Mutants: 2

by Robert Silverberg

Stories involving a variety of monstrous and inconspicuous, fantastic and apparently normal mutations explore the possible consequences of variously caused genetic changes in living creatures

Genres: Science Fiction, Anthologies, Short Stories, Fantasy, Fiction, Time Travel

224 pages, Hardcover

First published December 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 3 out of 5]

This anthology presents short stories that Silverberg selected with a mutation theme. I didn't think it was one of the best such that he produced, but there were some notable contributions by Terry Carr, a cute joke from 4SJ Ackerman, Poul Anderson's first published story, and the classic Jerome Bixby story, It's a -Good- Life, from which the famous TZ episode was made. My favorite was Frederik Pohl's mutation/time travel tale, Let the Ants Try.

[meagan]

i'm going to give my opinion on every short story in this collection that i got at an antique place because i have nothing better to do right now.

1. Tomorrow's Children
I liked this one because it raised a point I had never thought about. If humans do nuclear apocalypse the whole planet and some of us survive, those people are gonna have significant radiation damage and if they are able to reproduce there will be mutations in their offspring for who knows how many generations? There wouldn't be any more "regular" humans again would there? I also think it's very funny to watch this one guy tell the future president umm no, "total racial death" is a bad idea sir. And the president goes ok ok you're right..........how about eugenics! And he has to go no no no you're missing the whole point mr president....no eugenics is still a bad idea

2. It's A Good Life
Best one in the whole collection by far. It's the story the Twilight Zone episode with the same name is based on. The story is different and possibly better for a few reasons. Number one is that the main character Antony is even more OP than in the tv version. He can teleport, bring people back from the dead (though not in the way they were before death), has purple eyes and an appearance non-human enough that the moment he was born the doctor tried to kill him on sight! (incredible detail. shout out to that doctor RIP you were a real one). He's also only 3 years old compared to the tv version who is around 8. A 3 year old would have even less developed perspective taking/morals than an 8 year old...I mean toddlers are insane and act on impulse way more/worse than 8 year olds. I also liked the added dimension given to his character by learning he has set up a tranquil spring in the middle of the woods where he takes pleasure in meeting the basic needs of small animals (whose simpler minds he can read). But when one animal wants to kill another, he senses the smaller one's fear and the larger one's intent to kill and simply sends the predator animal to the cornfield. It's funny how he can recognize that fear is an uncomfortable emotion in the small animal but does not seem to extend that empathy to any of the people in the town. Anyways after I finished this story I spent like 40 minutes trying to think of how Anthony could possibly be killed or defeated and I do not think the book version of him ever could be because he is just too enormously powerful. =/

3. The Mute Question
This one's like two pages long and its kind of dumb. it's like when your grandpa tells a long winded "joke" and then laughs out loud and you're like haha.....ok grandpa. (at least my grandpa would do shit like this idk)

4. Let the Ants Try
I know people are stupid in scifi a lot but these protagonists have to be the dumbest I've ever read. Oh let's take some mutant ants and go back in our time in our time machine and leave them in the dinosaur times and see what happens i'm sure the ants won't get super intelligent and kill off humans AND i'm sure we won't end up in a time paradox because time travel NEVER goes wrong hahahahahah like bro. c'mon.

5. The Conquerer
This one was interesting. The idea kind of reminded me of Kurt Vonnegut's The Euphio Question. Except the weird part in this story is no one along the way is like, hey is this a bad idea maybe? But unlike the Euphio Question no harm comes to anyone while under the influence of the euphoria inducing stimuli. So is it actually a bad thing? Or not? That's what you have to decide. The writing style was a little weird, sort of like it was trying to sound intentionally like someone who didn't speak English as their first language? Idk if this was on purpose because the character from Guatemala but also the narration was 3rd person omnipotent so I feel like that wasn't necessary idk maybe this guy just has a weird style?

6. Liquid Life
I liked how the new form of intelligence in this story was very different from humans. It was weird to think about. The story itself wasn't anything special but eh.

7. Hothouse
This was like. Really weird? Not a kind of weird I've read before. Probably because it doesn't really appeal to me but I've got to give the setting points for creativity. The moon and earth no longer spin, the moon is connected to the earth by spiderwebs, spiders have evolved to breathe in space and travel between the two planets, humans are really small, plants are p much the dominant life form on earth......I liked the "twist" regarding the flymen. But overall this story wasn't for me because it's basically just a survival story in a creative setting and I don't really care for survival stories. They're too grim and repetitive..

8. Ozymandias
Probably my least favorite. I hated the way the characters thought and talked. i didn't really get anything out of this story nor did it make me feel anything other than annoyed.

9. The Man Who Never Forgot
It's funny how this story could really be realistic fiction rather than scifi because memories like this really do exist. Some people can literally remember and replay every moment of their life, every book they've read, etc. The only part that was unrealistic was remembering his own birth. I'm pretty sure that even for people with these super memories, the memories of infancy would still be inaccessible. The whole time reading this story I thought man this guy sure bitches a lot. No offense but one of my high school teachers literally had the same kind of perfect memory as him and she was living a regular life soooo. Luckily the story ends with the main character reaching the same conclusion and realizing he needs to stop bitching and angsting so much. Good.

10. Ginny Wrapped in the Sun
Well. The theory of evolution presented in this story is so far fetched and just like, not accurate that it was hard to really engage with this story. Also because it was really confusing and I had to look up what other people were saying about this story to double check I had understood everything.

11. Watershed
I kind of liked this one! Its just a bunch of philosophizing but it was good kind of reminded me of star trek. That seal dude said go ahead and try us bitch and then parachuted down to earth. He said meet me on the fucking endless desert sprawl of the planet your kind destroyed <3 bitch

[Eric Wright · Rating 3 out of 5]

Pretty interesting anthology, the stories I liked here are, Let the Ants Try by Frederik Pohl, Liquid Life by Ralph Milne Farley, and The Man Who Never Forgot by Robert Silverberg. Some of the other stories were pretty good with a couple of yawners. 3 1/2 out of 5.

[Robert Jr. · Rating 3 out of 5]

I found this one in a local used bookstore and was smitten by the cover art as well as a couple of the names on the roster. I did like the majority of the stories, 8 out of 11, and for this type of anthology that's pretty good.

The stories I really liked were Hothouse by Brian Aldiss, Tomorrow's Children by Poul Anderson and F.N. Waldrop, and It's a Good Life by Jerome Bixby (the one a classic Twilight Zone episode is based on). These were the cream of the crop and really delivered on the theme of mutants and weirdness. Tomorrow's Children had a strange intense poisonous atmosphere and the realization of the main character, a guy who was traversing the globe in his jet plane, that all human births were mutant even to parents who were not directly exposed to the fallout of the world-ending war was pretty horrifying. Hothouse was the most impressive with an image that came to mind of the upper atmosphere where the darkness of space is visible through the transparent haze of blue. Here, I visualized the giant black spider-like plants floating upward and the silvery strands of their webbing whipping in the upper winds. This is definitely a story to track down.

Ozymandius by Terry Carr is a close runner-up to the top 3 and had a mixed, not inconsistent, tone that combined comedy and almost cartoonish mutants with horrifying violence that really reminded me of the movie Wizards by Ralph Bakshi. That along with the imagery of ancient pillaged titanic ruins as monuments to a long-vanished past really helped make for an interesting story. Let the Ants Try by Frederik Pohl also falls into this category mixing time travel with the horror of being attacked by human-sized evolved ants.

The stories I really did not like were The Mute Question by Forrest J. Ackerman (one of the names that prompted me to buy the book), Ginny Wrapped in the Sun by R.A. Lafferty, and Watershed by James Blish. All shared a similar problem, they were gibberish. The last one was the conclusion to a series of short stories not included in the book and I cannot help but think the others are necessary to understand what is going on in it. As a standalone story it just completely lost me, I still have no idea what it was about from reading it. The other two are just mashups of seemingly random imagery and situations with no true ending or even any kind of plot or character progression. R.A. Lafferty's work was mostly motor-mouth dialogue that reminded me heavily of the dialogue from an O.Henry hobo story, the kind I cannot stand.

In conclusion, I would recommend this book if you can pick it up for under 6 bucks, it was worth it to me. I would also recommend to not be shy when it comes to finding the better stories in this collection elsewhere. The stories I didn't mention (The Conqueror, Liquid Life, and The Man Who Never Forgot) were average for this type of collection and seemed of their time but were still an enjoyable read.

[Nick · Rating 4 out of 5]

As individual pieces of fiction, the quality varies quite a bit, but as part of the history of science fiction, this is well worth picking up.
In addition to one of the stories later adapted for the original Twilight Zone, it has a rare piece of fiction by Forry Ackerman, and the first professionally published story by Poul Anderson. Some of the stories weren't to my own tastes as stories, but the collection overall did a good job of showing a wide range of what writers thought of when they heard the word "mutant" and wanted to write a story about that passing thought.

[Austin Beeman · Rating 3 out of 5]

MUTANTS

RATED 77% POSITIVE. STORY SCORE = 3.82 OUT OF 5
11 STORIES : 3 GREAT / 3 GOOD / 5 AVERAGE / 0 POOR / 0 DNF

Another fun and short anthology of Robert Silverberg, who’s Trips in Time I just reviewed last week. While not nearly as strong as that previous anthology, there is still much to enjoy.

Silverberg has obviously attempted to include stories that examine Mutants from many different Science Fictional directions. In his own words…

We have some stories in which the mutant looks normal but has extraordinary mental powers, and others populated by two-headed people, giant insects, plants with teeth, and other wonders. They all demonstrate science fiction’s marvelous diversity.

Mutants is a fast and wild read, but real reason to pick it up are to read two of the very finest stories in the history of Science Fiction: It’s a Good Life & Hothouse. There is also a great story from Ralph Milne Farley as well.

It's a Good Life • (1953) • short story by Jerome Bixby. The classic story of a young boy with horrible mental powers and the adults forced to saying that everything is always “Good.” This is a terrifying and deeply haunting short story, even if you’ve seen the excellent episode of The Twilight Zone that was based on it.

Hothouse • (1961) • novelette by Brian W. Aldiss. Wow! I was blown away the richness of this world and the world building elements. This is a masterpiece full of wild invention. In the far future, the world is a dangerous place for the frail green humans that live amongst enormous trees and animal-like plant life. Also, Giant space spiders!

Liquid Life • (1936) • novelette by Ralph Milne Farley. A very cool idea and action packed. Liquid become sentient, but the process of studying the entity puts the entire world in danger. Pulpy fun, but also quite smart.

***

MUTANTS IS RATED 77% POSITIVE

11 STORIES : 3 GREAT / 3 GOOD / 5 AVERAGE / 0 POOR / 0 DNF

How do I arrive at a rating?

Tomorrow's Children • (1947) • novelette by Poul Anderson and F. N. Waldrop

Good. A returning spy after a brutal war is sent to try to bring the surviving Americans together and finds mutated children.

It's a Good Life • (1953) • short story by Jerome Bixby

Great. The classic story of a young boy with horrible mental powers and the adults forced to saying that everything is always “Good.”

The Mute Question • (1950) • short story by Forrest J. Ackerman

Average. A short short joke story where a man with too many heads talks to a man with too few.

Let the Ants Try • (1949) • short story by Frederik Pohl

Good. Fun story where mutated ants are given the chance to take over the world via Time Travel.

The Conqueror • (1952) • short story by Mark Clifton

Average. Mutant Dahlias in Guatemala slowly transform the people around them … and the world.

Liquid Life • (1936) • novelette by Ralph Milne Farley

Great. Smart and action packed. Liquid become sentient, but the process of studying the entity puts the entire world in danger.

Hothouse • (1961) • novelette by Brian W. Aldiss

Great. A masterpiece full of wild invention. In the far future, the world is a dangerous place for the green humans that live amongst enormous trees and animal-like plants life. Also, Giant space spiders!

Ozymandias • (1972) • short story by Terry Carr

Average. Run of the mill post-apocalyptic story with advanced mental mutants and uncivilized barbarians dancing towards a vault.

The Man Who Never Forgot • (1958) • short story by Robert Silverberg

Average. Young man escapes home when his perfect memory gets his in trouble.

Ginny Wrapped in the Sun • (1967) • short story by R. A. Lafferty

Good. Weird but kinda wonderful story about a young girl that might be regressing/advancing towards a type of monkey.

Watershed • (1955) • short story by James Blish

Average. Discussions about the role of altered-men and human rights, as a spaceship returns to far future earth.

[Rena Sherwood · Rating 3 out of 5]

This anthology read quickly ... which was a good thing, since a few minutes after I finished this book on Internet Archive, the site went down for who knows how long this time around. A few of the stories can be found in other anthologies, but this was a nice cross-section of the mutant sub-genre in sci-fi from the 1930s to the early 1970s.

Many of the stories suffer from the usual sci-fi problems of the times -- misogyny, animals viewed as disposable, and stories set way too close to when the story was first published. Nothing like reading a story set in 1990 ... in 2025, and laughing about it.

Selections:

* "Introduction" by Our Editor. Brief intro about how mutations occur, and how sci-fi writers bend the rules of reality a little to create compelling stories.
* "Tomorrow's Children" by Poul Anderson and F. N. Waldrop. The mutants are coming -- because WWIII dropped atom bombs, chemical bombs, plague bombs and bombs of insects. The last type of bomb seemed very interesting, but it's never gone into. As Our Editor notes, after 1945, hundreds of stories about mutations caused by the bomb were published. He thought this one was the best, but I think the original Godzilla movie was far more effective.
* "It's a Good Life" by Jerome Bixby. Widly considered one of the best sci-fi short stories of all time, it's also been overexposed. Not only can this horrific take of a godlike boy be found in a hundred other anthologies, but it was the basis for a Twilight Zone episode, which got remade for the 1983 movie.
* "The Mute Question" by Forrest J. Ackerman. The shortest story here at page and a half. Effective, even though it's more of a long joke than a proper story. It's set in the late 1990s.
* "Let the Ants Try" by Frederick Pohl. This story fuses three sci-fi cliches -- post-nuclear holocaust, time travel and giant ants. What could possibly go wrong?
* "The Conqueror" by Mark Clifton. Plants mutate, too. A young Guatemalan boy discovers an edible dahlia tuber ... and changes the world.
* "Liquid Life" by Ralph Milne Farley/Roger Sherman Hoar. Silverberg states that Hoar was one of the best writers of the 20s and 30s, because the vast majority of sci-fi from those decades was "unreadable." You can add this, too. Filled with racism, dead animals and a lack of sense, it's not even Plan 9 From Outer Space funny.
* "Hothouse" by Brian W. Aldiss. The best of the bunch by far. This novella looks at an Earth and Moon of the far future, where millenia of climate change killed off most species, but left a few tenacious survivors. Although known for his New Wave and editing work, every now and then, he knocked off a killer story.
* "Ozymandias" by Terry Carr. This is another anthology editor who also wrote. This was one of his better stories, although repetative, of a future world where people mutated into three foot high monsters. Having Silverberg explain this before the story started wasn't a good sign, but it was necessary. Carr liked being obscure.
* "The Man Who Never Forgot" by Robert Silverberg. Often, when the editor sticks in one of his or her own stories, you gotta cringe. But when the editor is Silverberg, you know you're in good hands. An American born in the Depression can't forget anything, and is tormented by others. I remember having an excellent memory as a kid -- and having been so hated for it, that I soon learned to start forgetting.
* "Ginny Wrapped in the Sun" by R. A. Lafferty. Sci-fi writers and editors adored Lafferty, but I don't. This story makes little sense and has no resolution.
* "Watershed" by James Blish. This is the last story in a series Blish wrote about a science he made up called pantropy, where scientists create mutants. However, it reads like a particularly dull episode of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.

[Joseph Hirsch · Rating 4 out of 5]

Early in SF history, when the term “mutant” came up, it usually had negative connotations, and could have been used pretty interchangeably with “corruption.” World War II’s industrialized eugenics programs (practiced by both fascists and communists against undesirables) made a lot of people rethink their feelings about the friend-foe, family-stranger distinction.
By the time Theo Sturgeon rolled along, mutants were many times considered superior to the unmutated, although—due to prejudices—they still experienced hostility. This eventually turned into the kind of heavy-handed messaging that came with comics like The X-Men and the numerous film adaptations.
Mutants was published in the early 70s, when the old and new perceptions of mutation were still in conflict with each other. But cutting edge genetic scientific research of the time had also proven pretty conclusively that “mutation” and “evolution” could be used interchangeably in some circumstances.
The stories in this collection don’t always take sides, but they do mostly either fall one way or the other on the continuum. Let the Ants Try by Frederick Pohl goes old school, with a takeover by giant ants who’ve managed to get around the old inhibitions of insect growth by somehow developing lungs. Now they’re free to terrorize (and maybe sermonize) the humans whose oxygen-rich atmosphere would have otherwise inhibited their growth. It does for ants what Peter Benchley’s Jaws did for sharks.
It's a Good Life by Jerome Bixby also sees the monster in the mutant. Made famous when adapted as a Twilight Zone episode, it deals with a child who can destroy or create whatever he wants, simply by willing it to be so.
The Man Who Never Forgot by Robert Silverberg finds itself staunchly in the other camp, discovering first the alienation and then the sense of empowerment that comes with being a mutant. The story—about a man who can’t forget a single interaction, or the smallest iota of trivia—successfully builds pathos for the suffering protagonist and his plight. What would it be like to not only never forget a face, but to never forget the exact words of the smallest interaction? To have not just complete eidetic recall of everything ever read, but everything one even ever glanced at? It might be fun for a while, and an entertaining party trick, but Silverberg sees it as a great burden (at least at first.) The tale’s speculative elements reminded me of the classic film Dreamscape, while its somber, empathic tone recalls Ray Miland’s turn in X: The Man with the X-Ray Eyes.
There are more than a couple clunkers in the mix, the worst of which is Hothouse by Brian Aldiss. Set in a world where giant mutated vegetation has gained a kind of wicked, voracious sentience, it reminded me of all the old Edgar Rice Burroughs serials. It might have been more tolerable if it had been shorter. But after about twenty pages or so of coiling lianas snatching at the feet of loinclothed humans, I reached my limit.
As usual, though, mileage will vary, and you may in fact dig everything I didn’t, and vice versa. Recommended, regardless, especially for a pair of timeless classics that continue to defy Father Time by remaining in print.

[Michael Nalbone · Rating 3 out of 5]

Scary!

[Simon Hedge · Rating 4 out of 5]

Themed anthology of reprint material. Time was these were very popular - they seem to have fallen from publishers favour these days, which is a shame. This is a pretty good example of the type. Stories chosen by sf hall-of-famer Robert Silverberg.
"Tomorrow's Children" by Poul Anderson and F. N. Waldrop (1947). I'd never heard of this story before, but it is a genuine cracker! According to the editors notes it is Anderson's first published work, so he really hit the ground running! After Nuclear World War, the survivors find their children born mutated in many ways. Will they accept them as the future of mankind, or try to stay 'pure'?
"It's a Good Life" by Jerome Bixby (1953). Yes, the story that gave us that classic Twilight Zone episode. Little Anthony is born with almost god-like powers, and the inhabitants of Peaksville have learned to tiptoe around him - both physically and mentally - for fear of what he might do to them. A classic example of 'less is more', as so much of the stories power comes from what is NOT explained.
"The Mute Question" by Forrest J. Ackerman (1950). Meh - silly two-pager about a mutant with too many heads talking to a mutant with not enough heads.
"Let the Ants Try" by Frederik Pohl (1949). Mutation story meets Time Travel story. A time traveller takes mutated ants into the past to unite mankind against a common enemy, with results unexpected by no one except him.
"The Conqueror" by Mark Clifton (1952). Gently allegorical tale revolving around the constantly mutating nature of dahlias.
"Liquid Life" by Ralph Milne Farley (1936). A humorous bit of pulp nonsense about a virus that mutates into a threat to the world. Has a decent early stab at invoking an intelligent 'hive mind'.
"Hothouse" by Brian W. Aldiss 1960). In the far, far future the Earth has stopped turning. Life has mutated beyond all recognition in order to adapt to these new conditions. A genuine classic of science fantasy.
"Ozymandias" by Terry Carr (1972). Horribly degenerated humans of a distant future plunder the stores of their technological ancestors, without any understanding of what they are doing.
"The Man Who Never Forgot" by Robert Silverberg (1957). You might think that the mutation of perfect memory would be pretty good. This story will make you think again... Surprisingly upbeat ending, though.
"Ginny Wrapped in the Sun" by R. A. Lafferty (1967). I didn't understand a word of this. Sorry R. A.
"Watershed" by James Blish. One of the 'seedling stars' stories. Man has to face the horrible realisation that maybe his time is coming to an end, and that the mutants are in the ascendancy. A great way to finish the book.

[M— · Rating 2 out of 5]

A fair anthology, but there are better out there.

Notable stories include:

It’s a Good Life | Creepy kid controls town. Also adapted for The Twilight Zone and frequently anthologized, this is one of the best in the bunch.

Let the Ants Try | This is generally considered an unwise use of a time machine. (I was hunting for this story.)

The Conqueror | Cultivating civilization, literally. Bonus points for having something other than humans being mutated.

Other story summaries:

Tomorrow’s Children | After nuclear war wrecks civilization, mutation is the factor of most concern.

The Mute Question | Two-pager little philosophical story; what the blind man didn't see, what the deaf man didn't respond to.

Liquid Life | Salt-water pond gains sapience.

Hothouse | Tropical hell eventually yields winged humans.

Ozymandias | Um? Monster-killing in pyramid, also computers involved? Honestly, I could barely skim this.

The Man Who Never Forgot | Eidetic memory is apparently a bitch, until one learns it's also heredity.

Ginny Wrapped in the Sun | Creepy child again, who has no time for the petty controlling of towns.

Watershed | Space-faring humans, by not mutating, have become the minority.

[Aaron Andersen · Rating 2 out of 5]

Quality varies from one story to the next (it being an anthology, they are all by different authors), but overall the collection isn't terribly impressive . "It's a good life" is the most well-known and by far the best of the bunch, and really the only one I'd recommend to anyone else.