Customer Reviews

World Of A Thousand Colors

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This collection of short stories, written between the late fifties and early seventies, has held up quite well. For the most part, they are set in the far distant future and explore questions of alien civilizations and space travel. Only two stories, written in 1959 and 1969 and taking place in 1989 and 2003 respectively contain technology that we now know was not in existence at those times. However, it is rather easy to suspend disbelief and treat the stories as if they take place in a future not too distant from now.
I did not dislike any of the tales in this collection, but I did not absolutely LOVE any of them either. They were all decent, but now, after I've finished, I find it rather difficult to remember them individually. Overall, not a waste of time, but not something I would recommend to anyone who isn't a fan of science fiction in general and Robert Silverberg in particular.

This book contains examples of Silverberg's early work, much of it from the '50s and early '60s. As such, many of the stories lack the depth and richness of his later work, but there are some real gems in here, the best being "Neighbor", "Counterpart", "The Fangs of the Trees", and especially the novelette "How It Was When the Past Went Away."

Recommended for those wanting some background on Siliverberg's early short work.

Essentially this is the second "The Best of Robert Silverberg" and the funny thing is that there is no story in common with the first. The storie are taken from six collections -"Sunrise on Mercury"; "Parsecs and Parables"; "Dimension Thirteen"; "Sundance"; "Earth's other Shadow" and "Needle in a Timestack"-, and range from about the same period as the earlier 'The Best of', 1957-1971 in this case. The difference with the earlier 'The Best of' is that Silverberg does his own introduction here, and the stories are not seperately introduced. Most stories speak for themselves though, and the overall quality is just as high as with "The Best of Robert Silverberg".