Genius
Robert Silverberg has been one of the most respected figures in the science fiction field since he sold his first story in 1954. The next year his first novel was published, and the year after that he won the Hugo Award for Best New Writer at the World Science Fiction Convention.
The science fiction field has changed a great deal since Silverberg entered it, and he has remained on top of it by changing also—more radically and more successfully than any other writer of his day. There have been three very different Robert Silverbergs writing science fiction, all of them the same man. Most recently—say, from the publication of
Lord Valentine’s Castle
in 1980—Silverberg has been the writer of sprawling, colorful fantasies. Highly literate and intelligent, these novels are calculated to leave readers with a good feeling. This is an amazing difference from the Silverberg of the 70s, who wrote some of the most brilliant and probing novels of the human mind, human cultures, and humanity itself ever published in the field. Silverberg’s focus was generally too tight for these novels to be called dystopian, but “bleak” is a fair (perhaps even mild) description of their spirit.
But the Robert Silverberg we have here, the Silverberg who wrote
The Iron Chancellor
, is the original model: a writer just starting out and rising immediately to the top, not only through native talent but also by the intelligent analysis of the field’s requirements and the professional execution of stories which met those requirements. Silverberg (writing to other professionals) gives his own description of his technique in the March 1961 issue of
The Institute for Twenty-First Century Studies
:
“A writer can make a great deal more money in New York than anywhere else, provided he’s the kind of writer who’ll write to editorial order.
“I am, of course.”
And:
“Since 1958 or so, 98% of my published material has been first-drafted. (And since 1958 I’ve sold 98% of the wordage I’ve offered for publication.)”
This Silverberg was omnipresent in the magazines of his day not because he wrote vast quantities of material daily, but because he wrote precisely what a particular editor was looking for. Note here that the basic requirement which every editor needs is work of publishable quality: editorial foibles and slants are secondary. Silverberg’s work was always of publishable quality straight from the typewriter.
Super-Science Fiction
(
SSF
) is not a well-known magazine today, but in the late ’50s its word rate was bettered in the field only by
Astounding
and
Galaxy
(the top markets in prestige as well as payment). Harlan Ellison, a regular in
SSF
, described its editorial requirement as “puerility,” and Algis Budrys accused W. W. Scott, the editor, of harming the field because he paid so well. Silverberg had a story in every issue of
SSF
except the second, in which he had an article. Furthermore, he had two or three stories (under various pen names) in most issues. He was making a very good living instead of complaining about the situation. I want to emphasize that these were good stories. If Scott wanted monsters (the last four issues of
SSF
had an all-monster theme), Silverberg provided horrible, ravening monsters—but there was also real tension, real characterization, and a solid structure to the stories in which those monsters appeared.
Occasionally there are aspects which might cause a reader today to blink. Silverberg wrote “The Loathsome Beasts” as Dan Malcolm for the October 1959
SSF
(one of his two stories in that issue). The story is set on a recently colonized planet, but one doesn’t have to look very hard to realize that the monsters which are horrifically crushing and dismembering the happy crowd on the beach are really giant six-legged sea turtles. After the carnage, the hero realizes that the solution is to dig up the turtles’ egg clutches and drive the species to quick extinction.
This
Robert Silverberg has been one of the most respected figures in the science fiction field since he sold his first story in 1954. The next year his first novel was published, and the year after that he won the Hugo Award for Best New Writer at the World Science Fiction Convention.
The science fiction field has changed a great deal since Silverberg entered it, and he has remained on top of it by changing also—more radically and more successfully than any other writer of his day. There have been three very different Robert Silverbergs writing science fiction, all of them the same man. Most recently—say, from the publication of
Lord Valentine’s Castle
in 1980—Silverberg has been the writer of sprawling, colorful fantasies. Highly literate and intelligent, these novels are calculated to leave readers with a good feeling. This is an amazing difference from the Silverberg of the 70s, who wrote some of the most brilliant and probing novels of the human mind, human cultures, and humanity itself ever published in the field. Silverberg’s focus was generally too tight for these novels to be called dystopian, but “bleak” is a fair (perhaps even mild) description of their spirit.
But the Robert Silverberg we have here, the Silverberg who wrote
The Iron Chancellor
, is the original model: a writer just starting out and rising immediately to the top, not only through native talent but also by the intelligent analysis of the field’s requirements and the professional execution of stories which met those requirements. Silverberg (writing to other professionals) gives his own description of his technique in the March 1961 issue of
The Institute for Twenty-First Century Studies
:
“A writer can make a great deal more money in New York than anywhere else, provided he’s the kind of writer who’ll write to editorial order.
“I am, of course.”
And:
“Since 1958 or so, 98% of my published material has been first-drafted. (And since 1958 I’ve sold 98% of the wordage I’ve offered for publication.)”
This Silverberg was omnipresent in the magazines of his day not because he wrote vast quantities of material daily, but because he wrote precisely what a particular editor was looking for. Note here that the basic requirement which every editor needs is work of publishable quality: editorial foibles and slants are secondary. Silverberg’s work was always of publishable quality straight from the typewriter.
Super-Science Fiction
(
SSF
) is not a well-known magazine today, but in the late ’50s its word rate was bettered in the field only by
Astounding
and
Galaxy
(the top markets in prestige as well as payment). Harlan Ellison, a regular in
SSF
, described its editorial requirement as “puerility,” and Algis Budrys accused W. W. Scott, the editor, of harming the field because he paid so well. Silverberg had a story in every issue of
SSF
except the second, in which he had an article. Furthermore, he had two or three stories (under various pen names) in most issues. He was making a very good living instead of complaining about the situation. I want to emphasize that these were good stories. If Scott wanted monsters (the last four issues of
SSF
had an all-monster theme), Silverberg provided horrible, ravening monsters—but there was also real tension, real characterization, and a solid structure to the stories in which those monsters appeared.
Occasionally there are aspects which might cause a reader today to blink. Silverberg wrote “The Loathsome Beasts” as Dan Malcolm for the October 1959
SSF
(one of his two stories in that issue). The story is set on a recently colonized planet, but one doesn’t have to look very hard to realize that the monsters which are horrifically crushing and dismembering the happy crowd on the beach are really giant six-legged sea turtles. After the carnage, the hero realizes that the solution is to dig up the turtles’ egg clutches and drive the species to quick extinction.
This
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