Robert Silverberg was born in New York City. He has been a full-time writer since graduating from Columbia. He has been nominated for more literary awards than any other science fiction or fantasy writer alive or dead. He and his wife Karen Haber live in San Francisco.
A scaled-down verson of Medea, Harlan Ellison's shared-world anthology based on a scientifically created world, this effort is, unfortunately, smaller in every sense. The talent pool (six writers, as opposed to Medea 's 11) is limited to winners of the Science Fiction Writers of America's Nebula Award. Unlike the contents of Medea , these stories are linked and form a novel-like progression. The entries proceed chronologically, starting with the first humans to land on Genji and To no Chujo, the twin planets surrounding the sun Murasaki, and closing with the end of a centuries-long cycle involving both Genjians and Chujoans. Assorted conflicts among and scientific discoveries by the visiting humans constitute the middle sections. Although the contributors--Poulok Anderson, Greg Bear, Gregory Benford, David Brin, Nancy Kress and Frederik Pohl--are all accomplished stylists, one finds little distinctions among their six chapters. If the planet Medea was a playground for writers' imaginations, the star Murasaki seems a pigeonhole that writers must subordinate their imagination and style to fit. (Apr.)
The arrival of human colonists in the Murasaki system to explore and settle the twin worlds of Genji and Chujo forms the background for this shared-world anthology. The six stories by Nebula award-winning authors Poul Anderson, Greg Bear, Gregory Benford, David Brin, Nancy Kress, and Frederik Pohl focus on the effects of human intervention on an alien ecosystem. A pair of essays by Anderson and Pohl provide background information and offer a rare glimpse of the planning stages of this experiment in sf world building. All in all, this satisfying blend of hard sf and expert storytelling should be considered by libraries with large sf collections.
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