Take Other Spaces, Other Times: A Life Spent In The Future Authored By Robert Silverberg Exhibited In Physical Book

Silverberg was the only chid of a solidly middleclass Jewish family in Brooklyn, He was born in, and his PCA father and school teacher mother both encouraged and indulged his precocious intellect, But he could, at times, be a trying child, His interest in ichthyology charmed a local fishmonger into securing for him a live eel, He kept it in the family bathtub only until his mother returned home from her daily teaching stint, Silverberg saw for himself a future in science, but then, at the age of fourteen, he discovered his first science fiction magazine at the local drugstore.
These opened to him new visions of future worlds and changed his life, In writing Other Spaces Other Times he has a clear sense of his audience,

You understand, You've had the same experience or you wouldn't be reading this book,

The book he is talking about is not Other Spaces Other Times, , the book where I encountered the quote, The quote is dated. and the compilation of autobiographical essays is copywright, Silverberg says it is not his intention to write a formal autobiography, and he doesn't, This compilation of introductions to reprints of his work, columns he wrote for Galaxy magazine, and stray autobiographical fragments can be repetitive, but it gives an excellent and entertaining insight into how this successful and innovative science fiction author made a career as a freelance writer from the time he wasyears old until the seventh decade of his life when he composed this anthology.


Silverberg was a selfprofessed writing machine for the SF magazine trade of the late's, He began publishing shortly before getting his degree from Columbia University, and his partnership with the older, alcoholic Randall Garrett got him into the most lucrative magazine markets of the's.
With Garrett he would start a story in the morning and have Garrett finish it that afternoon, They could do a,word novel in two days, Garrett established them as contract writers whose work was guaranteed to appear in publications under either their own or a stock list of pseudonyms.
As a teenager, one of Silverberg's favorite writers for Imaginative Tales was Alexander Blade, an author he did not realize until he wrote for the magazine himself a decade later was a fiction.
His final story for Imaginative Tales appeared under the Blade name, bringing to an end both Silverberg's involvement with such publication and coinciding with the death of the publications as well.


In, the SF magazine market imploded, victim to oversaturation and the rise of paperback books, Silverberg took his first retirement from the field and started writing successful nonfiction for the young

adult trade, It was Fredrick Pohl, an SF writer now editor of Galaxy magazine, who brought Silverberg back into the SF fold, From the mid's until, Silverberg wrote some of his best novels, but by his own account the literary ambitions of writers from this period alienated their readership, Star Wars and Tolkien influenced science fantasy dominated, It attempted to suffocate the field for the next decade, It's not surprising that old hands like Silverberg began to look elsewhere, He specialized in nonfiction on exotic topics for the YA market, When he returned to SF, it seems that he had absorbed the Star Wars/Tolkien lesson, He wrote the mammoth Majippoor novels and anthologies, creating a future world with all the accoutrements of a kind of fantasy he had previously abjured.
I confess I am offering this opinion without having actually read any of these novels, but they have what look like knights on the over and they can bepages long.


Other Spaces Other Time ends with Silverberg reminiscing about past WorldComs and other good times, This is not a high note, and ranks with the publishers packaging of the book as its least desirable traits, Non Stop Press has chosen an PLC presentation, This is a slick pictorial binding that makes the book look like a stray volume from a's children's science encyclopedia, The interest here lies in what Silverberg has to offer as insights into what it meant to be a freelance SF writer for five last five decades of theth century.
A very strange book this is, It looks like a gradeschool library illustrated encyclopedia, It is an autobiography with glossy printed hardcover that measures aboutxinches yet it's not at all written in the usual way, It's a collection of previously published autobiographical articles, These cover what is usually found in autobiography, such as where the author was born, who his parents were and what they did for a living, and were they good supportive parents or indifferent Then there is the bits about what kind of kid the author was: terribly average, a confident alpha type or was a scrawny misfit.
This is followed by what got him interested in writing his first failures and successes, then eventually, who he met in the biz and where he ended up, and then, how hard it was getting noticed and making an impact in the field.
. .

I usually prefer biography over autobiography because when one writes their own story, they are inevitably too kind to themselves, They can help it as especially in this case he is truly fond of himself and admires himself greatly,

I am not suggesting that I was only interested in reading slanderous dirt, I am a great admirer of Silverbergs writing and have yet to read anything that wasnt, at least, creative and entertaining.
But, for example, he did pretty much omit the mention of the umpteenth titles he wrote in the genre of erotic pulp, Im just saying I prefer a little bias, I would think that if one chooses to write his own story, he ought at least have an objective editor look it over,

What we have here, is Bob Silverberg constantly reminding us of how prolific he was and how, though he might have been considered a hack when he first got started, was actually the greatest hack that the business had ever had fortune of discovering.
However, based on the body of work he has accomplished over his fifty or so year career, I suppose, he does deserve some bragging wrights.
. . Yet because the book is a collection of articles, there is much retelling of all these great achievements, One other little annoyance, if I may, repeated over and over, countless times, is how perpetually young he considers himself to be, Silverberg was/is always the youngest, . . no matter how old he gets

That said, what is great about the collection is actually the weird schoolbook format, There are many great photographs much better than the usual half dozen plates inserted between the thirds of a usual bio, There are also many examples of pulpy magazine and book covers with notes inscribed below in the margins, I especially liked the rejection slips and types first drafts of early attempts at writing, And the fanzine he founded is hilarious if not utterly charming,

All in all, there is lots of great information and antidotes in this book, and it isnt simply laced in a long a typical autobiochronical.
It is beautifully executed and presented, Like a coffee table book,

Finally, included at the end is a complete bibliography of his works naturally, omitting the loads of nonscifi stuff he published in the lates into the midsixties under various pseudonyms but he did add his much underappreciated nonfiction publications.


If you ever come across this odd duck of a book, and are interested in Silverberg and his work, I recommend you take a look.
I am pleased to have a copy and very much enjoyed it,
Capturing a behindthescenes glimpse into the world of science fiction, this unique autobiography by Robert Silverberg shows how famous stories in this genre were conceived and written.
Chronicling his career as one of the most important American science fiction writers of theth century, this account reveals how he rose to prominence as the pulp era was endingand the genre was beginning to take on a more sophisticated toneto eventually be named a Grand Master by the Science Fiction Writers of America.
Stating that this will be his only autobiographical work, Silverberg's book includes rare photos, ephemera from his own archives, and a complete bibliography of his works, from novels and short story collections to nonfiction.
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