Robert Silverberg Biography

American writer, born in New York, educated at Columbia University. Silverberg is best known for his science fiction. His early work includes Revolt on Alpha C (1955), his first novel, and The 13th Immortal (1957), the first of a long series of space operas. During much of the 1960s he concentrated mainly on non-fiction but with Thorns (1967), Hawksbill Station (1968), The Masks of Time (1968), and Nightwings (1969) he received acclaim, and consolidated his reputation with such novels as Downward to the Earth (1970), Tower of Glass (1970), The World Inside (1971), A Time of Changes (1971), Son of Man (1971), The Book of Skulls (1971), and Dying Inside (1972). Both The Stochastic Man (1975) and Shadrach in the Furnace (1976) anatomized science fiction and rewrote its themes with ferocious intensity. Among several collections of stories are Moonferns and Starsongs (1971) and Capricorn Games (1976). After a long break Silverberg published a collection of stories, The Conglomeroid Cocktail Party (1984), and several novels of interest including Tom O'Bedlam (1985), which reflects his abiding interest in religious transcendence and the charisma of charlatanism, and Hot Sky at Midnight (1994), which analyses the near future in apocalyptic terms.