, è riflessivo, con momenti anche molto intensi e mi son ritrovato disorientato di fronte a certi risvolti presi nella storia.
Siamo nella New York del futuro: fine XX, inizio XXI secolo (il romanzo è stato scritto nel 1975), il mondo è in fermento, tutti fumano una "strana" droga, le libertà sessuali sono estreme, ci sono dottrine spirituali più o meno invasive. Romanzo prettamente fantapolitico, ma anche satirico, con punte di humour che mi hanno ricordato i racconti di Sheckley. La scrittura è molto coinvolgente, si fa leggere benissimo, è riflessivo, con momenti anche molto intensi e mi son ritrovato disorientato di fronte a certi risvolti presi nella storia.
April 8, 2014
Although his previous output had for several decades been nothing short of prodigious, by the mid-'70s, sci-fi great Robert Silverberg was finally beginning to slow down. The author had released no fewer than 23 sci-fi novels during his initial, "pulpy" phase (1954 - '65), and a full 23 more from 1967 - '72, his second, more mature, more literate period. And following 1972's "Dying Inside"--whose central conceit of a telepath losing his powers has often been seen as corresponding to Silverberg's self-professed, supposed diminution of his own writing abilities (not that any reader would ever be aware of it)--for the first time in the author's career, there were no new sci-fi novels for several years. But as it turned out, Silverberg still had two more major works up his sleeve before calling it quits in 1976 (before he came roaring back with his Lord Valentine series, starting in 1980): "The Stochastic Man" (1975) and "Shadrach in the Furnace" (1976). A look at the 1975 work will surely make readers wonder why Silverberg ever thought of taking a break at all, as the book is as imaginative, beautifully written and mind expanding as any other in the author's canon. Nominated for both the Hugo and Nebula Awards, the novel lost out, on both fronts, to Joe Haldeman's "The Forever War," yet remains an eminently entertaining and thought-provoking work, now almost 40 years later.
The tale is told by Lew Nichols in the, uh, futuristic, cusp-of-the-millennia (December 2000) setting of a decayed and strife-ridden New York City, one that makes the urban rot of the mid-'70s seem like a Legoland. Nichols had enjoyed a very unusual occupation, doing stochastic projections for major clients. (I'll save you the trouble of looking it up: "Stochastic" simply means "involving chance or probability.") Using mathematical formulae ("Kolmogorov axioms, Ehrenhaft games, Markov chains, the Pascal triangle," etc.), Nichols is able to make better-than-educated guesses regarding future events. Married to a beautiful Indian woman and residing away from the urban violence in his protected Staten Island enclave, life is certainly good for Nichols. And that life becomes even more exciting when he meets NYC mayoral hopeful Paul Quinn at a party and joins his staff. With Nichols' assistance, Quinn wins the election in a landslide and then sets his eyes on the presidency. Meanwhile, Nichols' stochastic gifts soon begin to seem like weak tea indeed when he encounters a little old man named Martin Carvajal, who has the uncanny knack of being able to look into the future with perfect accuracy, and who claims that that future is unalterable....
While "The Stochastic Man" is as gripping and entertaining a sci-fi tale as any fan might hope for, its underlying message of mankind living in an inflexibly rigid, deterministic universe is one that many readers might feel uncomfortable with. Not since Cornell Woolrich's great 1945 thriller "The Night Has a Thousand Eyes," perhaps, has such a bleak vision been presented to us, and even Jon Davis, host of the Quasi-Official Robert Silverberg Web Site, mentions that he finds the novel a bit "unpleasant." The book is a fairly serious affair, and almost completely devoid of humor. What little humor there IS to be found is largely of the black variety, such as Silverberg's descriptions of the extreme violence that transpires during a typical NYC week (the Harlem forces use Syrian tanks to attack Spanish Harlem; the Puerto Ricans retaliate, with the aid of three Israeli colonels, by firebombing the Apollo!), and the fact that most of Quinn's staff is comprised of Armenians--Missakian, Ephrikian, Mardikian...everybody, it would seem, except a Kardashian! (And yes, it IS a tad difficult at first to keep these names straight.) Silverberg, as usual, peppers his tale with any number of imaginative touches; thus, the powdered calcium bone that people smoke to get high; the new, faddish Transit Creed religion that Nichols' wife becomes infatuated with and that leads to marital discord; Carvajal's diagrammatic explanation as to just how his divining abilities might work. Typical for the author in this, his liberated second phase, there are numerous erotic--and even borderline graphic--sex scenes in the book; Silverberg, after all, to make a living between 1959 and '67, had also written around 150 sex novels, with such marvelous titles as "The Bra Peddlers," "Lesbian Love," "Lust Cult," "Passion Peeper" and "Dial O-R-G-Y." As in his 1968 novel "The Masks of Time," the raucous events surrounding the end of the millennium figure prominently. And as in his hallucinatory 1971 novel of the far-distant future, "Son of Man," here, the Earth of a billion years hence is imagined by Nichols in one surreal sequence ("Mechanical birds, twittering like creaky gates, flutter overhead"). "The Stochastic Man," good as it is--and if I have been remiss in stressing this, let me say right here that this IS Silverberg very near the top of his game, and that modern sci-fi doesn't get too much better than that--is not a perfect novel, and its author makes a few errors here and there. Nichols' hair, for example, is said to be "light" at the opening and "dark" around 100 pages later. In addition, Silverberg's own stochastic powers were a bit off as regards a NYC terrorist attack; it wasn't the Statue of Liberty that was obliterated, but rather another downtown landmark! And there was no Department of Health, Education and Welfare in the year 2000, as it turned out; it was reorganized after 1979. But these are minor matters. Nichols and Carvajal are wonderful and likable characters, the story is a fascinating one, the political machinations are realistically intricate, and indeed the book overall is fairly unputdownable. For an author who felt that his writing powers were on the wane, this book stands as a stark denial. One does not need any stochastic abilities whatsoever to predict a reader's great satisfaction after turning the final page of this wonderfully inventive piece of work....
The tale is told by Lew Nichols in the, uh, futuristic, cusp-of-the-millennia (December 2000) setting of a decayed and strife-ridden New York City, one that makes the urban rot of the mid-'70s seem like a Legoland. Nichols had enjoyed a very unusual occupation, doing stochastic projections for major clients. (I'll save you the trouble of looking it up: "Stochastic" simply means "involving chance or probability.") Using mathematical formulae ("Kolmogorov axioms, Ehrenhaft games, Markov chains, the Pascal triangle," etc.), Nichols is able to make better-than-educated guesses regarding future events. Married to a beautiful Indian woman and residing away from the urban violence in his protected Staten Island enclave, life is certainly good for Nichols. And that life becomes even more exciting when he meets NYC mayoral hopeful Paul Quinn at a party and joins his staff. With Nichols' assistance, Quinn wins the election in a landslide and then sets his eyes on the presidency. Meanwhile, Nichols' stochastic gifts soon begin to seem like weak tea indeed when he encounters a little old man named Martin Carvajal, who has the uncanny knack of being able to look into the future with perfect accuracy, and who claims that that future is unalterable....
While "The Stochastic Man" is as gripping and entertaining a sci-fi tale as any fan might hope for, its underlying message of mankind living in an inflexibly rigid, deterministic universe is one that many readers might feel uncomfortable with. Not since Cornell Woolrich's great 1945 thriller "The Night Has a Thousand Eyes," perhaps, has such a bleak vision been presented to us, and even Jon Davis, host of the Quasi-Official Robert Silverberg Web Site, mentions that he finds the novel a bit "unpleasant." The book is a fairly serious affair, and almost completely devoid of humor. What little humor there IS to be found is largely of the black variety, such as Silverberg's descriptions of the extreme violence that transpires during a typical NYC week (the Harlem forces use Syrian tanks to attack Spanish Harlem; the Puerto Ricans retaliate, with the aid of three Israeli colonels, by firebombing the Apollo!), and the fact that most of Quinn's staff is comprised of Armenians--Missakian, Ephrikian, Mardikian...everybody, it would seem, except a Kardashian! (And yes, it IS a tad difficult at first to keep these names straight.) Silverberg, as usual, peppers his tale with any number of imaginative touches; thus, the powdered calcium bone that people smoke to get high; the new, faddish Transit Creed religion that Nichols' wife becomes infatuated with and that leads to marital discord; Carvajal's diagrammatic explanation as to just how his divining abilities might work. Typical for the author in this, his liberated second phase, there are numerous erotic--and even borderline graphic--sex scenes in the book; Silverberg, after all, to make a living between 1959 and '67, had also written around 150 sex novels, with such marvelous titles as "The Bra Peddlers," "Lesbian Love," "Lust Cult," "Passion Peeper" and "Dial O-R-G-Y." As in his 1968 novel "The Masks of Time," the raucous events surrounding the end of the millennium figure prominently. And as in his hallucinatory 1971 novel of the far-distant future, "Son of Man," here, the Earth of a billion years hence is imagined by Nichols in one surreal sequence ("Mechanical birds, twittering like creaky gates, flutter overhead"). "The Stochastic Man," good as it is--and if I have been remiss in stressing this, let me say right here that this IS Silverberg very near the top of his game, and that modern sci-fi doesn't get too much better than that--is not a perfect novel, and its author makes a few errors here and there. Nichols' hair, for example, is said to be "light" at the opening and "dark" around 100 pages later. In addition, Silverberg's own stochastic powers were a bit off as regards a NYC terrorist attack; it wasn't the Statue of Liberty that was obliterated, but rather another downtown landmark! And there was no Department of Health, Education and Welfare in the year 2000, as it turned out; it was reorganized after 1979. But these are minor matters. Nichols and Carvajal are wonderful and likable characters, the story is a fascinating one, the political machinations are realistically intricate, and indeed the book overall is fairly unputdownable. For an author who felt that his writing powers were on the wane, this book stands as a stark denial. One does not need any stochastic abilities whatsoever to predict a reader's great satisfaction after turning the final page of this wonderfully inventive piece of work....
June 25, 2018
Storyline: 2/5
Characters: 2/5
Writing Style: 3/5
World: 2/5
No science fiction writer disappoints me as consistently as does Robert Silverberg. If his books were worse I'd stop reading them or come to them with less hope. He's both too good and too poor of a writer. He shows again in The Stochastic Man that he's capable. Silverberg knows when to stick in some emotional indecision, an abrupt encounter, that troubling bit of news, or a major twist. The story follows the right structure of dips, rises, and plateaus. But it all comes down to nothing. There's no major point, no psychological insight, no technological implication, and no haunting dilemma. His template is that of a true writer, gifted with the novel format, but I never like what they develop into. The Stochastic Man, like others of his, starts with promise. It is there in the title: stochastic. I'm no math guru, but I immediately understood the potential, and Silverberg helped me along in those initial chapters. He had some probability textbooks at hand when he was writing those, and he was smart enough to understand what he was reading, to pick out from them what would make a good story, and frame it all with semantic acerbity. But it was just a leading device, something useful for a title and with a little intellectual pizazz. The same was true for the political procedural. Silverberg has just enough insight and has done just enough research to draw me in and get me looking forward to more before he lowers the curtain on the scene. The rest of the story is just going through the motions. Silverberg wrote, I read, the terms of the contract completed, and there's nothing more to the exchange. I leave with nothing more than I came with, and Silverberg goes off to his next hastily written science fiction work, carrying with him the same promises and frustrations he left this job with.
Characters: 2/5
Writing Style: 3/5
World: 2/5
No science fiction writer disappoints me as consistently as does Robert Silverberg. If his books were worse I'd stop reading them or come to them with less hope. He's both too good and too poor of a writer. He shows again in The Stochastic Man that he's capable. Silverberg knows when to stick in some emotional indecision, an abrupt encounter, that troubling bit of news, or a major twist. The story follows the right structure of dips, rises, and plateaus. But it all comes down to nothing. There's no major point, no psychological insight, no technological implication, and no haunting dilemma. His template is that of a true writer, gifted with the novel format, but I never like what they develop into. The Stochastic Man, like others of his, starts with promise. It is there in the title: stochastic. I'm no math guru, but I immediately understood the potential, and Silverberg helped me along in those initial chapters. He had some probability textbooks at hand when he was writing those, and he was smart enough to understand what he was reading, to pick out from them what would make a good story, and frame it all with semantic acerbity. But it was just a leading device, something useful for a title and with a little intellectual pizazz. The same was true for the political procedural. Silverberg has just enough insight and has done just enough research to draw me in and get me looking forward to more before he lowers the curtain on the scene. The rest of the story is just going through the motions. Silverberg wrote, I read, the terms of the contract completed, and there's nothing more to the exchange. I leave with nothing more than I came with, and Silverberg goes off to his next hastily written science fiction work, carrying with him the same promises and frustrations he left this job with.
February 1, 2015
Every once in a while I like to read one of the Grand Masters of Science Fiction and this time it was Robert Silverberg’s turn. He always provides a good ol’ fashioned science fiction yarn, and doesn’t forget to add the science. He’s always good at playing the what-if question and then constructing a story around it, often including some intriguing concepts to ponder along the way.
The story here is about a man named Lew Nichols who uses stochastic methods to accurately predict outcomes and probabilities. He is so good at it that he is recruited by a team of people dedicated to electing the next mayor of New York, with the ultimate goal of getting their charismatic man all the way to the White House. Lew soon learns of another man who is even better at predicting events though…a man who is 100% accurate because he can “see” the future.
Silverberg uses the concept of alternate realities and parallel universes in a pretty cool way in this novel. His what-if scenario is, “what if our timeline brushed up against a parallel universe’s timeline so we could “see” what’s happening over there? Only that other timeline is flowing in the reverse direction…” So when we see into that other life we are seeing what is still to come in our own lives. A lot of questions arise in Lew’s mind, including the inevitable questions of time paradox and what happens when one witnesses their own death, but Silverberg handles them deftly. Ultimately, he explores the idea of prediction leading to predestination vs. any sort of free will to change our own paths. Intriguing concepts to be sure.
This novel was written and published in the early 1970’s and the plot takes place in the late 1990’s. But just as Silverberg doesn’t forget about the science, he also doesn’t forget about the story and the characters, a problem that seems to routinely crop up in many science fiction novels I’ve read from that era. Curiously, for a novel about accurate predictions of the future, his own view of what life would be like in the late 1990’s was way off. It’s easy to look back from our vantage point now and smirk but much of what Silverberg postulated is similar from book to book and in common with other science fiction authors from that time.
This book was nominated for a number of awards including the Nebula, Campbell, Hugo, and Locus SF awards. I enjoyed it and look forward to reading a few more Silverberg novels that I already have on my shelf.
The story here is about a man named Lew Nichols who uses stochastic methods to accurately predict outcomes and probabilities. He is so good at it that he is recruited by a team of people dedicated to electing the next mayor of New York, with the ultimate goal of getting their charismatic man all the way to the White House. Lew soon learns of another man who is even better at predicting events though…a man who is 100% accurate because he can “see” the future.
Silverberg uses the concept of alternate realities and parallel universes in a pretty cool way in this novel. His what-if scenario is, “what if our timeline brushed up against a parallel universe’s timeline so we could “see” what’s happening over there? Only that other timeline is flowing in the reverse direction…” So when we see into that other life we are seeing what is still to come in our own lives. A lot of questions arise in Lew’s mind, including the inevitable questions of time paradox and what happens when one witnesses their own death, but Silverberg handles them deftly. Ultimately, he explores the idea of prediction leading to predestination vs. any sort of free will to change our own paths. Intriguing concepts to be sure.
This novel was written and published in the early 1970’s and the plot takes place in the late 1990’s. But just as Silverberg doesn’t forget about the science, he also doesn’t forget about the story and the characters, a problem that seems to routinely crop up in many science fiction novels I’ve read from that era. Curiously, for a novel about accurate predictions of the future, his own view of what life would be like in the late 1990’s was way off. It’s easy to look back from our vantage point now and smirk but much of what Silverberg postulated is similar from book to book and in common with other science fiction authors from that time.
This book was nominated for a number of awards including the Nebula, Campbell, Hugo, and Locus SF awards. I enjoyed it and look forward to reading a few more Silverberg novels that I already have on my shelf.
December 4, 2013
Robert Silverberg considered The Stochastic Man a valedictory offering. When he wrote the novel in the early 1970's he had already resolved to effect his second retirement from the world of science fiction. His first retirement came around 1958, the year the science fiction magazine world imploded due to over-saturation and the growing market for paperback books. Writer and editor Frederick Pohl brought Silverberg back into the sf fold in the early 1960's, encouraging him to write more thoughtful material than the pulp-influenced novels and stories he cranked out -- and Silverberg would not himself object to that characterization -- during the previous decade. But then, by the 1970's, Silverberg discovered that he was "on the wrong side of a revolution." He joined in with the new crowd of younger writers, J.G. Ballard, Thomas Disch, Samuel Delany and others, who were producing more literary and experimental fiction. ("Younger" is a relative term here. Silverberg himself was only in his thirties at this time, but he had been publishing since he was nineteen.) This period, from 1965 - 1974, is considered to be Silverberg's best, but he saw his readership drying up.
Silverberg also sites the pernicious influence of Star Wars and the craze for trilogies on the popular sf market. He considered himself out of the game and simply fulfilling contractual commitments when he wrote The Stochastic Man and , published in 1975 and 1976 respectively.
The Stochastic Man may not be the worst title ever given an sf novel, but forty years later it is unappealing, opaque, and dated. Silverberg gives a history and definition of the term in the opening chapter. It comes from logic and mathematics and figures in writing on computer theory. I associate it with the titles of text books and academic monographs filled with symbols and formulas I will never understand. On the practical level, it refers to using sophisticated sampling methods to gather a large enough pool of variables to proceed to an educated guess. Sexy stuff, right? In the 1970's it must have had buzzword novelty. I ran it through Google's NGram viewer that tracks a term's popularity. "Stochastic" makes a steady climb from near total obscurity in 1950 to a high point in 1990 and then, after a period of stasis, there is a decline beginning at the turn of the century. In the 1970's it was definitely on the rise. Silverberg's novel takes place in the 1990's, so when Lew Nichols defines himself as a stochastician, he is using a trendy 1970's term to describe a profession that sounds very much like what we would call a consultant, no frills attached.
The 1970's permeates Siverberg's near future narrative. New York City at the turn of the millennium is the worst case scenario of what New York in the early 1970's was becoming. With the successful Disneyfication of Times Square and the city's declining crime rates it is hard to remember that forty years ago New York City was dirty, dangerous, and nearing bankruptcy. Silverberg and his wife were both lifelong New Yorkers, but they had, like many of their friends, decamped for the West Coast by the time he wrote this novel. In Lew Nichol's New York City, Puerto Rican and Black populations stage pitched battles. Large portions of the city are too dangerous to enter, and those who can afford them travel with protective devices that ward off attackers. The nice, new and safest buildings are on Staten Island while the Upper East Side is livable but crumbling. All but the finest restaurants serve artificial food.
But Lew and his wife Sundara, a glamorous woman of Indian origin, live the good life. Lew's stochastic firm brings in an enviable income, as does Sundara's art gallery. (Hmm, a wealthy man whose wife runs an art gallery. Silverberg got that one right.) They attend exclusive parties where the elite mingle and choose sexual partners for later in the evening. A variety of legal drugs keep the party going.
So what is this novel actually about? Reviewers need not worry about spoilers, since a dozen pages into it Lew Nichols, as first-person narrator, has revealed most of the plot developments. Lew will become a consultant to the political campaign of the charismatic Paul Quinn, the great hope of a city and country seeking to rejuvenate itself, but who Lew describes as "potentially the most dangerous man in the world." He imagines that American voters dream of being able to withdraw the votes that as Lew is telling the story they will not place for another four or five years. And there is the enigmatic character of Martin Carvajal, a milquetoast multimillionaire who goes beyond Lew's stochastic methods and is able to literally see the future. Lew calls him a "wild card in the flow of time." Carvajal's resigned, passive nature comes from not only the fact that for him the future and history are one and the same, but he is also aware of the exact moment of his rapidly approaching violent death. He wants to bring Lew on as a pupil in seeing the future, rather than simply making educated guesses about it.
Revealing all in the first chapter of a book, sets up a classic suspense structure where readers stay with the story to see how the inevitable works itself out. But Silverberg's profoundly pessimistic novel is not about keeping you on the edge of your seat. By revealing so much early on, the reader becomes, like Carvajal and increasingly like Lew, one that can only watch inexorable events unspool like the frames of a film. More or less knowing what's coming makes all the political machinations and messy personal relationships objects of detached interest rather than elements in an engaging plot. The Stochastic Man is a stylistic exercise that is likely to leave many readers cold, but I found it the most interesting though not the best Silverberg novel I have read.
And what is this obsession with knowing the future beyond the ability to choose lottery numbers and hot stocks. Carvajal's resignation and depression should clue Lew in on the fact that foreknowledge does nothing but make you a passive agent of the inevitable. But like 17th century Puritans struggling with the paradoxes of predestination and free will, Lew cannot let go of his obsession with seeing. (Silverberg italicizes the term throughout the book.) At the end of the novel -- and this would be a spoiler except it too is described in the opening chapter -- Lew has inherited Carvajal's millions and used them to set up an institute to develop the talent for second sight in as many people as possible. He still thinks this is a meaningful project. I thought he hadn't read his own book.
(Biographical information in this review comes from Silverberg's Other Spaces Other Times.
What was fun for the writers, though, turned out to be not so much fun for majority of the readers, who justifiably complained that if they wanted to read Joyce and Kafka they would go and read Joyce and Kafka. They didn't want their sf to be Joycified or Kafkaized. So they stayed away from the new fiction in droves, and by 1972 the revolution was pretty well over.
Silverberg also sites the pernicious influence of Star Wars and the craze for trilogies on the popular sf market. He considered himself out of the game and simply fulfilling contractual commitments when he wrote The Stochastic Man and , published in 1975 and 1976 respectively.
The Stochastic Man may not be the worst title ever given an sf novel, but forty years later it is unappealing, opaque, and dated. Silverberg gives a history and definition of the term in the opening chapter. It comes from logic and mathematics and figures in writing on computer theory. I associate it with the titles of text books and academic monographs filled with symbols and formulas I will never understand. On the practical level, it refers to using sophisticated sampling methods to gather a large enough pool of variables to proceed to an educated guess. Sexy stuff, right? In the 1970's it must have had buzzword novelty. I ran it through Google's NGram viewer that tracks a term's popularity. "Stochastic" makes a steady climb from near total obscurity in 1950 to a high point in 1990 and then, after a period of stasis, there is a decline beginning at the turn of the century. In the 1970's it was definitely on the rise. Silverberg's novel takes place in the 1990's, so when Lew Nichols defines himself as a stochastician, he is using a trendy 1970's term to describe a profession that sounds very much like what we would call a consultant, no frills attached.
The 1970's permeates Siverberg's near future narrative. New York City at the turn of the millennium is the worst case scenario of what New York in the early 1970's was becoming. With the successful Disneyfication of Times Square and the city's declining crime rates it is hard to remember that forty years ago New York City was dirty, dangerous, and nearing bankruptcy. Silverberg and his wife were both lifelong New Yorkers, but they had, like many of their friends, decamped for the West Coast by the time he wrote this novel. In Lew Nichol's New York City, Puerto Rican and Black populations stage pitched battles. Large portions of the city are too dangerous to enter, and those who can afford them travel with protective devices that ward off attackers. The nice, new and safest buildings are on Staten Island while the Upper East Side is livable but crumbling. All but the finest restaurants serve artificial food.
But Lew and his wife Sundara, a glamorous woman of Indian origin, live the good life. Lew's stochastic firm brings in an enviable income, as does Sundara's art gallery. (Hmm, a wealthy man whose wife runs an art gallery. Silverberg got that one right.) They attend exclusive parties where the elite mingle and choose sexual partners for later in the evening. A variety of legal drugs keep the party going.
The terrors and traumas of New York City seemed indecently remote as we stood by our long crystalline window, staring into the wintry moonbright night and seeing only our own reflections, tall fairhaired man and slender dark woman, side by side, side by side, allies against the darkness...Actually neither of us found life in the city really burdensome. As members of the affluent minority we were isolated from much of the crazy stuff...
So what is this novel actually about? Reviewers need not worry about spoilers, since a dozen pages into it Lew Nichols, as first-person narrator, has revealed most of the plot developments. Lew will become a consultant to the political campaign of the charismatic Paul Quinn, the great hope of a city and country seeking to rejuvenate itself, but who Lew describes as "potentially the most dangerous man in the world." He imagines that American voters dream of being able to withdraw the votes that as Lew is telling the story they will not place for another four or five years. And there is the enigmatic character of Martin Carvajal, a milquetoast multimillionaire who goes beyond Lew's stochastic methods and is able to literally see the future. Lew calls him a "wild card in the flow of time." Carvajal's resigned, passive nature comes from not only the fact that for him the future and history are one and the same, but he is also aware of the exact moment of his rapidly approaching violent death. He wants to bring Lew on as a pupil in seeing the future, rather than simply making educated guesses about it.
Revealing all in the first chapter of a book, sets up a classic suspense structure where readers stay with the story to see how the inevitable works itself out. But Silverberg's profoundly pessimistic novel is not about keeping you on the edge of your seat. By revealing so much early on, the reader becomes, like Carvajal and increasingly like Lew, one that can only watch inexorable events unspool like the frames of a film. More or less knowing what's coming makes all the political machinations and messy personal relationships objects of detached interest rather than elements in an engaging plot. The Stochastic Man is a stylistic exercise that is likely to leave many readers cold, but I found it the most interesting though not the best Silverberg novel I have read.
And what is this obsession with knowing the future beyond the ability to choose lottery numbers and hot stocks. Carvajal's resignation and depression should clue Lew in on the fact that foreknowledge does nothing but make you a passive agent of the inevitable. But like 17th century Puritans struggling with the paradoxes of predestination and free will, Lew cannot let go of his obsession with seeing. (Silverberg italicizes the term throughout the book.) At the end of the novel -- and this would be a spoiler except it too is described in the opening chapter -- Lew has inherited Carvajal's millions and used them to set up an institute to develop the talent for second sight in as many people as possible. He still thinks this is a meaningful project. I thought he hadn't read his own book.
(Biographical information in this review comes from Silverberg's Other Spaces Other Times.
July 11, 2024
This is a difficult one for me to review as it's by one of the Grand Masters of science fiction, published in '75. I actually read it in 1980 ( or was it '81?) and, at that time, I felt disappointed by the story. I expected more for some reason. Now (in 2021), after a quick reread, I feel it just did not engage me. I could not care much for the protagonist, Lew Nichols.
Nichols is the "stochastic man," a consultant making predictions for the future. He goes to work for Quinn, a political candidate aiming for a run for the presidency in 2004 ( this is happening in the late 90s). Nichols is doing well for himself-- and then he meets Carvajal, a man who actually "sees" the future. So the question is raised--do we have "free will" or is it all determined for us?
Because of the answer Silverberg gives, this is a very pessimistic book. That did not really bother me all that much. I just did not care much for the story. I have to add that, in my rereading of this book, I was more put off by the sexism in the story than I was when I first read it--which is good, a sign of progress...?
I give it 3 stars, which means it's really not too bad-- and you can still get something out of it.
Nichols is the "stochastic man," a consultant making predictions for the future. He goes to work for Quinn, a political candidate aiming for a run for the presidency in 2004 ( this is happening in the late 90s). Nichols is doing well for himself-- and then he meets Carvajal, a man who actually "sees" the future. So the question is raised--do we have "free will" or is it all determined for us?
Because of the answer Silverberg gives, this is a very pessimistic book. That did not really bother me all that much. I just did not care much for the story. I have to add that, in my rereading of this book, I was more put off by the sexism in the story than I was when I first read it--which is good, a sign of progress...?
I give it 3 stars, which means it's really not too bad-- and you can still get something out of it.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
April 24, 2025
The Stochastic Man was one of the rare science fiction novels serialized in F&SF magazine (April-June of 1975), then published in hardback of that year by Harper & Row with a really boring cover. Fawcett issued a mass market edition the next year with a really awful purple cover that shows a man with neon green eyes wearing a monkey fez that has fireworks shooting out of it. Despite the unappealing title and the two ugly book covers, it made it to the final ballot for both the Hugo and Nebula awards for the best novel of the year. (Obviously lots of readers liked it more than I did, so you should maybe give it a chance. Anyway, Joe Haldeman's The Forever War won both awards that year. As best I can recall, I voted for Zelazny's Doorways in the Sand.) It's one of Silverberg's most depressing and cynical novels, a near-future (the book's set in the late-1990s) look at corporate crime and political crime and the question of self-determination, free-will, and predestination. Silverberg has been quoted as saying that he had decided to retire from the genre (again) before he started the book and finished it to satisfy an outstanding contract. It's a very good political suspense thriller (though the computer speculations are now quite outdated, of course) and a good character study. I thought perhaps he made an attempt to avoid some of the New Wave flourishes for which he was noted in the preceding years. It's a pretty good read, rather thought-provoking, but I never felt an urge to revisit it.
December 18, 2023
4.5 stars
This is a short novel that preceded by a few years a similar themed classic 'The Dead Zone' by Stephen King which is one of my favorites.
This book by the Grandmaster of Science Fiction himself is much more philosophical and much less of a horror story than The Dead Zone.
So I liked this one quite a bit. It has a straightforward plot that is almost plausible. It has interesting and flawed characters w/ good character development.
I read it on the plane coming back to the United States.
This is a short novel that preceded by a few years a similar themed classic 'The Dead Zone' by Stephen King which is one of my favorites.
This book by the Grandmaster of Science Fiction himself is much more philosophical and much less of a horror story than The Dead Zone.
So I liked this one quite a bit. It has a straightforward plot that is almost plausible. It has interesting and flawed characters w/ good character development.
I read it on the plane coming back to the United States.
August 25, 2017
Spoileraggio coatto della vita
Il protagonista del romanzo è uno studioso che usa il calcolo delle probabilità per fornire ai suoi clienti previsioni di supporto a decisioni di vario genere. La sua vita procede normalmente, fino a quando incontra una strana persona che, dotata della capacità di “vedere il futuro", gli passa informazioni sul futuro stesso e gli fa capire che il nostro mondo non è affatto governato dalle leggi probabilistiche.
Progressivamente il protagonista tralascia l'analisi stocastica ed inizia a fidarsi solo nel potere della veggenza, che nel frattempo lo strano uomo ha iniziato a “passargli”. Tutte le cose che dice si fanno sempre più precise e pian piano si avverano.
Ma ad un tratto, e con angoscia, si accorge anche che la conoscenza del futuro non gli porta alcun vantaggio: perché nulla di ciò che "sa" può in alcun modo modificare l'andamento degli eventi. Il futuro è scritto e nulla e nessuno lo può modificare. Inutile resistere. Inutile combattere. Inutile intraprendere qualunque azione: il risultato è comunque il medesimo.
Il romanzo non è perfetto, il finale forse è un po' troppo frettoloso, alcune scelte si comprendono solo parzialmente. Ma due o tre capitoli, che contengono riflessioni affascinanti e tutt'altro che banali, valgono per me il massimo della valutazione.
E' un libro di fantascienza, certo. Ma l'attenzione del romanzo non è affatto sugli spunti fantastici, che sono poco visibili, bensì l'obiettivo è più che altro l'aspetto psicologico.
Il tema del futuro è trattato spesso nei film e nella letteratura, non solo quella di fantascienza. Un futuro che però è normalmente modificabile, in quanto è comunemente passata l'idea che il futuro non sia altro che un insieme infinito di futuri possibili (mi viene in mente il film Ritorno al futuro). In questo caso invece l'ipotesi di futuro definito implica l'annullamento del libero arbitrio.
Significa che la vita non è altro che un copione scritto con inchiostro indelebile. Non hanno più senso i modelli probabilistici, la statistica, gli sforzi di miglioramento; le nostre azioni sono già state previste e non possono cambiare. Conoscere il futuro è come leggere un libro conoscendone in anticipo tutti i dettagli dello sviluppo della trama e l’epilogo o come guardare un film prima di andare al cinema. Perché comunque, inevitabilmente,
"Faccio ciò che mi 'vedo' fare"
Che senso ha vivere una vita già scritta?
Il protagonista del romanzo è uno studioso che usa il calcolo delle probabilità per fornire ai suoi clienti previsioni di supporto a decisioni di vario genere. La sua vita procede normalmente, fino a quando incontra una strana persona che, dotata della capacità di “vedere il futuro", gli passa informazioni sul futuro stesso e gli fa capire che il nostro mondo non è affatto governato dalle leggi probabilistiche.
Progressivamente il protagonista tralascia l'analisi stocastica ed inizia a fidarsi solo nel potere della veggenza, che nel frattempo lo strano uomo ha iniziato a “passargli”. Tutte le cose che dice si fanno sempre più precise e pian piano si avverano.
Ma ad un tratto, e con angoscia, si accorge anche che la conoscenza del futuro non gli porta alcun vantaggio: perché nulla di ciò che "sa" può in alcun modo modificare l'andamento degli eventi. Il futuro è scritto e nulla e nessuno lo può modificare. Inutile resistere. Inutile combattere. Inutile intraprendere qualunque azione: il risultato è comunque il medesimo.
Il romanzo non è perfetto, il finale forse è un po' troppo frettoloso, alcune scelte si comprendono solo parzialmente. Ma due o tre capitoli, che contengono riflessioni affascinanti e tutt'altro che banali, valgono per me il massimo della valutazione.
E' un libro di fantascienza, certo. Ma l'attenzione del romanzo non è affatto sugli spunti fantastici, che sono poco visibili, bensì l'obiettivo è più che altro l'aspetto psicologico.
Il tema del futuro è trattato spesso nei film e nella letteratura, non solo quella di fantascienza. Un futuro che però è normalmente modificabile, in quanto è comunemente passata l'idea che il futuro non sia altro che un insieme infinito di futuri possibili (mi viene in mente il film Ritorno al futuro). In questo caso invece l'ipotesi di futuro definito implica l'annullamento del libero arbitrio.
Significa che la vita non è altro che un copione scritto con inchiostro indelebile. Non hanno più senso i modelli probabilistici, la statistica, gli sforzi di miglioramento; le nostre azioni sono già state previste e non possono cambiare. Conoscere il futuro è come leggere un libro conoscendone in anticipo tutti i dettagli dello sviluppo della trama e l’epilogo o come guardare un film prima di andare al cinema. Perché comunque, inevitabilmente,
"Faccio ciò che mi 'vedo' fare"
Che senso ha vivere una vita già scritta?
May 12, 2024
Silverberg could certainly write some depressing books. After The Book of Skulls, this one must be one of his most depressing. It is a dystopian NYC run by career criminals with a fresh start for an "uncorrupted" mayor. However, our protagonist Lew becomes seduced by the foresight of a mysterious reclusive billionaire and, in the manner of Balzac - La Peau de Chagrin or Faust, he is sucked into a universe and spit out. The writing is great and although it is a short book (just under 200 pages), it packs a punch, particularly the cynical ending. I really enjoyed it, Silverberg was a master, perhaps a bit underappreciated these days.
January 21, 2022
"Ognuno di noi sa che, se dovesse morire, l'intero universo si estinguerebbe come una luce spenta e questo, naturalmente, non é possibile: quindi non moriremo. Ognuno, inconsciamente, crede di essere l'unica eccezione che mantiene in piedi la baracca con la propria esistenza. Tutti gli altri, Lew, e lei lo sa, moriranno perché sono le parti senza importanza, le comparse di cui il copione prevede la sparizione lungo la strada, ma non lei, oh, no di certo! Non é così nel profondo della sua anima, nei livelli misteriosi che visita solo di tanto in tanto?"
July 7, 2009
This was well written, but I just didn't get it. What's the point of devoting yourself to knowing the future if nothing can be done to change it? I just couldn't get past that point, which made the whole book seem quite pointless.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
April 13, 2015
If one reads it as a novella (as a longer short story, that is), I think the denouement is very keen. If you read it as a novel, not so much. I'll recommend it.
May 19, 2018
Not exactly a title that says, "Pick me up and buy me," but I guess by this stage in his career, this author's name alone would sell anything he wrote. This is my first Silverberg, and he came highly recommended by a Goodreads friend. I have to admit that he is a vivid and vigorous writer. But this one essentially left me cold because of what seemed to me a massive and inescapable flaw in its conception. The premise is that past, present, and future have already happened, and that there is one man who has seen (always in italics) little snippets of what to us seems like the future. He co-opts the efforts of the narrator, repeatedly enlisting him to take apparently foolish and sometimes dangerous steps to ensure that the future will happen as it should. Therein lies the problem: if it has in some sense already happened, nothing the narrator does can either cause it to happen or prevent it from happening. In fact there can ex hypothesi be no suspense and no excitement. Only the gradual working out of the inevitable. Silverberg tries to obfuscate this by fuzzying up the theoretical details and writing with an air of great excitement and desperation, but it all seemed ginned up to me.
July 2, 2018
At first, I thought The Stochastic Man, published in 1975, was a typical example of a late New Wave science fiction novel, albeit a well-written one. What felt "new wave" about it is the assumption that the near-future (the story is set in the late 1990's and early years of the 21st century) would continue to see social and cultural changes as rapid and extreme as the changes of the 1960's and early '70's. Another aspect that struck me as typically New Wave was the negative, pessimistic tone the story maintained...at least until the final chapters. But I was surprised when the gloomy atmosphere brightens (sort-of). But then, heck, I shouldn't be surprised that Robert Silverberg crafted such a well-written story that didn't follow the usual or the expected.
July 20, 2015
Good/VG. I read the book in 2001 and didn't remember much of the plot so I skimmed through it this time. Lew Nichols is in the business of providing projections for the future and all is going well until he meets Carvajal who can see the future. Carvajal has totally given in to his deterministic view of the world and teaches Lew how to see the future.
The novel was runner-up for both the Hugo and Nebula probably because of the characters' struggle with determinism vs. free will. There were plot elements to make the story interesting. Lew helping Paul Quinn become mayor of NYC/future presidential candidate and his relationship with his wife.
The novel was runner-up for both the Hugo and Nebula probably because of the characters' struggle with determinism vs. free will. There were plot elements to make the story interesting. Lew helping Paul Quinn become mayor of NYC/future presidential candidate and his relationship with his wife.
January 21, 2019
With all the self-aggrandizing character development in the beginning, I almost put the book down. Though descriptions of Lew’s sexual prowess, desirability to the most beautiful women, and his earning power dialed down after a bit, there wasn’t much else by way of character development. Their motives and drives were not really well-explained or clear.
The elements of the passage of time, or the passage of time ascending and descending were kind of interesting. The nods to parallel universes were also decent.
The elements of the passage of time, or the passage of time ascending and descending were kind of interesting. The nods to parallel universes were also decent.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
March 16, 2019
Romanzo ben scritto; pone, in maniera non pesante, interrogativi sul libero arbitrio, ipotizzandone la risposta negativa.
Anche se ritengo assurda l'eventualità prospettata, ho trovato avvincente il libro e apprezzabile la caratterizzazione psicologica del protagonista.
Anche se ritengo assurda l'eventualità prospettata, ho trovato avvincente il libro e apprezzabile la caratterizzazione psicologica del protagonista.
May 18, 2014
Another good one from Robert Silverberg. He may not get much press but he definitely is one of the best around.
January 6, 2022
Ovo je jedna od "onih Silverbergovih" knjiga. Čovjek stvarno vrhunski piše, tako da i ove političke stvari u knjizi mi nisu smetale, ali odnosi između glavnih likova su vrhunski. Pogotovo objašnjenje kada se suočio sa vizijom vlastitog umiranja i spoznaja toga, wowww.
Odnos sa njegovom predivnom egzotičnom ženom je izvrsna, pogotovo kad shvati da će ju izgubiti. Poprilično realistično opisane emocije.
Silverberg je vrh....
Odnos sa njegovom predivnom egzotičnom ženom je izvrsna, pogotovo kad shvati da će ju izgubiti. Poprilično realistično opisane emocije.
Silverberg je vrh....
July 4, 2023
Delusione
September 9, 2021
The Stochastic Man promised more than it delivered. The book contrasts fatalism and determinism through characters who live their lives by certainty, probability and randomness with varying gifts of future sight. Interesting concepts but as a work of literature, the flat characters, stilted prose and disappointing sexism and racism made it impossible to justify reading to completion.
December 26, 2013
‘Lew Nichols is in the business of stochastic prediction. A mixture of sophisticated analysis and inspired guesswork, it is the nearest man can get to predicting the future. And Nichols is very good at it. His uncanny accuracy in guessing the future quickly makes him indispensable to Paul Quinn, the ambitious and charismatic mayor of New York whose sights are firmly set on the presidency.
But there is nothing paranormal about stochastic prediction: Nichols can’t actually see the future. However, the strange and reclusive Martin Carvajal apparently can, and he offers to help Nichols to do so too. Nichols, caught up in his obsessive desire to help Quinn into the White House, can’t resist, even though he can clearly see the devastating impact that knowing in advance every act of his life has on Carvajal. For Carvajal has even seen his own death.
A brilliant and thoughtful novel, entertaining and insightful, The Stochastic Man explores the double-edged weapon of total clairvoyant knowledge of the future in characteristically potent and clear-eyed prose.’
Blurb from the 2001 Gollancz SF Collector’s edition.
Looking twenty-five years ahead from the time of writing to the year 2000 – a year already linked in the public consciousness with prophecies and apocalypse – Silverberg is himself the stochastic man. Like his hero, Lew Nichols, he uses what data he possesses to extrapolate a likely Millennial scenario.
Lew makes a good living at it, working hard to collate data and analyse it to establish how trends and possible events will affect each other and sells his forecast to various firms and individuals who consult him regarding business plans or investments.
Lew has a penthouse apartment in a segregated area of New York, a trophy wife and a happy life until the day he is invited to work for Paul Quinn, a man keen to be the next Mayor of New York. With Lew’s help, Quinn is duly elected and has set his ambitious eye on the Presidency.
Lew is happy to help. Quinn has no chance of even being nominated as a candidate for the next election, but after that there is a good chance of him making it into the White House.
One day, the mysterious Martin Carvajal arrives to see Lew; an elderly man who has amassed a fortune from shrewd investments. Carvajal is also in the business of making predictions, although his precognition does not come from analysing data or trends. He sees it, in his head.
Around the same time Lew’s wife, Sundara, gets involved with a cult group with peculiar beliefs.
Carvajal believes in predestination. He feels he has no choice in what will happen to him. His life is foreordained. he has seen it already, even the moment of his own death, and is convinced there is nothing he can do to change anything. He came to see Lew because he’d already seen it happen and knew how the conversation would go.
Sundara, in contrast, has begun to believe in randomness and chaos, leaving Lew having to deal with both viewpoints; Carvajal’s rigid order and Sundara’s chaos.
Carvajal then agrees to teach Lew how to see, or rather, how to receive the visions of his future life.
The consequences on his work are not good. Lew’s advice to the prospective president begins to get strangely eccentric and specific and he can give no reason why, for instance, Quinn should start interviewing new police-chiefs although Lew is insistent that the current police-chief will resign.
Lew of course is fired, mainly because Quinn does not want to be associated with what the public might perceive as witchcraft. Subsequently, the unexpected rioting and violence during the Millennium celebrations – with which some of the police join in – make the police chief’s position untenable, and he is forced to resign.
A chilling aspect of the book is that Quinn – from Lew’s visions of the future – will become what is tantamount to a fascist dictator. Lew’s response to this is apathetic to the point of amorality. His grasp of his visions are such that now he knows nothing can be changed. There is no point in his having a moral opinion on the issue.
But there is nothing paranormal about stochastic prediction: Nichols can’t actually see the future. However, the strange and reclusive Martin Carvajal apparently can, and he offers to help Nichols to do so too. Nichols, caught up in his obsessive desire to help Quinn into the White House, can’t resist, even though he can clearly see the devastating impact that knowing in advance every act of his life has on Carvajal. For Carvajal has even seen his own death.
A brilliant and thoughtful novel, entertaining and insightful, The Stochastic Man explores the double-edged weapon of total clairvoyant knowledge of the future in characteristically potent and clear-eyed prose.’
Blurb from the 2001 Gollancz SF Collector’s edition.
Looking twenty-five years ahead from the time of writing to the year 2000 – a year already linked in the public consciousness with prophecies and apocalypse – Silverberg is himself the stochastic man. Like his hero, Lew Nichols, he uses what data he possesses to extrapolate a likely Millennial scenario.
Lew makes a good living at it, working hard to collate data and analyse it to establish how trends and possible events will affect each other and sells his forecast to various firms and individuals who consult him regarding business plans or investments.
Lew has a penthouse apartment in a segregated area of New York, a trophy wife and a happy life until the day he is invited to work for Paul Quinn, a man keen to be the next Mayor of New York. With Lew’s help, Quinn is duly elected and has set his ambitious eye on the Presidency.
Lew is happy to help. Quinn has no chance of even being nominated as a candidate for the next election, but after that there is a good chance of him making it into the White House.
One day, the mysterious Martin Carvajal arrives to see Lew; an elderly man who has amassed a fortune from shrewd investments. Carvajal is also in the business of making predictions, although his precognition does not come from analysing data or trends. He sees it, in his head.
Around the same time Lew’s wife, Sundara, gets involved with a cult group with peculiar beliefs.
Carvajal believes in predestination. He feels he has no choice in what will happen to him. His life is foreordained. he has seen it already, even the moment of his own death, and is convinced there is nothing he can do to change anything. He came to see Lew because he’d already seen it happen and knew how the conversation would go.
Sundara, in contrast, has begun to believe in randomness and chaos, leaving Lew having to deal with both viewpoints; Carvajal’s rigid order and Sundara’s chaos.
Carvajal then agrees to teach Lew how to see, or rather, how to receive the visions of his future life.
The consequences on his work are not good. Lew’s advice to the prospective president begins to get strangely eccentric and specific and he can give no reason why, for instance, Quinn should start interviewing new police-chiefs although Lew is insistent that the current police-chief will resign.
Lew of course is fired, mainly because Quinn does not want to be associated with what the public might perceive as witchcraft. Subsequently, the unexpected rioting and violence during the Millennium celebrations – with which some of the police join in – make the police chief’s position untenable, and he is forced to resign.
A chilling aspect of the book is that Quinn – from Lew’s visions of the future – will become what is tantamount to a fascist dictator. Lew’s response to this is apathetic to the point of amorality. His grasp of his visions are such that now he knows nothing can be changed. There is no point in his having a moral opinion on the issue.
September 7, 2019
Piacevole lettura di sonnolenti pomeriggi estivi. Conoscere il futuro e non poterlo cambiare, esattamente come non si può cambiare il passato. E' un paradosso per un uomo stocastico, che affida le sue previsioni alle probabilità, come è normale che sia. Forse dovevo leggerlo tempo fa, perché ora pare un po' datato. Però ci sono spunti originali e divertenti.
August 22, 2018
Defnitely, Maybe
Two converging trends influenced me to pull this old favourite of mine off the shelf - an interest in Analytics to extrapolate stories about web site users and the popularization of predictive analysis exemplified by today's Nate Silver. Silverberg's protagonist Lew Nichols is a highly successful trends analyst married to the exotically beautiful Sundara, woman of Indian extraction in turn of the millenium NYC, as projected from the book's authorship in 1975. The miliue has a new age feel - there's a new California based religion "Transit" which encourages its followers to randomize their behaviour in order to discover universal chaos acts, sexuality is liberated with legalized multi-party contracts and recreational drugs are taken for granted. As Sundara is drawn into Transit, Lew is simultaneosly drawn into the inner circle of New York politician Paul Quinn. Meanwhile NYC has broken down into ethnic ghettos literally at war with each other.
Lew hopes to identify policies and issues that will help the charismatic Quinn position himself to run for President in 2004. He's then introduced to Martin Carvajal, an enigmatic millionaire backer of Quinn who offers a some uncanny and specific recommendations of his own. Nichols is convinced that Carvajal's techniques are better than his own and agrees to beard Carvajal's predictions, which become progressively stranger. Only Carvajal doesn't predict, he sees, but only in his lifetime. Carvajal also believes, having seen it, that Lew can be taught to see too, and what Lew sees about Quinn begins to frighten him, just as Lew's predictions frighten Quinn the politician.
Silverberg's extrapolation reflects well on the parallels between religious and political extremism and provides an apt philosophical commentary that belief in chaos and determinism in extremis both undermine the notion of free will.
Given that I have fond memories of the book and that it influenced me to stick with statistics as a predictive science in spite of several boring courses in the subject I'm giving it 4.4*. Your mileage may vary.
Recommended.
Two converging trends influenced me to pull this old favourite of mine off the shelf - an interest in Analytics to extrapolate stories about web site users and the popularization of predictive analysis exemplified by today's Nate Silver. Silverberg's protagonist Lew Nichols is a highly successful trends analyst married to the exotically beautiful Sundara, woman of Indian extraction in turn of the millenium NYC, as projected from the book's authorship in 1975. The miliue has a new age feel - there's a new California based religion "Transit" which encourages its followers to randomize their behaviour in order to discover universal chaos acts, sexuality is liberated with legalized multi-party contracts and recreational drugs are taken for granted. As Sundara is drawn into Transit, Lew is simultaneosly drawn into the inner circle of New York politician Paul Quinn. Meanwhile NYC has broken down into ethnic ghettos literally at war with each other.
Lew hopes to identify policies and issues that will help the charismatic Quinn position himself to run for President in 2004. He's then introduced to Martin Carvajal, an enigmatic millionaire backer of Quinn who offers a some uncanny and specific recommendations of his own. Nichols is convinced that Carvajal's techniques are better than his own and agrees to beard Carvajal's predictions, which become progressively stranger. Only Carvajal doesn't predict, he sees, but only in his lifetime. Carvajal also believes, having seen it, that Lew can be taught to see too, and what Lew sees about Quinn begins to frighten him, just as Lew's predictions frighten Quinn the politician.
Silverberg's extrapolation reflects well on the parallels between religious and political extremism and provides an apt philosophical commentary that belief in chaos and determinism in extremis both undermine the notion of free will.
Given that I have fond memories of the book and that it influenced me to stick with statistics as a predictive science in spite of several boring courses in the subject I'm giving it 4.4*. Your mileage may vary.
Recommended.
August 10, 2010
A thoughtful little book. Lew Nichols is, essentially, a statistician. He's very good at predicting (accurately) trends. This is valuable to lots of people, including politicians, who pay him lots of money for his skills.
But then Lew meats Carvajal, a man who really can see the future, and the thought experiment that ensues is worth the read. What would you give up to see the future accurately? Is it worth seeing your own death? Does knowing this change your own behavior? If the future can't be changed, what's the value in seeing it?
I thought Robert Silverberg didn't explore these themes as deeply as a man of his formidable story-telling skills might have. This story had such potential that it could easily have been a trilogy, so only three stars from me. But definitely worth the investment if you're a big Silverberg fan.
But then Lew meats Carvajal, a man who really can see the future, and the thought experiment that ensues is worth the read. What would you give up to see the future accurately? Is it worth seeing your own death? Does knowing this change your own behavior? If the future can't be changed, what's the value in seeing it?
I thought Robert Silverberg didn't explore these themes as deeply as a man of his formidable story-telling skills might have. This story had such potential that it could easily have been a trilogy, so only three stars from me. But definitely worth the investment if you're a big Silverberg fan.
November 18, 2013
I picked this up on a whim second-hand because I read Robert Silverberg's Book of Skulls about ten years ago and it was an interesting read. This one was similar - very professional, but left me a bit cold. The philosophical ideas were well integrated with the story and dealt with cleverly.
It had flaws though. I had no idea how the book would end, and when it did I thought it fell a bit flat. The other off-putting thing was that it was written in 1975 and set in 1999-2000, and the picture of the turn of the millennium he painted was very, very wrong.
This would have been OK except that you could tell from the tone of the book (and the 70s quotes from other authors on the back) that he was very proud of how accurate his prediction was going to be.
Add to that the fact that the book was about predicting trends and prophecy, and it was kind of ridiculous how wrong Silverberg's idea of what the year 2000 would be like was.
It had flaws though. I had no idea how the book would end, and when it did I thought it fell a bit flat. The other off-putting thing was that it was written in 1975 and set in 1999-2000, and the picture of the turn of the millennium he painted was very, very wrong.
This would have been OK except that you could tell from the tone of the book (and the 70s quotes from other authors on the back) that he was very proud of how accurate his prediction was going to be.
Add to that the fact that the book was about predicting trends and prophecy, and it was kind of ridiculous how wrong Silverberg's idea of what the year 2000 would be like was.
December 12, 2017
I found this a bit difficult to rate, as my reaction ranged from just ok, but nothing much beyond routine, to the final third where I thought he pulled it together well. The premise addresses a classical philosophical question, the story selects one common answer and goes with it, but it does not go much into the questions that answer leads to. I found the story framework mostly dull, but this is Silverberg from his best decade, and enough of the writer who was one of the best in SF at the time comes through to make this worth reading.
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