The Book of Skulls (1972)

I read this 1972 Robert Silverberg novel in a kindle edition which included an afterword by Silverberg from 2004. He was at pains to defend it as science fiction because it is about an arguably scientific approach to seeking and perhaps finding immortality. But, well, no, I must demur. This novel hews far closer to horror, with its imagery and mythifying and above all with its ingeniously intricate premise. A college boy, Eli, has shown an aptitude for the study of ancient civilizations, which gains him entry to an archive where he discovers an untranslated document (in Catalan) called The Book of Skulls, which among other things dictates a route to immortality. By an amazing coincidence, Eli also notices an item in the newspaper about a cult in the Arizona desert that uses skull imagery. And so we are off to Arizona. Here are the terms: the cult must be approached in groups of four to submit to a trial for entry. During the trial, one of them must willingly commit suicide. Then two of the others must murder the third and the survivors will subsequently live forever. Easy-peasy. It’s a beauty of a concept, symmetrical, balanced, and savage. Silverberg tells the story in a tour de force of shifting first-person narratives among the four casual college chums on their spring break. Each of the four is individual but of a type. Eli, the instigator, is a scrawny brainy Jew. Ned is the scrawny sarcastic gay boy-man. Timothy is the rich and entitled WASP—his credit card is paying for the road trip. And Oliver is the scrappy Midwestern survivor, an orphan who is making it on charity, government assistance, and talent. In typical Silverberg fashion much about the tales, the present action and the flashbacks, are highly sexualized—“pervy,” as one reviewer noted. That reviewer approved of the novel overall but worried about the sex, which is constant. In fairness, that’s how lots of bestselling novelists were doing it in 1972. Also, apparently Silverberg wrote softcore porn for money at some point or points in his career. All the sex does date the novel somewhat in embarrassing ways, but at the same time it might be fair to say that Silverberg was clear-sighted and even prescient on gays. It’s a rollicking good time here. A genuine page-turner. But I claim it for horror, not science fiction.

In case the library is closed due to pandemic, which is over.

"Flies" (1967)

Former Harlan Ellison roommate Robert Silverberg bats second in the Dangerous Visions lineup, as Ellison perhaps seems to be paying back favors a bit. On the other hand, Silverberg would go on to write at least one great novel, Dying Inside. His story for this collection, like Lester del Rey's, pits mankind against superior beings, but this time it doesn't go as well. Silverberg's are called "the golden ones." They have found a severely wounded Cassiday drifting in space after a spaceship accident. They take what's left of him and regenerate him to full health, with some modifications, and then send him home to Earth. The golden ones want to know more about our species, specifically our emotions (I don't believe Gene Roddenberry has anything particular to do with this story, though in some ways it sounds like him). They set up monitoring technology and reprogram Cassiday's brain slightly. Can you guess which emotions the golden ones are interested in? That's right, grief and despair. There's no way this ends well, and indeed, for better or worse, it all comes down to Silverberg's ability to conceive cruel and sadistic scenarios. He manages it pretty well three separate times, and four if you count the ending. In his afterword Silverberg says he was thinking of vampires and their ability to control others, as their immortal lives go along with breaks for feeding. But we don't really see the golden ones feeding on Cassiday and the people in Cassiday's life as much as playing with them out of a genuine if cold curiosity. It's not so different from what humans do to animals and one another. You'd like to think the more technologically advanced civilization would know better, but we don't, so why should they, amirite? The story is mostly an exercise in sadistic fantasy, but it can be justified by rabbits and cosmetics, so all right: Dangerous. In fairness, the experience of reading it is harrowing enough to make it dangerous—it can certainly be unpleasant—so give Silverberg that too. It's nicely put together, with a tidy hatful of literary tricks and a source in Shakespeare's King Lear. "As flies to wanton boys are we to the gods. They kill us for their sport." Bravo. But the story also leaves a bitter aftertaste.

Dangerous Visions, ed. Harlan Ellison

Dying Inside (1972)

Dying Inside is science fiction because author Robert Silverberg is a science fiction writer, with numerous Hugo Award and Nebula Award nominations and wins to his credit. The story has a fantastic element in the telepathy of its main character and first-person narrator, David Selig, a Jewish native of New York City in 1972 present time. But the latter elements tend to overrun the former, which is a good thing, because it ends up feeling more like a lost Philip Roth experiment than the typical technology speculations I associate with science fiction. Selig can read minds, that's all—he can't use his powers to control others or put thoughts in their heads, let alone predict the future or move physical objects or bend spoons. Reaching middle age at the time of the novel, in his early 40s, he finds his mysterious power leaving him. The sadness of this book is often overwhelming. It casts a dense pall. Most of this is due to Silverberg's ability to imagine life with this power, and the subsequent calamity of losing it. Silverberg creates a fully developed character in Selig, who is sustained by New York cultural currents and can't quite bring himself to "grow up" and take on a conventional life. He has a history of fractured relationships, as his power with his personality make him just a little creepy. He survives by hanging around the Columbia University campus, where he ekes out a living by writing term papers for students too busy or uninterested to write them themselves. There are a few samples and excerpts of that work here, familiar enough five-page double-spaced (it's the early '70s) exegeses on Kafka, Euripedes, and other usual suspects of undergraduate literature courses. What works best are the flights about the power. If anything, it is closer to a superhero comic book tale that way than science fiction or fantasy. Imagining myself with superpowers was always the main draw of superhero comic books when I read them faithfully. And mind reading (after only invisibility and super-speed, like the Flash) was a power that caught my imagination. Silverberg explores deep into that fascination—the voyeurism and sense of seductive spying, the potential for a perfectly "safe and harmless" (because one-sided) intimacy. You get to know everything about another person without having to reveal anything of yourself, hence no risk of rejection (which is mitigated anyway by finding out about it privately). Silverberg is so good at this that we feel both the exhilaration of Selig's power and the desolation of its loss. On an obvious level, of course, it's more about youth than telepathy. But it's still one not to miss.

In case it's not at the library.