Friday, August 29, 2008

Good News for Silverberg Fans

Two of Robert Silverberg's best novels -- no, scratch that, two of the best novels of the twentieth century, which both happen to be science fiction -- are coming back in new editions from two different publishers.

Tor will be publishing a new edition of Dying Inside, which could be the greatest SF novel that the young Philip Roth never wrote, in March of 2009.

And IDW -- a comics company that's expanding more and more into books without pictures -- is bringing back Silverberg's lovely and elegiac Nightwings today.

The books that Bob Silverberg wrote between about 1967 to 1972 -- Thorns, Up The Line, Downward to the Earth, Hawksbill Station, The Man in the Maze, Tower of Glass, The World Inside, The Book of Skulls, and more -- are the greatest sustained burst of excellence for any SFF writer in the history of the field, and nearly unmatched in all of literature. Nearly every book he wrote in that period is as good as anything SF has ever produced, and I'd say that Dying Inside is a book that every student of 20th century literature simply has to read. I'd love to see them all come back into print -- maybe through a few Library of America volumes -- but even these two are a great sign.

And, if you haven't read them yet, what are you waiting for?

1 comment:

Moshe said...

Thanks, Andy. We're in complete agreement about the excellence and importance of the works Bob produced in that period.

I've used Dying Inside as an exemplar of the best SF is capable of since it came out, so I was delighted to be able to acquire it for Tor's Orb imprint of classics. (And I'm jealous of IDW for snagging Nightwings!) It also happens to be Bob's personal favorite of his own books, and he has written a new introduction for our edition.

My other favorite book from that remarkable burst of masterpieces is A Time of Changes, and I hope you'll be pleased to learn that it is also on Tor's schedule. It too will have a new intro by Bob, along with the first-ever map of the planet Borthan.

I think it's safe to say there's a good chance more Silverberg classics will follow from Tor.

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