Talk:Robert Silverberg

Untitled
Is there any particular reason why the picture is gone...? Just wondering. I know there was one the other day, and there's a redlink showing up now, so there WAS one, I'd kind of just like to know where it went. Runa27 20:00, 3 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Not sure, but there's one now. What can be done here to flesh out the lede? MrZaius  talk  16:19, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

"Anthologies edited by Robert Silverberg"
Additional source(s) of titles:,. --DocumentN (talk) 22:46, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

NPOV
I know this is kind of nitpicking, but I removed the adjective 'prolific' from the opening, not necessarily that he isn't, its just that what is the answer when one asks, "How many books do you have to write to be called prolific?". Mobus (talk) 22:53, 31 March 2008 (UTC)
 * Probably a lot fewer than 70 or so novels Silverberg has written. Not to nitpick back at you, but yes, that is nitpicking. Beeblbrox (talk) 03:21, 20 July 2008 (UTC)


 * And isn't there a lot of semi-pornographic romance he wrote under pseudonyms? He qualifies as prolific under any definition :-).Yobmod (talk) 10:43, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

His total output is somewhere around 500 books. I would class that as being "prolific," because I'm Robert Silverberg (really and truly) and I wrote all that stuff. Robert Silverberg


 * Hi Robert, thanks for mentioning this. I see the word "prolific" is back in the opening sentence.


 * This reminds me of the anecdote about Richard Feynman, that he drove around in a van with Feynman diagrams on it, and thus people would ask "why is your van covered in Feynman diagrams?", and he would reply, "because I'm Feynman!" --Demiurge1000 (talk) 17:29, 24 July 2013 (UTC)


 * By any measure on this planet, Robert Silverberg is a prolific author. It's not a WP:PEACOCK term; it's just descriptive. Rivertorch (talk) 04:00, 25 July 2013 (UTC)

Rated
I've rated this as high importance to the SF project, due to his high output, many awards, and influential editing. But only start class, cos no references at all :-(.Yobmod (talk) 10:10, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

Lord of Darkness
The link to the Lord of Darkness novel lead to the wiki entry of Devil and not to the book's entry. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.109.136.46 (talk) 07:40, 11 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Fixed; I made it into a red link, as there appears to be no article on the book yet. Mike Christie (talk) 11:04, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

Flies
There is no mention to Flies from Dangerous Visions. Any reason? WikiWhiteRabbit (talk) 10:18, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

Literary growth in the '60's and early 70's
I find it awkward that the book publication and other events in this section are somewhat out of chronological order:


 * The second paragraph concludes with "Other acclaimed works ... and Dying Inside, a tale of a telepath losing his powers."
 * The third paragraph begins with "In 1969 Nightwings ..."

Dying Inside is from 1975 -- the jump to 1969 seems jarring (and not in an entertaining time-travel story way).

True, the second paragraph lists books, the third paragraph lists awards ... still, I think the section could be better written using strict chronology. I'm not sure I have the time to do it properly, so I'll leave it to others.

Karl gregory jones (talk) 00:12, 10 August 2010 (UTC)

Personal Life
This article could use some information on the personal life of Silverberg, e.g. spouse[s], religious beliefs, political beliefs, etc. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.187.97.3 (talk) 16:54, 17 October 2011 (UTC)

"...regretted committing to paper..."
Background on the removal of the "regrets" passage here, here and here. GreenReaper (talk) 21:23, 12 December 2011 (UTC)


 * For the record, this apparently relates to a discussion begun here. Procedurally, the edit wasn't great; it was made a mere nine minutes after the report to the noticeboard, and we can't accept the removal of content as "untrue" based solely on the stated identity of an IP editor. However, in reviewing this, I'd say the sentence appears to fail WP:NOR, explicitly claiming "regret" on Mr. Silverberg's part while using a source in which regret is arguably but not definitely implied. Therefore, the removal appears justified per policy.


 * N.B. to IP 67.169.62.194: if you bring legitimate concerns here to the talk page or to the BLP noticeboard, they'll generally be dealt with appropriately—not because of who you are but because of what you say. If you're unhappy with the outcome or think the process is taking too long, the volunteers at WP:OTRS will be happy to assist you. Rivertorch (talk) 06:06, 13 December 2011 (UTC)


 * I own the original paperback edition of The Masks of Time, and there is no commentary by Silverberg in it anywhere. I just checked the ISFDB entry on this book and there were no hardback editions until at least 20 years later.  So, to me, it's doubtful that this purported statement was ever made by Silverberg.


 * I was a friend of Silverberg's for 10 years or so, and I *seriously* doubt if the person who claims to be Silverberg and who reverted the last edit actually is. I find it impossible to believe that the real Bob Silverberg would have spent the last couple of years making edits in WP to articles about the University of Penn. and comic-strip superheroes. If you believe that this is actually the case, then I have a fine, slightly used bridge in Brooklyn that I can offer to you for sale. Hayford Peirce (talk) 20:37, 13 December 2011 (UTC)


 * I don't believe anyone else is making claims about whether the suggested identity of the IP is true or false. As Rivertorch hinted, if the IP wants to confirm their identity they they will need to contact WP:OTRS to do so. Until then, we go with what is reasonable to include in the article based on the information we have. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 21:22, 13 December 2011 (UTC)


 * Right. Nobody but the IP made any claim about identity, Hayford. I am a little curious (being in the market for a bridge, don't you know) as to whose edit history you're looking at. The editor claiming to be Mr. Silverberg has made a grand total of two edits—one to this article and one to the BLP noticeboard. Rivertorch (talk) 23:19, 13 December 2011 (UTC)


 * They also made the edits right after someone claiming to be Silverberg said that they would on Flayrah. GreenReaper (talk) 09:11, 15 December 2011 (UTC)


 * Mea culpa! In looking at the History page, I inadvertently confused the two contributors, 67.169.62.194 and Void2258. I thought that it was "67 etc" who was claiming to be Silverberg. I now see that it was "Void" who made the deletion and who says that he is Silverberg. The link to the Flayrah site, where there is a comment by Silverberg echoing what I wrote above, that there was no Introduction to "The Masks of Time", indicates to me that that Void is absolutely the genuine Bob Silverberg. Sorry for dragging in a red herring -- it was sheer stupidity on my part. Hayford Peirce (talk) 18:08, 15 December 2011 (UTC)


 * My, things are getting complicated, aren't they? Since the sentence in question has been removed (and rightly so, I believe), this may all be academic. But for the record, you're still confusing the two contributors. It was indeed the IP editor who explicitly claimed to be Silverberg; you had that right in the first place but were mixing up their contributions. In any event, it strikes me as a pointless exercise for WP editors to try to determine whether someone is who they say they are. WP:V demands that article subjects have no more more say about their own articles than any other contributors. Each edit should be judged based on its own merits rather than on who made it. I think that ultimately did happen here, so everything should be cool now. Rivertorch (talk) 20:19, 15 December 2011 (UTC)


 * I agree entirely with your comments. I would never have said a thing about the matter in the first place except it seemed to me that someone was falsely claiming to be Silverberg. Since I was a friend of Silverberg for a number of years (he bought my second novel, as a matter of fact), I was astonished to see what appeared to be hundreds of edits by "him" on obscure matters that couldn't conceivably be of interest to the real Silverbob. Hayford Peirce (talk) 21:19, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

Nonfiction
We say under Early years, "In 1959 the market for science fiction collapsed, and Silverberg turned his ability to write copiously to other fields, from carefully researched historical nonfiction to softcore pornography."

A glance at Robert Silverberg shows that he was incredibly productive, but wrote next to nothing about science fiction (or pornography) as a subject, until 1972, the year he moved from East to West Coast. Afterward we list only two nonfiction works, both books about science fiction, 1974 and 1997. Like turning off the tap.

Is that accurate so far as it goes? Are these children's books to 1972? If children's books we should at least explain that. If at a higher level we should probably do more.

I added "Subjects: Geography, history, nature" to the infobox, based only on scanning the list.

What about pornography (fiction or nonfiction, presumably for adults)? Five years ago, User:Yobmod writes above, "isn't there a lot of semi-pornographic romance he wrote under pseudonyms?" Is that so? Are "semi-porn romance" (implies fiction) and "softcore porn" (we say in the article)both across some line where there is nothing to be said but a half-sentence, no particular book notable? Even so we should identify major pseudonyms under which he wrote that, and whether he quit porn promptly in 1972 or whenever.

--P64 (talk) 20:13, 27 March 2013 (UTC)


 * WorldCat reports that Mound Builders (New York Graphic Society, 1968; Ohio University Press, 1986) is the fourth-most widely held work by Silverberg in participating libraries.[
 * I noted that in the list of works. --P64 (talk) 20:37, 4 April 2013 (UTC)

Portrait image, current and recent versions
See the revision history, Apr–Nov 2013)

The primary image was updated by User:Canoe1967 both 2013-07-24 and 2013-07-31 --from Worldcon 2005, eyes cast downward, to Worldcon 2009, typical portrait --later to one acquired from Karen Silverberg and newly added to EN.wikipedia, eyes cast downward.

First, is the current image more appropriate? If so, why? Second, the current image is provided with documentation available only to OTRS volunteers. If we retain it, one of them (who do not now include Canoe1967) should check the documentation and ascertain the date --preferably the photo date but the date of acquisition from K.S. or date of upload to wherever is better than no date.

--P64 (talk) 19:43, 5 December 2014 (UTC)

Hugo ceremony attendance
It has been widely reported that Silverberg is now the only person to have attended every Hugo Awards ceremony since their inception: the claim is made in a wide variety of places. Is this a fact notable enough to include in the article? Obviously the day will come when it isn't true -- either death or circumstance will prevent him from attending one -- and then I don't know if it stays in that he attended every ceremony from 1953 to 20XX. So I know, I know, WP:BE BOLD, but I figured I'd ask here first in case anyone had any strong opinions one way or the other. :-) Jwrosenzweig (talk) 07:22, 9 September 2016 (UTC)
 * It may well be true that he's the only one to have attended them all, but I'm not quite seeing that claim in the links you've provided—just that he has attended them all. That in itself seems worthy of inclusion, although I wouldn't use the sfsignal.com source, where the claim is made as a comment in response to the article. Rivertorch&#39;s Evil Twin (talk) 07:43, 9 September 2016 (UTC)

Jewish heritage
He's of Jewish heritage, isn't he? 173.88.241.33 (talk) 07:05, 8 May 2017 (UTC)
 * Why do you ask? Are you proposing a change to the article? Rivertorch   FIRE WATER   16:22, 8 May 2017 (UTC)

Robert K. Silverberg ?
Is he using "Robert K. Silverberg" pen name for the Majipoor series? Some of his books are credited with this name on Amazon and Penguin Random House, although I found no reference a middle name:

https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/311081/lord-valentines-castle-by-robert-k-silverberg/

https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/authors/230733/robert-k-silverberg -Paul- (talk) 19:11, 28 August 2018 (UTC)

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Another pseudonym
www.goodreads.com indicates Silverberg used an additional pseudonym, David Challon, for e.g., Campus Love Club, Thirst for Love, Suburban Affair, and Campus Hellcat. I would expect those, too, to be "outstanding erotic novels". GeorgeTSLC (talk) 03:35, 6 June 2020 (UTC)

80 published stories in one year?
That must be some kind of world record... --ExperiencedArticleFixer (talk) 22:55, 11 July 2020 (UTC)
 * See List of prolific writers for the competition. Jonathan A Jones (talk) 06:33, 12 July 2020 (UTC)
 * Thanks. That list includes some truly unbelievable claims, like that a guy wrote 1000 novels in 6 years... --ExperiencedArticleFixer (talk) 08:40, 14 July 2020 (UTC)

In 1959, the market for science fiction collapsed...
The article says a citation is needed for this. I think that p.231-4 of Frederik Pohl's "The Way the Future Was" fits this quite nicely. Also, the wording on this could be better: according to Pohl many SF magazines went under at that time due to the loss of the nationwide distributor American News Company. So the market was still there, but many magazines no longer had a distributor to deliver their product to the news and magazine stands. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Walmacd (talk • contribs) 15:03, 11 October 2021 (UTC)
 * Sounds reasonable, and also uncontroversial so I suggest you just make the edit. If you're worried about formatting then you can ask here, or just go ahead as best you can and let somebody else fix any minor issues. Also note that you should sign your name afer comments on talk pages by adding four ~ symbols. Jonathan A Jones (talk) 10:32, 13 October 2021 (UTC)