Tag Archives: Robert Silverberg

Silverberg Health Update

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Robert Silverberg reports that on May 9 he suffered a heart attack in Siena, Italy. He told Andrew Porter in an e-mail:

Repairs performed, I am home now, and all seems well, though as of this morning it appears recovery will be slow.

I do expect to attend the worldcon.

Several dear friends volunteered to come to Siena last week to assist Karen. This proved not to be necessary but was vastly appreciated.

I would not be surprised to receive many messages of concern. Believe me that these will all be received gratefully but I don’t have the strength right now to make individual replies.

I have made no public announcement of the event before this but I no longer regard it as classified info.

Silverberg’s history includes a previous heart attack in 2013, while on a trip to the UK.

[Thanks to Andrew Porter for the story.]

Suncon Hugo Ceremony

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An audio recording of the Hugo Awards ceremony at Suncon, the 1977 Worldcon, has been digitized and placed online by Michael Kerpan.

Hear the youthful voice of Robert Silverberg as he doles out the rockets!

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/43868329/77Hugos-Tape2Side1.mp3

This is the second of two tapes – the first is awaiting repair before it can be digitized.

The Invisible Fanwriter Hugo

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The Hugo nominating deadline is March 31. And I was wondering if, on Easter weekend when the Best Fan Writer nominees are announced, there will be the usual cuckoo in the robin’s nest – an established pro novelist?

Over the past few years the category has been won by pro writers John Scalzi, Frederik Pohl, Jim C. Hines, and Tansy Rayner Roberts, with actual fans Cheryl Morgan and Claire Brialey breaking through, too.

Every time I approach this subject lots of you write to say, “Oh no, Mike, you’re crazy — pros can be fans too!”

This is such a very important ideological axiom – to fans. Those eager to win the argument that “pros can be fans too!” never seem to recognize that it isn’t fans who are stopping this from happening, rather, that they are trying to force a kind of egalitarianism on writers that never really takes, however interested or polite the writers may be while the award is on the table.

Because once everyone’s done marching around waving their hands as confetti falls from the rafters and the brass band blows like mad and the world has once again been made safe for fannish egalitarianism, nobody pays attention to the implicit message we get back from the pros that people were so hot to give a fan Hugo —

People who are building careers as writers do not want to identify their brands with anything that hints of the amateur.

And the Fan Writer Hugo that was a big deal for six months gets swept under the rug.

You look at their bios and here’s what you find.

The “Brief biography of John Scalzi” on Whatever has this to say about his awards:

Bibliography: It’s here. New York Times best seller in fiction. Awards won include the Hugo, the Locus, the Seiun and Kurd Lasswitz. Works translated into 20 languages.

Where is it?

The late Frederik Pohl had two online bios, one at his official website and the other on his blog, and neither acknowledges the Best Fan Writer Hugo. The pro site speaks generally of winning the Hugo “six times; he was the only person ever to have won the Hugo both as writer and as editor….” The blog says of his awards: “He has received six Hugos, three Nebulas and forty or fifty other awards, some of which he has given himself.”

Six Hugos. Did you know Pohl, in fact, won seven Hugos? The seventh was his Best Fan Writer Hugo.

Now at the time he was nominated Pohl was gracious about it, clearly understood the honor he was being paid, said “I couldn’t be more pleased,” and was unquestionably qualified to compete in the category. I still thought his response was pretty much along the lines of “if you insist” – rather like Robert Silverberg’s attitude toward winning the 1950 Retro Hugo for Best Fan Writer.

Silverberg also doesn’t list his Retro Hugo on his official page, but that comes as no surprise if you remember what he wrote to File 770 the time I left him off a list —

I take umbrage at your omitting Me from your list of winners of the Best Fan Writer Hugo who have also sold pro fiction. May I remind you that I was the (totally undeserved) winner of the 1950 Retro-Hugo in that category, beating out such people as [Walt] Willis and [Bob] Tucker? Of course I would not have won the award if I hadn’t had a few stories published professionally along the way.  But I did get the Hugo.

That’s the thing. A Best Fan Writer Hugo added nothing to the career Pohl already had, and made Silverberg feel fans must be completely clueless about what he truly values.

Then, last year’s winner, Tansy Rayner Roberts, has a lengthy bio on her website that mentions three awards won by her fiction but is silent about her Best Fan Writer Hugo. The site’s landing page does call out her involvement in “the Hugo-nominated Galactic Suburbia podcast.” Not said is that the nomination is in the Best Fancast category.

Surprisingly, Jim C. Hines bucks the trend. His bio says right in front of God and everybody —

Jim is an active blogger about topics ranging from sexism and harassment to zombie-themed Christmas carols, and won the Hugo Award for Best Fan Writer in 2012.

Respect to you, Jim.

Invisible little men are one of science fiction’s motifs. Invisible Best Fan Writers we can do without. Let’s do something revolutionary in 2014 – vote the award to a fan.

Silverberg Health Update

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By Andrew Porter: According to Reliable Sources, Robert Silverberg, in the United Kingdom to attend World Fantasy Convention, had a heart attack on October 29, and had a stent inserted. He was discharged from hospital on October 30th and was reported resting at his hotel.

He is due to return to Oakland on Monday; he will not be attending World Fantasy Convention.

(Further details are in Jay Sheckley’s public Facebook posts. )

Haffner Press Releases
Tales From Super-Science Fiction

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Tales From Super-Science Fiction, edited by Robert Silverberg, is shipping this week from Haffner Press.

Super-Science Fiction, launched during one of the cyclic sf booms of the 1950s, was notable for paying 2 cents a word, then a top rate — enough to lure contributions from legendary pros like Isaac Asimov, Robert Bloch, Jack Vance, and newcomers on their way to being famous like Harlan Ellison and Donald Westlake.

Silverberg, who always does a great job editing story collections anyway, is the perfect choice for this assignment because he had multiple stories in nearly every issue of S-SF – often published under pen-names to help disguise how much material had come from one author. Silverberg reached his peak in the August 1959 issue with four stories published under four different pseudonyms.

The 400-page hardcover sells for $32. It has full-color endpapers showing covers from S-SF by Kelly Freas and Ed Emshwiller, and original interior illustrations by Freas. Here is the table of contents:

Introduction by Robert Silverberg
“Catch ‘Em All Alive” by Robert Silverberg
“Who Am I?” by Henry Slesar
“Every Day is Christmas” by James E. Gunn
“I’ll Take Over” by A.Bertram Chandler
“Song of the Axe” by Don Berry
“Broomstick Ride” by Robert Bloch
“Worlds of Origin” by Jack Vance
“The Tool of Creation” by J.F. Bone
“I Want to Go Home” by Robert Moore Williams
“Hostile Life-Form” by Daniel L. Galouye
“The Gift of Numbers” by Alan E. Nourse
“First Man in a Satellite” by Charles W. Runyon
“A Place Beyond the Stars” by Tom Godwin
“The Loathsome Beasts” by Dan Malcolm (aka Silverberg)

I’m gratified to see Robert Moore Williams represented, even if I don’t know this particular story. When I was in college he kindly allowed a friend and me to spend the afternoon interviewing him. Williams was an under-appreciated SF writer. The reason he was under-appreciated seems clearer in hindsight. One of the things he told us is that no SF editor would buy a too-literate story for his magazine, so “You have to stink ‘em up just right.” He was admirably frank. There was no pretense about the man.

Amazing Adds Silverberg

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[From a press release.] Robert Silverberg, award winning author and SFWA Grand Master, has joined Barry Malzberg, Joe Wrzos, Patrick Price and Ted White on the Amazing Stories Project Editorial Advisory Board.

Mr. Silverberg, multiple Hugo and Nebula Award winning author of The Majipoor Chronicles , Hawksbill Station, Dying Inside (to name just a very few) and editor of the seminal anthology The Science Fiction Hall of Fame, was selected for SFWA’s Grand Master Award in 2004 and has been a fixture of the genre since the 1950s; among his many achievements, he is particularly noted in SF Fandom for his role as Toastmaster of the Hugo Award ceremonies.

His newest book is Tales of Majipoor, a collection of stories set on the planet he first wrote about in his 1981 best-seller, Lord Valentine’s Castle. Subterranean Press will publish a limited first edition of it in 2012, followed by the regular trade edition from Berkley.

Mr. Silverberg, whose fiction first appeared in Amazing Stories in 1956, will serve in an advisory capacity and will author an updated version of his Introduction to Amazing Stories for the first issue of the magazine’s latest incarnation, slated to appear sometime in 2012.

The Amazing Stories Project can be followed by visiting www.AmazingStoriesMag.com; a Facebook page devoted to the subject can be found here.

A Pirate’s Work Is Never Done

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Walter Jon Williams wants to e-publish more of his out-of-print books and stories. He isn’t enamored with the idea of keying in the text himself, and that is where his clever idea kicks in:

I discovered that my work had been pirated, and was available for free on BitTorrent sites located in the many outlaw server dens of former Marxist countries.  So I downloaded my own work from thence with the intention of saving the work of scanning my books— I figured I’d let the pirates do the work, and steal from them. While this seemed karmically sound, there proved a couple problems.

First, the scans were truly dreadful and full of errors… But second, apparently a few of my books were so obscure that they flew under the radar of even the pirates! You can’t imagine how astounded I was when I discovered this.

Now Williams is enlisting volunteers to help finish the job (check the comments on his post.)

He reminds me of another pro with ambivalent feelings about book pirates.

In Germany soon after the reunification, Robert Silverberg visited an East Ger­man collector and asked to see all the pirated editions of his work. The collector said — there aren’t any. As Silverberg told this story he sounded uncertain whether he ought to be happy they hadn’t ripped him off or sad that nobody in that Iron Curtain country had read his work.  He scoffed, “They were so East German they didn’t steal!”

[Thanks to Andrew Porter for the story.]

Update 05/25/2011: Corrected spelling as suggested in comment.

John Hertz: What a Worldcon

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By John Hertz (reprinted from Vanamonde 901):

I’ve come from L.A. to the Worldcon,
To the Aussiecon-Four’s-hopes-unfurled con.
All its meeting and such
With s-f friends, as much
As we can, makes it September’s Pearl con.

Flick said this limerick wasn’t bad enough for the newsletter, Voice of the Echidna, of which she was editrix. Alison Scott in the London office contributed several drawings of echidnas. The Aussiecon III newsletter was The Monotreme, which might have been all right except for a mascot drawing of a platypus, with sunglasses and a lapsize computer (do platypuses have laps?), so that in one issue (duly sent us Supporting Members) an irritated echidna complained “The Monotreme? THE Monotreme?” and something had to be done.

Robert Silverberg said “This is the first time I’ve had a propeller beanie tipped to me.” I said “There’s always a first time.” On Hugo Night, I presented Best Fanwriter, which he accepted for Fred Pohl. The Laurie Mann photo on Pohl’s Weblog shows James Daugherty co-head of Hugo Night holding the trophy, me having stepped back, Silverberg speaking, Garth Nix the Master of Ceremonies. A few minutes earlier I accepted Best Fanartist for Brad Foster. Pat Sims and Robin Johnson gave the Big Heart to Merv Binns, whom Johnson in his Fan GoH speech had called the center around which Melbourne s-f had agglutinated for forty years. Right after the ceremony there were Flick and her folks with the voting analyzed on one sheet of paper, the nominating on the other side, copies for all.

In the Art Show, Kyoko Ogushi the con’s Japan agent had brought prints by Nawo Inoue, Naoyuki Katoh who was in the 2007 Worldcon paint-off with Bob Eggleton and Michael Whelan, Masaru Ohishi, and Eiji Yokoyama who again sold everything he sent. In the Masquerade, the Masters of Ceremonies were Nick Stathopoulos who designed this year’s Hugo trophy base, and Danny Oz; my co-judges were Lewis Morley who engraved the Hugo trophies, and Marilyn Pride who was Four for Four i.e. attending each Aussiecon; Morley, Pride, and Stathopoulos were the 1986 DUFF delegates, so we were DUFFers together. On Thursday night at Beverley Hope’s party for her and Roman Orszanski’s new fanzine Straw & Silk I learned Orszanski too was Four for Four. There were ribbons. I’d left early, about 1 a.m., and there in the street peering at my name-badge – I’d put my hat in my shoulder-bag – was Sharee Carton wondering if I knew any good parties, so I sent her to Hope.

Panel discussions are the stomach of our cons. Everything deemed fodder goes into them, some digested. On fanhistory panels Chris Nelson showed fine videos using the Convention Centre’s high-tech lecterns. He had gathered images of contemporary fanzines, prozines, and people, and had made graphs, including maps with colored circles for how many letters from which cities appeared in prozine letter-columns. On the Forties panel Alan Roberts and Art Widner traded stories about trading letters sixty years ago. I moderated the Fifties panel. Justin Ackroyd conducted the crowded Fan Funds auction, with intermittent help including mine. He took off his shoes and worked in his socks.

It was grand making new acquaintances and meeting fanziners in person, including Renaldo the Party Sheep. The Program Book treated generously the Fan Funds, DUFF, and me. Karen Babcock did wonders for disabled access and by the end had a Hero badge. Alan Stewart collated the annual edition of WOOF (World Organization Of Faneditors, invented by Bruce Pelz). There was not one drinking fountain in the Convention Centre. But Australia had Mars bars.

Super-Science Tales Selected

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The Haffner Press collection Tales of Super-Science Fiction, edited by Grand Master Robert Silverberg, is rounding into a shape. Stephen Haffner’s latest press release announces some of the authors whose stories will appear:

  • Don Berry
  • Robert Bloch
  • J. F. Bone
  • A. Bertram Chandler (as George Whitely)
  • Daniel F. Galouye
  • Tom Godwin 
  • James E. Gunn 
  • Alan E. Nourse
  • Charles W. Runyon
  • Robert Silverberg
  • Jack Vance
  • Robert Moore Williams

The cover art will be by Frank Kelly Freas. Silverberg and Haffner are still securing rights to additional texts.

There are details of several other projects in the full press release, which appears after the jump.

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Super-Science Fiction Coming from Haffner Press

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Robert Silverberg is assembling a collection of 14 stories from Super-Science Fiction for Haffner Press. SSF launched during the sf boom of the mid-1950s. Paying a princely rate of 2 cents a word the magazine attracted fiction by Isaac Asimov, Robert Bloch, Harlan Ellison. James Gunn, Jack Vance, and Donald Westlake, and featured cover art by Frank Kelly Freas and Ed Emshwiller.

Running for 18 bi-monthly issues (Dec ’55 to Oct ’59), the magazine eventually devolved into a publication capitalizing on the then-current craze of “monster” stories. Editor Silverberg traces the genesis of Super-Science Fiction from it’s beginnings as an outlet for numerous colonization/expedition stories to its conclusion with such stories as “Creatures of the Green Slime,” “Beasts of Nightmare Horror” and “Vampires from Outer Space.” It’s fun, it’s cheesy, and we’re really looking forward to it!

Stephen Haffner plans to bring out the collection in 2011.

The full press release appears after the jump.

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