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The Science of Wonder
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September 2012
Title: Downward to the Earth
Author: Robert Silverberg
Publisher: TOR/Orb
I have been a Robert Silverberg fan for many years. He produced my favorite
novels during a period between the late 1960s and mid-1970s. These include Up
the Line, perhaps the best time-travel novel ever written, as well as emotionally
powerful novels like Dying Inside and On the Inside. It seemed to me that I had
read most of Silverberg's novels from this periods, but I was pleased to discover I
was wrong. TOR recently re-issued Silverberg's 1970 novel Downward to the
Earth -- one I had not yet read. And so I took the opportunity to read it for this
column.
What relevance does a 42-year old science fiction novel have today? It is a fair
question and fortunately, in Downward to the Earth, Silverberg focused on
timeless themes that makes the novel a surprisingly modern read.
The novel centers on Edmund Gunderson, a former employee of an organization
that once administered the colonization of the planet Belzagor. It was discovered,
after humans arrived, that there were two intelligent species on the planet: the
Nildoror, who vaguely resembled elephants; and the Sildoror, who resemble
primates. Colonists are forced to leave because they cannot colonize worlds in
which intelligent life exists. Gunderson returns to Belzagor many years later in
order to learn about the mysteries of rebirth, a transformative process the Nildoror
go through. Gunderson is also looking for redemption for the way he treated the
locals in his days as an administrator.
Silverberg paints a wonderful picture of the geography of Belzagor, as seen
through the eyes of Gunderson. The novel is as much a travelogue as it is a story of
transformation and redemption, and one can see in it echoes of Joseph Conrad's
Heart of Darkness (something Silverberg himself mentions in the preface to the
reissued volume). Silverberg does a masterful job at painting a picture of a world
that is just alien enough to be different and interesting. (Humans can survive on the
planet without special equipment so some things are remarkably similar to Earth.)
More than Heart of Darkness, I was reminded of some of the world-building that
came out of Ursula K. Le Guin's The Left Hand of Darkness (published a year
earlier, in 1969).
Reading the novel, we see this alien world and its inhabitants, intelligent and
otherwise, through Gunderson's biased eyes. But what I enjoyed best was watching
the transformations that took place in Gunderson himself, even as the landscape
changed under his feet.
Downward to the Earth stands the test of time and is as good today as I imagine it
was in 1970. It stands to illustrate how varied the themes of our genre can be, and
how science fiction takes different routes to explore the same themes as classic
literature.
And if you choose to read the book (and I hope that you do) be sure to read
Silverberg's new preface, in which he describes the transformation of his own
opinion of the book in the last four decades.
Title: The Year's Best Science Fiction: Twenty-Ninth Annual Collection
Editor: Gardner Dozois
Publisher: St. Martins
If you've read the last few review columns I've written, it's probably clear that I
am a fan of short fiction. For me, there is nothing better than a good science fiction
story or novelette. Try as I may, however, I cannot keep up with all of the good
short fiction being produced today. That is where an anthology like Garnder
Dozois' Year's Best Science Fiction comes in. I didn't start reading Dozois'
anthologies until recently, but I find that there are three reasons that enjoy read
them:
- As a fan of science fiction, I often find in his books gems that I otherwise
might have missed. Sometimes, I get to re-read stories that I really enjoyed
in the magazines the first time around.
- As a writer of science fiction, I find it fascinating to see what a seasoned and
well-respected editor in the field likes and does not like. I don't agree with
all of Dozois selections, but I find the information useful.
- Dozois provides an exhaustive assessment of the entire genre at the opening
of each volume, which allows you to see just how big science fiction is and
how much it changes from year to year.
This year marks the 29th year Dozois has been publishing his anthology and I
found it to be a wonderful read for all of the reasons cited above. There were seven
or eight stories that I'd already read, but reading them again helped cement my
opinion of those stories.
Of the stories that stood out to me in the volume this year, there are three worth
mentioning. First, Geoff Ryman's powerful "What We Found" for which I was
fortunate enough to present Geoff the Nebula for Best Novelette this year.
Robert Reed seems to have a story in the volume each year -- sometimes two!
This year's choice, "The Ants of Flanders" is a fascinating alien invasion novella
in which the aliens fighting one another hardly notice the humans caught in the
middle.
Finally, Kij Johnson's "The Man Who Bridged the Mist" (also a Nebula-winner)
was a spectacular read. I recall reading the story last December while on vacation
in Florida and being captivated by it. At its heart is seems a simple story of an
engineer on an alien world who attempts to build a bridge across a chasm of mist.
But the effort, the lives of those affected by it, and the ever-present mist draws you
into a complex, transformative tale.
And I would be remiss if I didn't mention that six stories from InterGalactic
Medicine Show received honorable mentions in the volume: "Love, Cacye" by
Marie Brennan; "Exodus Tides" by Aliette de Bodard; "Under the Shield" by
Stephen Kotowych; "What Happened at Blessing Creek" by Naomi Kritzer; "The
Hanged Poet" by Jeffrey Lyman; and "We Who Steal Faces" by Tony Pi.
If you feel the need to catch up on the great science fiction stories you missed from
last year -- or you are looking to revisit the ones you loved, Gardner Dozois'
Year's Best Science Fiction: Twenty-Ninth Annual Edition is a great place to start.
Read more by Jamie Todd Rubin
Read more by Jamie Todd Rubin