<span class="SFPTagline"> From SCIFIPEDIA </span>

Robert Silverberg (January 15, 1935- ) is a successful and prolific science fiction writer. He began selling while attending Columbia University (graduated 1956). In the '50s, by his own count, he wrote over a million words a year, most published in magazines and Ace Doubles. In 1956 he won the Hugo as Best New Writer. When changes in the magazine distribution system drastically reduced the need for sf wordage, Silverberg switched to nonfiction books and articles, as well as over 100 books of softcore porn/erotica for Nightstand Books.

In the mid-'60s, Silverberg was ready to write more ambitious sf, and the field was ready for him. Given carte blanche by Frederik Pohl at Galaxy magazine, Silverberg wrote sf with a new depth of character and background, admittedly influenced by the modernist writing he studied at Columbia, such as the stories combined to form To Open the Sky. This introduced what many consider Silverberg's prime, with novels such as the postcolonial Downward to the Earth (1969), the hauntingly beautiful Nightwings (1969), and Dying Inside (1972), essentially a mimetic New York Jewish novel except that its protagonist is a telepath. In the shorter lengths, he turned out such remarkable work as the metaphysically fascinating "In Entropy's Jaws"; "Going Down Smooth," a tale of a deranged computer; and the stylistically experimental "Sundance."

In 1969, the beginning of Nightwings won the Hugo as best novella. He went on to win four Nebula Awards: for the short story "Passengers," (1970); for the novel A Time of Changes and the short story "Good News from the Vatican" (both 1971):and for the novella "Born with the Dead" (1975). In 1970, he was the Guest of Honor at the World Science Fiction Convention.

Exhaustion and a lack of recognition for his most innovative work caused Silverberg to stop writing in the mid-'70s, but he returned in 1980 with the massive and panoramic Lord Valentine's Castle. It was originally intended to be a standalone, but Silverberg yielded to the temptation to make it a series, known as Majipoor. Many found his work after his return more conventional, but some of his newer books, notably Star of Gypsies (1986), kept his old virtues. "Sailing to Byzantium" won the novella Nebula in 1986; "Gilgamesh in the Outback" won the novella Hugo in 1987; and "Enter a Soldier. Later: Enter Another" won the Novelette Hugo in 1990.

In 2002, SFWA named Silverberg a Grand Master

Links:

International Speculative Fiction Database

The quasi-official Silverberg Web site