Customer Reviews

In the Beginning: Tales from the Pulp Era

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4 star:		(3)
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1 star:		(0)

 

 

Fans of Silverberg and anybody interested in the 1950s SF scene should definitely check this out. For the most part the stories are fun and move along briskly, and each is preceded by an epigraph or short essay in which Silverberg talks about his early career and sheds light on his writing techniques and his relationships with SF magazines, their editors, and other SF writers in the 1950s.

Feel the spirit of Fifties' Science Fiction, when men were brave, women in distress were saved from horrible monsters from outer space, scientific plausibility was loose, action was plenty and fast, and socio-philosophical theories were left to sociologists and philosophers! When Silverberg was overworked, over-prolific and didn't know he was to become a Science-Fiction legend.
My favourite is "Long live the Kejwa", where you can feel anticipated the wry humour of later stories like "Amanda and the Alien".

I was able to get this thanks to Subterranean selling through webscriptions. Sometimes even more interesting than the 'formula adventure stories' that the author calls them at times is his recounting of how they came to be.

Reasonably lengthy introductions to each piece detail his relationship with various editors of lower tier Science Fiction magazines at the time, and how they often used a stable of house writers, and multiple different pseudonyms.

Sometimes Silverberg would have several stories in the same issue, all under different names, of course. A man blessed with the ability to be able to writer incredibly fast, knocking out novelettes in a day or two when he had to.

It also includes him talking about his relationship with Randall Garrett.

The stories themselves are ok in general (3.25), supposed to be a bit of fun, in the main. You do of course have to realise that they were all written in the 1950s.

In the Beginning : Yokel with Portfolio - Robert Silverberg
In the Beginning : Long Live the Kejwa - Robert Silverberg
In the Beginning : Guardian of the Crystal Gate - Robert Silverberg
In the Beginning : Choke Chain - Robert Silverberg
In the Beginning : Citadel of Darkness - Robert Silverberg
In the Beginning : Cosmic Kill - Robert Silverberg
In the Beginning : New Year's Eve'2000 A.D. - Robert Silverberg
In the Beginning : The Android Kill - Robert Silverberg
In the Beginning : The Hunters of Cutwold - Robert Silverberg
In the Beginning : Come into My Brain - Robert Silverberg
In the Beginning : Castaways of Space - Robert Silverberg
In the Beginning : Exiled from Earth - Robert Silverberg
In the Beginning : Second Start - Robert Silverberg
In the Beginning : Mournful Monster - Robert Silverberg
In the Beginning : Vampires from Outer Space - Robert Silverberg
In the Beginning : The Insidious Invaders - Robert Silverberg


Handling the alien monster like that is a load of bull.

3 out of 5


Landing getaway leaves him worshipfully in over his head.

3.5 out of 5


Manjacked giant diamond bitchfight freedom.

3.5 out of 5


Breathing tax.

3.5 out of 5


"'and when one came, it was a female. She was over six feet tall, with a magnificent body only nominally covered by her brief clothing, and strapped to her hip was a gem-studded blaster. I stepped out behind her as she went past. "I hate to do this to a lady," I said apologetically, as I clubbed down on the back of her neck and grabbed the blaster from its holster in the same motion. She started to crumple before I had the gun out."
...

"A sudden burst of thought illuminated my mind. "If that's true, I think I know how I can carry this thing off. Let's go someplace where I can get out of all these spacesuits and into a slave's loincloth!"

3.5 out of 5


Mercurian lust, loyalty and zam-gums. On speed.

3 out of 5


Space Age celebration.

3 out of 5


Don't shoot me, I ain't no tin man.

3 out of 5


Sentient shooting.

3.5 out of 5


"Get out of my mind, Earthman!"

3.5 out of 5


Piss off Space Patrol boy, queen is just fine thanks.

3 out of 5


Alien theatre.

2.5 out of 5


"Look," I said. "I'm a Rehab. That means I've been through the Center, analyzed, monkeyed-with, headshrunk, rearranged. There isn't a criminal molecule left in me. I can't do it even if I wanted to. And I don't want to."

3.5 out of 5


Put me out of my misery.

3.5 out of 5


If those aliens aren't the bloodsuckers, must be the non-vegetarian ones.

3.5 out of 5


Not my brother anymore.

3 out of 5




3.5 out of 5