She Treads Softly: Voyagers

Sunday, April 4, 2021

Voyagers

Voyagers: Twelve Journeys through Space and Time by Robert Silverberg
4/20/21; 448 pages
Three Rooms Press

Voyagers: Twelve Journeys through Space and Time by Robert Silverberg is a very highly recommended, excellent collection of twelve science fiction stories of voyages. Science Fiction Grand Master Robert Silverberg has selected a sampling of twelve short stories/novellas that span his career from 1957 to 2021. All of the stories represent voyages of various kinds and are set in a wide range of time periods. The variety of stories are well-chosen and riveting, as well as thoroughly engrossing and entertaining. The quality of all the stories is excellent and Silverberg has chosen well from the plethora of choices found in his writing career. As with any collection of stories, some will resonate with you or capture your imagination more than others, but they really are all outstanding. Each story begins with a brief opening introduction by Silverberg.

Contents include:
Introduction by Robert Silverberg
In Another Country: This novella is set in the world of Vintage Season written by C.L. Moore and interweaves Silverberg's story in the world she created.
Travelers: A group of intergalactic tourists who visit various worlds visit a nightmare world of monsters.
Chip Runner: A young man wants to live in the subatomic space between electrons.
Looking For The Fountain: An alternate history story featuring Don Juan Ponce de Leon.
Ship-Sister, Star-Sister: A ship that is 16 million light years from earth can only communicate with Earth through the telepathic link of a twin with her sister who is still on Earth. He expanded the idea into a novel in 1996, Starborne.
The Changeling: A man on a vacation in Mexico suddenly finds himself in the life of a man in an alternate universe.
We Are For The Dark: A novella where a religious order chooses who leaves Earth to spread their beliefs through the universe.
The Trouble With Sempoanga: A tourist destination known as the most beautiful planet in the galaxy harbors a parasite which places you in permanent quarantine on the planet should you contract it.
The Sixth Palace: Two soldiers of fortune travel to a world where a treasure is guarded by a robot.
Why?: A team of two men who joined the External Exploration Corps and spend their time endlessly visiting and documenting new planets begin to question their career choice.
The Pleasure Of Their Company: A leader fleeing a junta only has AI copies of family, friends, and historic figures to keep him company as he journeys in space to his place of exile.
Thebes Of The Hundred Gates: A time traveler goes back to ancient Egyptian in search of previous travelers who didn't return.

Disclosure: My review copy was courtesy of Three Rooms Press via Library Thing in exchange for my honest opinion.

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John Updike's six rules for reviewing:

1. Try to understand what the author wished to do, and do not blame him for not achieving what he did not attempt.

2. Give him enough direct quotation--at least one extended passage--of the book's prose so the review's reader can form his own impression, can get his own taste.

3. Confirm your description of the book with quotation from the book, if only phrase-long, rather than proceeding by fuzzy precis.

4. Go easy on plot summary, and do not give away the ending.

5. If the book is judged deficient, cite a successful example along the same lines, from the author's oeuvre or elsewhere. Try to understand the failure. Sure it's his and not yours?

To these concrete five might be added a vaguer sixth, having to do with maintaining a chemical purity in the reaction between product and appraiser.....Review the book, not the reputation.... Better to praise and share than blame and ban. The communion between reviewer and his public is based upon the presumption of certain possible joys in reading, and all our discriminations should curve toward that end.