Customer Reviews

Needle in a Timestack

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These stories, written in the 1950s and 1960s focus on the human psyche...what happens if someone offers you money for film rights to your surgery, if you agree not to use anesthetic? What happens to someone who visits a society where sickness is unknown, and is immediately imprisoned in a hermetically sealed environment against contamination? These questions and more are discussed in stories that read at a breakneck pace.

Forty years later, the questions are still timely and relevant, and can be considered in relation to "reality" TV and overprotectiveness and political correctness. And Silverberg never takes the easy way out. This is what science fiction is supposed to be--the future of the human spirit.

There is also a later edition with the same title, with a couple of additional stories added. Both editions are well worth acquiring.

What a great fortune that this volume dropped into my lap. The very first story looks at issues that are now relevant to most television adherents: "reality TV." Where is morality in presenting painful situations or even physical pain to a viewing public in the name of entertainment? From scenarios of manipulating news (à George Orwell) to interplanetary sideshows to illegal temporal jumping, these stories will entertain the most serious science fiction buffs and those who are just whetting their appetite for this amazing genre. The most abstract and haunting is perhaps "The Sixth Palace" in which Silverberg leaves a lot to his readers' imaginations. My favorite is "To See the Invisible Man." Take some time to read these great adventures.

The individual story titles (and date of copyright) are listed below:

"The Pain Peddlers" (1963)
"Passport to Sirius" (1958)
"Birds of a Feather" (1958)
"There Was an Old Woman" (1958)
"The Shadow of Wings" (1963)
"Absolutely Inflexible" (1966)
"His Brother's Weeper" (1959)
"The Sixth Palace" (1955)
"To See the Invisible Man" (1963)
"The Iron Chancellor" (1958)

Get this book at all costs! Absolutely the best short sci-fi stories I've ever read.