Recreates the legend of the demi-god Sumerian king Gilgamesh, slayer of monsters and master of unsurpassed treasures, who searches for the key to immortality.

Captive to the slave-trading colonists of Angola, young British seaman Andrew Battell longs for his home in the England of Elizabeth I, but increasingly finds himself enthralled by the occult arts of the Lord of Darkness.

Geochronology is the name of the game & Silverberg plays for high stakes--all or nothing: for the ordinary nonspecialist this will be a burdensomely comprehensive cumulative history of the theories that have been advanced about the human past, beginning with the most unrefined notions chained on pain of heresy to Genesis. Archbishop Ussher calculated the age of the earth arithmetically according to the bible. His figures were accepted almost until Darwinism opened up conceptual horizons & Smith's nomenclature yielded a primitive relative calendar. Some means of assigning absolute numerical values was still wanting when Becquerel stumbled on radioactivity & started the Atomic Clock ticking, but here's where the reader without considerable mathematical aptitude & stamina may turn off: Silverberg explicates the physical properties of the atom & the progressive discoveries of half-life, isotopes & the neutron, all of which must be assimilated if the breakthroughs & contingencies are to be appreciated. "Rutherford realized that the heat of radioactive decay would serve to keep the interior of the planet warm for a much longer time than the 20 million years Kelvin had estimated as the earth's age"; "radioactivity could supply a new & far more accurate figure for the age of the earth, if only a way could be found to measure the rate at which the decay of radioactive elements occurs." Indeed with more research ways were found for dating the earth's crust, the ice ages, evolutionary Homo Sapiens, archeological finds, even tree-rings--& the methods are many: lead-uranium, helium, zircon, rubidium-strontium, potassium-argon, carbon 14... For each method as for each application, we must go thru the procedural motions in detail, & not only where the technique is proved viable but also where (5 pages later, say) it's proved erroneous. Colloquially, this encompasses everything under the sun that admits of chronological measurement (see index); more meaningfully, it embodies both the sum & the substance of Silverberg's other works (see bibliography). An interdisciplinary study for the extra-disciplined inquirer.--Kirkus (edited)

"In the mid 21st Century the United States is a sleeping giant, lost in dreams of faded glory. But in one field we still reign supreme: entertainment, which in this future means computer simulations. That's why it is in America that the final computer breakthrough is achieved, the simulation of genius thinking, feeling personalities from history: Elizabeth I, Ghengis Khan, Pizarro, Socrates, Moses and Joan of Arc. You can see them all in action, with and against each other, in a world they never made--but just might remake closer to their silicon hearts' desire."--Pg. [4] of cover.

One of the most persistent legends in the annals of New World exploration is that of the Land of Gold. This mythical site was located over vast areas of South America (and later, North America); the search for it drove some men mad with greed and, as often as not, to their untimely deaths. In this history of quest and adventure, Robert Silverberg traces the fate of Old World explorers lured westward by the myth of El Dorado. From the German conquistadores licensed by the Spanish king to operate out of Venezuela, to the journeys of Gonzalo Pizarro in the Amazon basin, and to the nearly miraculous voyage of Francisco Orellana to the mouth of the Amazon River, encountering the warlike women who gave the river its name, violence and bloodshed accompanied the determined adventurers. Sir Walter Raleigh and a host of other explorers spent small fortunes and many lives trying to locate Manoa, a city that was rumored to be El Dorado—City of Gold. Celebrated science fiction author Robert Silverberg recreates these legendary quests in The Golden Dream: Seekers of El Dorado.

As if history and nature had not provided wonders enough, through the ages humans themselves have contrived more marvels to deceive one another. Sometimes they have concocted evidence when none was available to prove pet theories; sometimes their intention has been to impress or defraud; sometimes they have acted merely for sport. ø Robert Silverberg tells the stories of a baker's dozen of these scientific hoaxers in a lively, good-humored book that ranges through time and across continents. Here are perpetual-motion machines and space rockets, men on the moon and serpents in the sea. The rogues? gallery is a varied one: Dr. Mesmer, who cast his hypnotic spell on eighteenth-century Paris; Charles Dawson, whose Piltdown Man challenged evolution; Dr. Cook, with his tale of ?discovering? the North Pole; and many others. ø These are fascinating stories and more than just entertainment. The author explains the scientific background against which the hoaxes appeared and the detective work that led to their exposure. The schemers teach us to be alert, to challenge the evidence, and to appreciate the healthy skepticism that characterizes the scientific method.

Sunken History: the breathtaking story of underwater archaeology and the men who thrive on danger to explore the mysteries of the past.

A collection of columns originally published in various magazines between 1973 and 1997 discusses science fiction, science and society, the profession of writing, and other writers