1st edition Coronet 1977 vg+ In stock shipped from our UK warehouse

A collection of eighteen first-person stories by the science fiction master includes tales featuring such diverse narrators as a dolphin in love with a human and an alien visitor living in disguise in a New York hotel.

"SFWA Grand Master Silverberg (Voyagers) demonstrates why he merits that plaudit in this superior collection of three novels and one short story linked by the theme of humanity encountering intelligent alien life, or, as he puts it in his introduction, “reach out to meet others with uncertain hands.” “Those Who Watch” begins with an explosion over New Mexico that turns out to be a crashing spaceship; the ship’s three crew members survive and successfully pose as humans until three Earthlings see through their disguise. “The Man in the Maze” offers a less traditional story line, inspired by Sophocles’s tragedy Philoctetes and centered on diplomat Richard Muller. Muller’s the first human to contact the inhabitants of Beta Hydri IV—and he becomes a pariah upon his return to Earth. Silverberg shifts gears dramatically in “Tom O’Bedlam,” in which all of Earth’s governments have collapsed, and the eponymous lead has visions of fantastic crystalline beings that others dismiss as psychotic episodes. The anthology is enhanced by Silverberg’s introductions to each piece, which provide the personal and editorial background to the stories. Lovers of first contact fiction owe it to themselves to pick this up."--Publishers Weekly

Science fiction legend Robert Silverberg reflects on some of his earliest, least-reprinted tales in this new Planet Stories collection! Between 1956 and 1958, Silverberg contributed dozens of short stories and novellas to the digest pulps, each written in the bombastic, high-adventure style of the original Planet Stories magazine. Since then, those tales have re-appeared only rarely (and sometimes never again) in long out-of-print paperback anthologies. This volume, the first of three to come this year, features seven hard-to-find classic Silverberg novellas: Slaves of the Star Giants, Spawn of the Deadly Sea , The Flame and the Hammer , Valley Beyond Time , Hunt the Space-Witch! , The Silent Invaders , and Spacerogue.

The second in a series of superb science fiction. The Alpha series of anthologies center on no particular theme except that of literary quality. Two criteria were used in the selecting of these stories—literary merit and importance to the genre. The result is that the variety of subjects is matched only by the richness and diversity of their handling—brilliant, frightening, clever, bizarre, powerful, witty, funny—and several steps in-between. Whatever else these stories may be doing, they all explore the interplay between human beings and the technological society man has created for himself. Good science fiction simultaneously peers into remote realms of space and time and holds a mirror to the contemporary moment; and if the reflection in that mirror is somewhat distorted, so be it. Blame not the messenger for bearing bad tidings. Herewith ten stories which demonstrate the unsettling kinds of insights that science fiction alone can offer. More are on the way. The nine volumes of this series provide an exciting cumulative view of a field in which some of the most vigorous and inventive fiction of our times has been produced. Simply put, here is the best science fiction from the best science fiction writers.

A collection of 16 time-travel stories by the science fiction master originally published 1956-2007, with a 2018 introduction by the author.