Needle in a Timestack: And Other Stories by Robert SilverbergMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
Like most short story collections there are good stories and not as good stories. None I'd say are really bad. Some are obviously a little dated as they were written in the 50s or 60s. Nothing I'd say that's really offensively dated like ethnic stereotypes but most of the main characters probably are white, straight, and male. You can complain if you want, but it is what it is.
I bought it because I'd watched the 2021 movie made from the title story and wanted to see how it compared. Since it's a short story and the movie was about 2 hours long, there's a lot more detail in the movie but the framework is pretty much the same.
"The Secret Sharer" at the end was probably the best one. Ironically I'd say the characters are most fleshed out; it's ironic because one character in the story literally is a disembodied consciousness with no flesh. "Ishmael in Love" was the funniest one as it concerns a dolphin in love with a human woman--as told by the dolphin. And it's not THAT kind of love so get your mind out of the gutter. "Call Me Titan" was another fairly funny one about a Titan (sort of like a kaiju from a Godzilla movie) who's freed from his prison only to find the Greek gods gone as the world has changed. "The Reality Trip" was pretty fun; it's about an alien pretending to be human sort of like Resident Alien; only instead of murder it's about how the alien becomes the target of a pesky human woman. "There Was an Old Woman" was somewhat funny in that it's about a woman who makes like 30 different clones to raise on a farm in Wisconsin and assigns each one a career path--which they all end up hating, along with her.
"The Pain Peddlers" was ahead of its time as it's basically about a reality TV show where they do surgeries live on the air. It's told from the perspective of a guy who pays families to let their dying relatives appear on the air. In a Twilight Zone-type twist he gets a comeuppance. "Absolutely Inflexible" is another one with a Twilight Zone-type twist leading to a comeuppance, only it involves time travel. "Entropy's Jaws" is a much longer story with a similar time travel theme. "Defenders of the Frontier" was decent but a little too long. It's about a group of soldiers who have basically been abandoned in a desert frontier and have to decide whether to try to go home or stay where they are.
"Pope of the Chimps" was a good one and not too long either. It's about how the death of a human caretaker prompts some chimps in a zoo to create a sort of religion. "Enter a Soldier. Later: Enter Another" is pretty interesting. It's about creating simulations of historical figures, sort of like in the holodeck in Star Trek TNG and came out about the time that show first aired.
"This is the Road," a fantasy one with a bunch of characters in a wagon was the worst just because it droned on and on without a lot of point. There are a few more that are just forgettable as in I really do not remember what they were called or much of what they were about and in a couple of weeks will likely have completely erased them. A couple involved time travel and one involved a guy who kills his wife's lover and goes on the run, which if it hasn't already been a movie would be a decent one in the style of Philip K Dick ones like Minority Report or Paycheck.
I always like in short story collections, especially with authors who have been around for decades, when they put notes in. Not only does it tell you how the story came about, it also provides some insight into the publishing business back in the old days. When Silverberg started there were a lot of science fiction magazines to publish to, which is how he got experience and money to continue writing while also doing longer projects, which were probably easier to get published back then than today.
Interestingly, the title story did not exist until the 3rd edition of the collection. As Silverberg tells it, his editor just plucked the title out of the air for a short story collection and ran with it in 1966 and then eventually there was a second collection markedly different but with the same title. Only later did he conceive the title as an actual story after an incident at a sci-fi convention and sold the story to Playboy in 1983--when you could still do things like that. An unnamed movie studio optioned it--twice--before John Ridley, the writer of 12 Years a Slave finally bought it and turned it into a movie. Though unfortunately that movie came out in pandemic times so it was largely forgotten. But a third short story collection with this title came out; it's the first to actually feature the title story as the title story.
Silverberg also talks about "The Road to Nightfall," which involves cannibalism in post-apocalyptic times, that was deemed "too dark" for anyone to publish until a friend--a young Harlan Ellison--helped to get someone to publish it. The result isn't bad, especially if you're a fan of post-apocalyptic stuff.
For the price I paid this was definitely a good deal just for the notes alone.
That is all.
View all my reviews
"This is the Road," a fantasy one with a bunch of characters in a wagon was the worst just because it droned on and on without a lot of point. There are a few more that are just forgettable as in I really do not remember what they were called or much of what they were about and in a couple of weeks will likely have completely erased them. A couple involved time travel and one involved a guy who kills his wife's lover and goes on the run, which if it hasn't already been a movie would be a decent one in the style of Philip K Dick ones like Minority Report or Paycheck.
I always like in short story collections, especially with authors who have been around for decades, when they put notes in. Not only does it tell you how the story came about, it also provides some insight into the publishing business back in the old days. When Silverberg started there were a lot of science fiction magazines to publish to, which is how he got experience and money to continue writing while also doing longer projects, which were probably easier to get published back then than today.
Interestingly, the title story did not exist until the 3rd edition of the collection. As Silverberg tells it, his editor just plucked the title out of the air for a short story collection and ran with it in 1966 and then eventually there was a second collection markedly different but with the same title. Only later did he conceive the title as an actual story after an incident at a sci-fi convention and sold the story to Playboy in 1983--when you could still do things like that. An unnamed movie studio optioned it--twice--before John Ridley, the writer of 12 Years a Slave finally bought it and turned it into a movie. Though unfortunately that movie came out in pandemic times so it was largely forgotten. But a third short story collection with this title came out; it's the first to actually feature the title story as the title story.
Silverberg also talks about "The Road to Nightfall," which involves cannibalism in post-apocalyptic times, that was deemed "too dark" for anyone to publish until a friend--a young Harlan Ellison--helped to get someone to publish it. The result isn't bad, especially if you're a fan of post-apocalyptic stuff.
For the price I paid this was definitely a good deal just for the notes alone.
That is all.
View all my reviews
2 comments:
That movie definitely slipped in under the radar. I've heard of Ishmael in Love though not sure I've read it. I'll have to pick up that book. Also in eBook?
I read it on Kindle.
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