Robert Silverberg

Page Updated: 05/09/03

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Robert Silverberg - Page 2

Paperback - Gollancz (2001)

The Stochastic Man
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.
‘An engaging tale.. fast and literate’ J G Ballard
‘Makes one understand why his name is among the SF greats’ The Times
‘Highly original . . . absorbing’ The Sunday Times

Paperback - Gollancz (2002)

The Masks of Time
It was the afternoon of Christmas Day, a year before the end of the millennium, when Vornan-19 materialized, naked, on the Spanish Steps in Rome. Ninety-nine witnesses all agreed that he just descended from the sky, leaving a glowing track as he arced through the air. None of them saw any kind of vehicle.
For Leo Garfield it was the beginning of an extraordinary year. Vornan claimed to come from far in the future and Garfield, as an expert on the time-reversal of subatomic particles, was seconded to the scientific team to investigate. The world was in a strange and edgy state, ready to believe in a charming and magnetically charismatic messiah. Even Garfield and his colleagues came under Vornan’s spell. But could he really be from the future? Or was he just a charlatan and a fraud, intent on wreaking havoc?
The Masks of Time is a compassionate, powerful and enigmatic novel from one of science fiction’s most versatile and imaginative masters.
`Deeply detailed, highly educated, beautifully figured’ Galaxy
‘Silverberg at his best’ Analog

Paperback - Voyager (2001)

The King of Dreams
A magnificent new epic in the Majipoor Cycle
At last Prestmion prepares to take his place in the subterranean Labyrinth where the Pontifex must dwell. He has named Prince Dekkeret to succeed him as Coronal. Once a commoner, Dekkeret brings new blood to the aristocratic Starburst Throne, and a popular wisdom. Another prosperous joint reign should begin.
But the diabolical Mandralisca is the eminence grise behind a declaration of independence from distant Zimroel. Coolly proclaiming the five debauched nephews of the treacherous Dantirya Sambail to be the Five Lords of Zimroel, Mandralisca is preparing to destroy the unity and peace of Majipoor.
The soothsayer Su-Suheris predicts that a new power is loose in the world, a power equal to any other, but Dekkeret has no faith in omens. Only when Mandralisca avails himself of a sinister device that destroys the mind of Dekkeret’s own High Counsellor does the new Coronal begin to see a threat. But without the King of Dreams, how can he combat the sinister power emanating from Zimroel?
‘Silverberg seems capable of amazements beyond those of mere mortals’ Washington Post
‘Siliverberg’s invention is prodigious’ Times Literary Supplement
‘Robert Silverberg is the Marco Polo of Majipoor. What wonders and adventures he has to tell us, what treasures he brings back from every voyage to that fabulous world!’ Ursula K. Le Guin

Paperback - Gollancz (2000)

Thorns
Duncan Chalk is a monstrous media mogul with a vast appetite for other people’s pain. He feeds off it, and carefully nurtures it in order to feed it to the public. It is inevitable that Chalk should home in on Minner Burris, a space traveller whose body was taken apart by alien surgeons and then put back together again - differently. Burris’ pain, physical and psychological, is constant. And so is that of Lona Kelvin, used by scientists as the donor of eggs for one hundred children and then ruthlessly discarded.
Only an emotional vampire like Duncan Chalk can envisage the huge audience eager to watch a relationship develop between these two damaged people. And only Chalk can persuade them to go along with his plans...
Thorns is a brilliant and intense novel about suffering and pain. With it, Robert Silverberg found his voice, marking the beginning of one of the most remarkable and sustained bursts of creativity in SF history.
‘Very well constructed and executed ... careful prose, discerning sympathy and tight control’ M. John Harrison
‘Ambitious and disturbing’ Analog
‘Entertaining and enjoyable… refreshingly unpretentious’ Visions of Tomorrow

Paperback - Gollancz Millenium (1999)

The Book of Skulls
Four students discover a manuscript, The Book of Skulls, which reveals the existence of a sect, now living in the Arizona desert, whose members can offer immortality to those who can complete its initiation rite. To their surprise, they discover that the sect survives, and is willing to accept them as acolytes. But for each group of four who enter the rite, two must die in order for the others to succeed.
'Buy it at once and read it repeatedly… it's so unobtrusively, flawlessly written that even at its most puzzling it comes as perilously close to poetic beauty as any contemporary SF novel I've ever read' James Blish
'Could be his finest book so far' Greg Bear