The Palace at Midnight, 1980-82

The Collected Stories of Robert Silverberg #5

by Robert Silverberg

Somehow, for all my outward pretence of cold-eyed professionalism, all my insistence that writing is simply a job like any other, I've discovered to my surprise and chagrin that there's more than that going on around here, that I write as much out of karmic necessity and some inescapable inner need to rededicate my own skills constantly to my-what? My craft? My art? My profession? I wrote these stories because the only way of earning a living I have ever had has been by writing, but mainly, I have to admit, I wrote these stories because I couldn't not write them. Well, so be it. They involved me in a lot of hard work, but for me, at least, the results justify the toil. I'm glad I wrote them. Writing them, it turns out, was important for me, and even pleasurable, in a curiously complex after-the-fact kind of way. May they give you pleasure now too. -Robert Silverberg, from his Introduction

Genres: Science Fiction, Short Stories, Fantasy, Collections, Fiction, Anthologies

480 pages, Hardcover

First published October 31, 2010

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

[Rambles On · Rating 3 out of 5]

It’s a little sobering to realize that Robert Silverberg in 1980 was roughly at mid-career. He had given up writing completely for the middle part of the 1970s, and only came back to short-story writing at the beginning of 1980, after being pestered by Ben Bova and Robert Sheckley to write something for the new science-fiction magazine, Omni. Finally bowing to the inevitable — and after having started on the novel Lord Valentine’s Castle in 1978 — he produced “Our Lady of the Sauropods,” the first selection in this volume.

“Our Lady” is one of the stories that deals, either specifically or somewhat more remotely, with religion, which seems to be something that Silverberg returned to again and again. “The Pope of the Chimps” is rather more on-point, treating the excesses of religious authority, while “The Homecoming,” which finished this volume, is somewhat more distanced.

Lord Valentine’s Castle seems to have had an effect on Silverberg’s prose. He continued to write Mahjipoor stories throughout this period, and I have to confess that they were never my favorite Silverberg: like the planet, they seem to be of great volume and low density. One is included here, “Thesme and the Gayrog,” which embodies all that I found wanting in them: it goes on and on, and to my mind, at least, there’s little point. Silverberg is much better at delineating character through dialogue and action than through introspection, and Thesme’s thoughts about her situation don’t really help us to understand her.

When Silverberg is on, however, he is really on, and there are some standouts here. “Gianni,” in which a team of scientists resurrect Giovanni Battista Pergolesi with the hope of more great music, is a lot of fun and just underlines the idea that when you’re dealing with a genius, it’s best not to have any expectations. “The Man Who Floated Through Time,” immediately preceding, is a tough little story about the price of playing it safe. “The Regulars” is a nice riff on the “No Exit” theme, although somewhat gentler than Sartre’s original.

My one real complaint about the volume is that Silverberg too often let himself go: there are a number of instances that left me feeling that there were more words than story, and while Silverberg can be a brilliant stylist — witness the short bit of madness that is “At the Conglomeroid Cocktail Party” — he has a tendency to let style take over when it probably shouldn’t. (No, not every artist is consistently brilliant — that would be too much to ask — but producing something like Thorns or Dying Inside or The Star of the Gypsies sets up some pretty high expectations.) I was struck, however, again and again, by the sheer inventiveness of the settings: in that regard, don’t expect anything predictable from Silverberg.

Given that this series of collected stories is under the control of Silverberg himself, it’s a must-have for fans. Add in his introductions to the stories, which detail the circumstances of the creation (a choice view of the artist at work) and give us some good glimpses of “the state of the art” — at least in science-fiction publishing — at the time, and you have not only a good if somewhat uneven story collection but a valuable history of the science-fiction world.

-- Rambles

[Timothy · Rating 4 out of 5]

23 stories:

Our Lady of the Sauropods (1980)
Waiting for the Earthquake (1981)
The Regulars (1981)
The Far Side of the Bell-Shaped Curve (1982)
A Thousand Paces Along the Via Dolorosa (1981)
How They Pass the Time in Pelpel (1981)
The Palace at Midnight (1981)
The Man Who Floated in Time (1982)
Gianni (1982)
The Pope of the Chimps (1982)
Thesme and the Ghayrog (1982)
At the Conglomeroid Cocktail Party (1982)
The Trouble with Sempoanga (1982)
Jennifer's Lover (1982)
Not Our Brother (1982)
Gate of Horn, Gate of Ivory (1984)
Dancers in the Time-Flux (1983)
Needle in a Timestack (1983)
Amanda and the Alien (1983)
Snake and Ocean, Ocean and Snake (1984)
The Changeling (1982)
Basileus (1983)
Homefaring (1983)

[Jared Millet · Rating 4 out of 5]

So, sometime around 1972 Robert Silverberg decided he was done with writing. Finis. Caput. De nada. Then, at the end of the decade, the epic novel Lord Valentine's Castle popped out of his head and he was suddenly back in the game.

Just as he graduated from the pulps into the more respectable SF magazines in the 1960s, and then to the anthologies that were so popular in the early 70s, in the 80s he began writing for high-paying glossy magazines, primarily Omni and Playboy, with one story appearing in Penthouse of all places. The man was back in business, this time with a good balance of quality and quantity.

It's kind of nice to know that even at this stage in his career, when magazine editors were dedicating entire issues to reprints of his work, he was still getting rejections - mainly from the fiction editor at Playboy, who knew what she wanted and didn't put Silverberg on a pedestal. Sex had always been a component of RS's stories, but given the markets he was writing for in this period it definitely came to the fore. Also in this era he started dabbling more into fantasy and journeys into mysticism - several of his stories involve characters traveling to exotic, remote parts of the modern world in search of strange drugs, secret rituals, and life-altering rites of passage.

Which, as Playboy's editor pointed out to him, makes some of the stories repetitive - at least on the surface. Nevertheless, there are a bunch of gems in this collection and no clunkers. Personal favorites include "Thesme and the Ghayrog" (a Majipoor story), "Not Our Brother" (a creepy Mexican Dia de los Muertos tale), "Needle in a Timestack" (a new take on the consequences of easy time travel), and "Homefaring" (a lovely, bittersweet novella about giant lobsters).

[Michael Samerdyke · Rating 5 out of 5]

A terrific volume from Silverberg. I had read some of these in the early Eighties, and it was fun to be reminded of that, but most of these stories were new to me, and I really liked them.

I'd say "Homefaring" was the best in the book. This is one epic story that dreams big and had me with it every step of the way.

"The Conglomeroid Cocktail Party" was short but packed a real emotional punch. Other splendid tales about relationships were "Needle in a Timestack," "The Changeling," "Snake and Ocean, Ocean and Snake," and "Jennifer's Lover."

"A Thousand Paces Along the Via Dolorosa" was the story I remembered from the early Eighties, and it held up very well.

A very strong collection with imaginative and thought-provoking stories. Silverberg's notes for each story are interesting too.

[Dalibor Dado Ivanovic · Rating 4 out of 5]

AObzirom da je u ovom serijalu izaslo devet knjiga, poceo sam od, eto ove, jer su ovdje price od kojih nisam prije niti jednu procitao. A u ovim ranijim zbirkama je vecina izlazila kod nas u zbirkama.
U ovoj su mi se posebno svidjele:
Waiting for the Eartquake
A thousand paces along the Via Dolorosa
Thesme and Ghayrog (najbolja)
At the Cocktail party
Jennifer's lover
Trouble with Sempoanga
Snake and Ocean, ocean and Snake (odlicna prica o telepatima, moze bit kao neki spin of Dying inside)

[Adam Meek · Rating 4 out of 5]

classic stories from a high point in silverberg's career.

[Sol]

For "Our Lady Of The Sauropods"