Synopsis:
Somehow, for all my outward pretence of cold-eyed professionalism, all my insistence that writing is simply a job like any other, I've discovered to my surprise and chagrin that there's more than that going on around here, that I write as much out of karmic necessity and some inescapable inner need to rededicate my own skills constantly to my--what? My craft? My art? My profession? I wrote these stories because the only way of earning a living I have ever had has been by writing, but mainly, I have to admit, I wrote these stories because I couldn't not write them. Well, so be it. They involved me in a lot of hard work, but for me, at least, the results justify the toil. I'm glad I wrote them. Writing them, it turns out, was important for me, and even pleasurable, in a curiously complex after-the-fact kind of way. May they give you pleasure now too.
--Robert Silverberg, from his Introduction
From Publishers Weekly:
Starred Review. This superb volume collects nearly two dozen of SFWA Grand Master Silverberg's best short stories, many published in venues such as Omni, Playboy, and Twilight Zone that drew Silverberg out of self-imposed retirement with the promise of high pay. Most notable are three Nebula nominees: "Our Lady of the Sauropods," in which a scientist is trapped on a space habitat with possibly intelligent dinosaurs; "The Pope of the Chimps," in which scientists study a chimpanzee colony whose inhabitants are beginning to show evidence of religion; and "Homefaring," in which yet another scientist sends his mind far into the future and winds up sharing a body with a doomsaying sentient lobster. With exquisite takes on common themes like time travel and transcendent experiences, these stories represent some of the best and most sophisticated science fiction of the early 1980s.
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