Caliban: A Short Story
Aug 2023 · Open Road Media
Ebook
23
Pages
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About this ebook
The Hugo and Nebula Award–winning author delivers a prescient tale that “explores the inanity of conformity with a hopelessly superficial future humankind” (Publishers Weekly, starred review).
He was revived, somehow, and thrust into a brand-new world, one in which humans have evolved to breathe underwater, reproduction is quite uncommon, and everyone has standardized their appearance to conform to the presently favored model.
He is a rarity, a throwback, with his short legs, hairy body, lopsided face, and scars. He remembers automobiles, tax returns, a family—all the components of an imperfect world. But here and now, he is an object of fascination to be studied by doctors and politicians, and to be wanted by adventurous women.
He keeps telling himself that in a country of the beautiful, the ugly man is king. If only he’d listen . . .
Praise for Robert Silverberg and his short stories
“When Silverberg is at the top of his form, no one is better.” —George R. R. Martin, #1 New York Times–bestselling author
“Silverberg’s creative story premises are matched by a remarkable ability to make his characters sympathetic, whether human or not.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review)
“The short stories in Robert Silverberg’s First-Person Singularities are inventive, sublime, and endlessly entertaining.” —Foreword Reviews
“Decades after being originally published, most of these stories are still just as entertaining and powerful as they were when first released. A singularly unique collection.” —Kirkus Reviews
He was revived, somehow, and thrust into a brand-new world, one in which humans have evolved to breathe underwater, reproduction is quite uncommon, and everyone has standardized their appearance to conform to the presently favored model.
He is a rarity, a throwback, with his short legs, hairy body, lopsided face, and scars. He remembers automobiles, tax returns, a family—all the components of an imperfect world. But here and now, he is an object of fascination to be studied by doctors and politicians, and to be wanted by adventurous women.
He keeps telling himself that in a country of the beautiful, the ugly man is king. If only he’d listen . . .
Praise for Robert Silverberg and his short stories
“When Silverberg is at the top of his form, no one is better.” —George R. R. Martin, #1 New York Times–bestselling author
“Silverberg’s creative story premises are matched by a remarkable ability to make his characters sympathetic, whether human or not.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review)
“The short stories in Robert Silverberg’s First-Person Singularities are inventive, sublime, and endlessly entertaining.” —Foreword Reviews
“Decades after being originally published, most of these stories are still just as entertaining and powerful as they were when first released. A singularly unique collection.” —Kirkus Reviews
About the author
Robert Silverberg (b. 1935) sold his first science fiction stories to the lower-grade pulps in the mid-fifties, moved swiftly to the three prestigious magazines (Astounding, Galaxy and The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction) and as his style deepened and themes expanded in through the next reached the first rank of science fiction writers. He is regarded as the greatest living writer of science fiction, an SFWA Grandmaster, ex-President (in the 1960’s) of that organization, winner of five Nebulas, four Hugos and many other domestic and foreign awards. Among his famous novels are Dying Inside, The Book of Skulls, Downward to the Earth, A Time of Changes; his novella Born with the Dead (1974) is perhaps the finest work of that length published within the genre. Shifting to a predominating fantasy in the late 1970’s (Lord Valentine’s Castle and the attendant Majipoor Series), Silverberg continued to write science fiction and won a Nebula in 1986 for the novella Sailing to Byzantium, and Hugos for the novelettes Gilgamesh in the Outback and Enter a Soldier: Later, Enter Another. He was editor of the long-running original anthology series New Dimensions and of important reprint anthologies such as The Science Fiction Hall of Fame, Alpha, and The Arbor House Treasury of Modern Science Fiction.
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