Dying Inside by Robert Silverberg

With the exception of Blood Meridian and maybe John Dies at the End, at least in terms of plot, I have had the fortune of reading really amazing books lately. Just think: Lucifer’sHammer, Alvin Maker Book One: Seventh Son, Destination: Void, Pavane (review out soon), and Invitation to a Beheading before that (I should also say here that I do not necessarily post reviews in the same order in which I read. Do not be annoyed, however! For I also do not speak in the order my thoughts come out. It is quite natural for me to do it this way). I’ve had it good lately. Especially in the Science Fiction department; most of which are books from another era and are regarded as classics, or “books I should have read by now,” but I am enjoying catching up on all these greats. Robert Silverberg, more famous for being a short story writer, whose novels A Time of Changes and Nightfall (co-authored with Isaac Asimov) I have already enjoyed, really blew me away with Dying Inside.

It is a difficult one to explain, and the easiest way I can put it is that if you have ever read The Time Traveller’s Wife, it is similar to that in many ways: tone, character development, a few overlapping plot lines that the hero’s power creates and makes awkward; but written by a man. Oh yeah and there’s lots of sex in both books. Big plus there on both of them.

David Selig has the power to read minds…always has. He was born with it. Not in a super power sort of sense, but in an odd way that seems basic to him. He has had this power for so long he sort of forgets how unique it is. It makes him a pain to deal with for normal people. Ruins relationships. And growing up, he didn’t even know he was the only one who possessed such a power, just figured everyone could do it.

In fact, a brief chapter on him growing up turns out to be one of my favourite scenes in the entire book. As a young man he is asked to see a psychologist because his parents worry so much about him not fitting in at school. He answers all of the psychologists questions honestly at first, but as the interview moves on, the boy picks up things that the scientist finds very interesting, specifically things about “pee- pees” and “tushies” and when he sees how seriously the man locks onto those keywords by reading the psych's mind, whilst quietly but frantically taking notes, the boy expands upon them and then steers everything back to those particular references. He eventually adopts the scientist’s own technical terminology when referring to these parts, and this move, playing a fun game with the man’s brain, is dangerous but also innocent because the young man honestly doesn’t know any better.

There are actually many great scenes like that though, and some people have such hostile personalities that it is difficult to harness them and probe their mind, as though the energy locked inside from contained emotion makes it treacherous for his self-described mental tendrils to probe. Such is the case with one of the athletes, a 6’9” black basketball player he meets and tries to work with.

Not only does this danger feel like real danger, but it is compounded by the fact that, as the book’s title implies, his power is slipping. It is a difficult journey about how he manages, and is nice when he talks about how he used to be when he had it working well. He could use it to hone in on some girl in his crowded apartment and within the evening, bang her; then work part time on Wall Street when he needed cash and make unbelievably good calls on stock options before big deals were announced. Which is probably what we would all do, right? I mean, just think of it: if you had that power, not only the basic “what would you do with it” questions should be asked, but also “how would your life turn out?” If you get bummed out by how generally shitty people are, it is only going to get worse if you can read their thoughts. At least that’s what I feel like, and why I feel bad for poor David Selig. It’s an interesting concept, for sure.

Even more interesting to me though is how one copes with losing such a power! Sure, we've all fantasized about the ability to fly, stop bullets with a force field we can control, see through girl's clothes and such, but have we ever thought how we'd cope if we were born with such a talent, never really learning to appreciate what it must be like not to have it, and then gradually begin to lose it? It's kind of like sight. Or memory. Or Giving a Fuck. Or having hair on my head, when you think about it.

But David never gets over how awkward having the power is. How devastating it is to his relationships with family, friends, lovers and bosses. So maybe it fading away is a good thing. I find myself feeling really bad for him at times, and I honestly think Silverberg makes him a very believable, relatable character with a power that just doesn’t serve someone like him practically.

One other thing I would like to include is a sort of similarity I saw between it and Time Traveller's Wife on sex. I don't think he ever time travelled during sex, in Time Traveller's Wife, I mean. And I may have my facts wrong, but I remember it as being a reason to bang constantly. He also went jogging a lot, because he also tended not to travel during jogging. But lots of sex and the power was at bay during sex, I think I'm remembering that right. Anyway, David Selig can probe a girl's mind during sex, and really get inside her head to know everything she's experiencing (I mean talk about all I would be doing with that power if I had it!) until the moments nearing orgasm, when there is just too much energy for him to sustain a presence inside. He is then ejected, forcefully, from her mind and emotions and can feel nothing through her when she actually climaxes. I thought it interesting both books involve some breaking of this supernatural power through sex.

In summation, a very fun book and if you’re not a Robert Silverberg fan yet, and only care to read maybe one of his books, I say make it this one. The man has range, it is much different than A Time of Changes and especially Nightfall, but I’ll leave Nightfall alone and recommend it to those who are doomsday sci-fi fans.

Kalpa Imperial

This collection of short stories chronicles the Greatest Empire that (n)ever was, a sort of fictional history about a fictional empire that remains true to South American style fantasy worlds. Rather than load it with monsters and dragons and legendary heroics, it shares relatable common heroes/heroines in their all-too believable world that mirrors ours, or at least a universe we recognise as something that actually exists. South American fantasy worlds like those created by Gabriel Garcia Marquez are never so unbelievable that you feel it is difficult to get into the story.

Argentine author Angelica Gorodischer is no different. Though some of the history is a thinly veiled sarcastic commentary on greedy, despotic rulers and the problems with monarchs who hand down the reign to the next generation of poorly raised high-born tyrants, many of the stories involve on the philosophies of the outsiders: story-tellers, noblemen, rebels and workmen and peasants and their impact on the various Emperors.

The second to last story I found very interesting, it involved an individual who escaped the Empire and its reach to head south, the South, if you will, where savages live in small villages and have none of the benefits/drawbacks that the folk living within the Empire receive. His quest is one of escape and survival at first, but takes an inadvertent turn and becomes a quest for knowledge. There are some prophecies and other nonsense, and eventually the Empire comes for him and all hell breaks loose in a few pages; but what I noticed about this short story is how closely it mimics the plot of Robert Silverberg’s Nebula Award winning novel A Time of Changes (1971).

I don’t wish to make this review too A Time of Changes­-y but I will say that it is a fantastic novel. A lot of egoism and hence, individuality, has been banned from the states that make up the empire in the civilized North. A drug that opens minds (this novel came out the same year as my favourite movie, Vanishing Point, also about individual freedom and rampant drug use, and I don’t believe that is by mere coincidence) and teaches people the of love, comes from the uncivilized Southern continent (no silly, it is not a sci-fi Colombia, or Kolombya or anything like that) and after using it regularly and realizing he just does not fit into his society, the protagonist loads up on drugs and begins expanding people’s minds. He makes almost a diplomatic mission of it, not so much to change the culture but to share love with the people he cares about. After getting into some majour shit for this, he fleas for the south to live with the natives down there, score some hallucinogens and live in the desert until, alas, the Empire comes for him.

They sound similar, do they not? Well something about that sort of world, that sort of treachery and intrigue sets up an enjoyable atmosphere for me in both stories. And the writing styles by the authors are sufficiently different, with different worlds and different characters with varying purposes that each story is unique, despite my trying to make them sound like the same thing. I am also glad I read A Time of Changes first because I would hate to have started that book and then, 60 pages in, gone “ah wait, I know how this one ends.”

Some of the stories in Kalpa Imperial are actually weak; they just cannot all be winners. But the good ones are very good and the universe in which it takes place is at least consistent and consistently interesting, and very well thought out. I would recommend this book to any casual sci-fi/fantasy fan, but since there is no hardcore magic or monsters I would be hesitant to get LOTR nerds or sci-fi space alien loving nerds into it. Great read though.