Phases of the Moon: Stories of Six Decades (Hardcover)

~ Robert Silverberg (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Fifty years after making his first professional story sale, SFWA Grand Master Silverberg offers a compendium of 23 top-notch tales, ranging from 1954's "Road to Nightfall" to 2002's "With Caesar in the Underworld." Younger SF authors should take note: these short works represent all that science fiction can and should be. A few border on fantasy, such as the poignant "Born With the Dead" (1974) with its theme of loss. Others reflect the experimental trends that emerged in the 1960s and proved unpopular with fans, such as "Schwartz Between the Galaxies" (1973), which remains less readable than the author's usual. "Sailing to Byzantium" (1985) may be Silverberg's ultimate triumph, a dazzling mix of archeology and haunting fantasy. In the brief introductory essays to each section, divided by decade, as well as the illuminating essays for each story, Silverberg comes across as neither unduly modest nor arrogant. One of the great rewards of this generous book is the journey of discovery, watching his growth from stories capably told but still in debt to their pulp antecedents to high-quality fiction that is indubitably Silverberg's own. FYI: Silverberg received the SFWA's Damon Knight Memorial Grand Master Award at the Nebula Awards ceremony this past April.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

True to its subtitle, this culling of Silverberg's best, or, at least, best-known, short fiction starts with "Road to Nightfall" (1954) and concludes with "With Caesar in the Underworld" (2001), thereby including stories first published in each of six decades, despite the overall interval of only 47 years. In between are such classics as "Nightwings," "Good News from the Vatican," "Schwartz between the Galaxies" (one of several stories in which Silverberg asserts his Jewish identity), and "Sailing to Byzantium." A high percentage of these pieces were nominated for awards, including the Hugo and Nebula, and several won. Those familiar with Silverberg's total output may find themselves thinking, on reading this book, that he is better at shorter lengths than at novels. Introductions to the stories detail much about Silverberg's writing, thinking, and publishing, and together constitute a valuable sidebar to the history of sf publishing. One of the year's most valuable collections. Frieda Murray
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 625 pages
• Publisher: Subterranean Press (August 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1931081999
• ISBN-13: 978-1931081993
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.1 x 1.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #2,097,478 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars One of the best science fiction writers of all time...., March 21, 2005

By	Reader (Louisville, Kentucky) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Phases of The Moon: Stories of Six Decades (Paperback)

Robert Silverberg is one of my favorite authors. He is also one of the most honored in the history of science fiction, having won 5 Hugos and 5 Nebula awards during his fifty year career. He's probably written nearly one hundred science fiction books, but this collection of short stories is a great place to start.

The introductions in this book are quite amusing and informative, describing his relationships with such figures as Frederik Pohl (who played an important role in his career). But beware! A few of these introductions contain spoilers for the stories that follow. I would suggest that you read the story first, and then the introduction.

The stories from the 1950s are good, but it's in the 60s that Silverberg really hits his stride. The classic story To See the Invisible Man (adapted for an episode of The Twilight Zone in the 1980s) is as fresh as if it had been written yesterday. One of the stories from the 1960s, Flies, is somewhat unpleasant, although it contains important philosophical themes. I think it could be skipped.

You might start out your reading with Sundance, which is considered by many to be among the top ten or twenty science fiction short stories of all time. Other equally great classics include the novellas Nightwings, Born with the Dead, and Sailing to Byzantium.

This book is a bargain at the price, giving you 600 pages of great science fiction. More information about the author can be found at www.majipoor.com, and there's an Yahoo online chat group at theworldsofrobertsilverberg where once in a while the author himself drops by.

If you like science fiction at all (and even if you don't) you owe it to yourself to buy this fine collection by one of the greatest science fiction authors of all time.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Does humanity, pushed to the limits of perfection, find satisfaction? Not really., October 21, 2006

By	W. Haskell - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Phases of the Moon: Six Decades of Masterpieces (Paperback)

Silverberg hits his stride around the mid-'60s and themes eventually emerge. "Flies" is about a man granted a measure of omnipotence and the not-so-nice results. In "Passengers" an alien occupation takes the form of intermittent takeovers of human bodies wherein the aliens usually party hard with their borrowed vessels (kind of the ultimate drunken blackout). Soon there's the repeated trope of human attainment of immortality in "Sailing to Byzantium", "Born with the Dead", "Capricorn Games", etc. These stories concern people out at the limits of human power, or sometimes powerlessness.

Where does this stuff fit in in the universe of sci-fi works? Well, to use a very basic taxonomy: Telepathy and time travel? Check. Aliens? Quite a few, but around the margins and rarely as characters. Spaceships? As needed. But robots? Computers? Not so much. It's more about yearning and transcendence than about technology or society or especially plausible futures. For all the themes of human perfectability, the point of view is usually that of a confused, overwhelmed, and/or manipulated protagonist, and in the end most here is about the feelings of smallness and inadequacy, or the limitedness of human existence. However, there is definitely a lot of feeling-- you may get a little misty when the wistful melancholy of loss and uncertainty really hits. Lovers in these stories have very romantic barriers to overcome. There's vivid language and often very vivid, dazzling settings (the "ancient" cities of "Nightwings", "Saling to Byzantium", etc.)-- you can tell Silverberg worked hard! (Especially since he mentions it a lot in the introductions.)

So it's a decent soft-headed mystery-of-man's-place-in-the-universe sort of science fiction. Not as deep as it might seem, but often very unique, heartfelt, and well-written. If you can humor the occasional over-seriousness, quite entertaining. And actually there are a few good lighter yarns. I had never read any Silverberg before, but this volume feels pretty comprehensive-- a good place to start and to end too, probably. I'd guess it would be most suitable for harder-core crate-digging sci-fi fans. I suppose I am one, but I found it worthwhile.

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Superb retrospective collection., September 28, 2004

By	Austin Ross (Marietta, OH) - See all my reviews

Robert Silverberg's latest collection, Phases of the Moon: Stories from Six Decades is about as good as it gets - and about as definitive as you can get in one volume. It's got some great stories in here, like "Passengers," "Schwartz Between the Galaxies," "Sailing to Byzantium," and "Good News from the Vatican," and a lot of others that I've unfortunately never read before. The man was very prolific; even with only four or five stories from each decade, the book is 622 pages, all told.

He is fairly prolific at introductions, as well, one might add; he's added an overall introduction to the volume as a whole, an introduction to each individual decade, and an introduction to each individual story. Let it be said that Robert Silverberg likes introductions.