Plot summary
In a decadent and caste-based future, humanity is divided into guilds, each having a specific job to do. The members of some guilds appear to have undergone genetic engineering, for instance, the Fliers' ability to fly and the Watchers' ability to watch distant stars.
The main character in the novella is a Watcher whose mission is to watch the skies with some sophisticated equipment and to inform the Defenders in the event of an alien invasion. Along with a young Flier girl and a Changeling (who belongs to no guild), he visits the old city of Roum (suspected previously to be called Rome), and becomes entangled in events including the possibility of invasion.
Apart from Roum, a number of other great cities are mentioned including Jorslem (Jerusalem), Stambool (Istanbul), Marsay (Marseilles), Donsk (Gdańsk), Nayrub (Nairobi), Dijon, Palerm (Palermo) and Perris (Paris), but their greatness is relative, as they only have a few thousand inhabitants.
Frederik George Pohl Jr. was an American science-fiction writer, editor, and fan, with a career spanning nearly 75 years—from his first published work, the 1937 poem "Elegy to a Dead Satellite: Luna", to the 2011 novel All the Lives He Led.
Michael John Moorcock is an English–American writer, particularly of science fiction and fantasy, who has published a number of well-received literary novels as well as comic thrillers, graphic novels and non-fiction. He has worked as an editor and is also a successful musician. He is best known for his novels about the character Elric of Melniboné, which were a seminal influence on the field of fantasy in the 1960s and 1970s.
Roger Joseph Zelazny was an American poet and writer of fantasy and science fiction short stories and novels, best known for The Chronicles of Amber. He won the Nebula Award three times and the Hugo Award six times, including two Hugos for novels: the serialized novel ...And Call Me Conrad (1965), subsequently published under the title This Immortal (1966) and then the novel Lord of Light (1967).
Philip José Farmer was an American author known for his science fiction and fantasy novels and short stories.
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Kate Wilhelm was an American author. She wrote novels and stories in the science fiction, mystery, and suspense genres, including the Hugo Award–winning Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang. Wilhelm established the Clarion Workshop along with her husband Damon Knight and writer Robin Scott Wilson.
The 27th World Science Fiction Convention (Worldcon), also known as St. Louiscon, was held on 28 August–1 September 1969 at the Chase Park Plaza Hotel in St. Louis, Missouri, United States.
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Gilgamesh in the Outback is a science fiction novella by American writer Robert Silverberg, a sequel to his historical novel Gilgamesh the King as well as a story in the shared universe series Heroes in Hell. It won the Hugo Award for Best Novella in 1987 and was also nominated for the Nebula Award for Best Novella in 1986. Originally published in Asimov's Science Fiction, it was then printed in Rebels in Hell before being incorporated into Silverberg's novel To the Land of the Living. Real-life writers Robert E. Howard and H. P. Lovecraft feature as characters in the novella.
The Nebula Awards #18 is an anthology of science fiction short works edited by American writer Robert Silverberg. It was first published in hardcover by Arbor House in October 1983; a paperback edition with cover art by Gary LoSasso was issued by Bantam Books in September 1984.
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World's Best Science Fiction: 1968 is an anthology of science fiction short stories edited by Donald A. Wollheim and Terry Carr, the fourth volume in a series of seven. It was first published in paperback by Ace Books in 1968. It was reprinted by the same publisher in 1970 under the alternate title World's Best Science Fiction: Fourth Series. The first hardcover edition was published by Gollancz in 1969.
Nightwing is a fictional superhero appearing in comic books published by DC Comics.
An Infinite Summer is the second collection of science fiction short stories by British writer Christopher Priest and the first of his books to collect stories set in the Dream Archipelago. The stories had all previously been published in various anthologies and magazines; they may be described, somewhat interchangeably, as science fiction, fantasy literature, metafiction and macabre.
List of the published work of Robert Silverberg, American science fiction author.
"Born with the Dead" is a science fiction novella by Robert Silverberg. It describes a near-future world in which the recently dead can be "rekindled" to a new life, but one in which their personalities and attitudes are radically changed; although they possess their memories from their previous lives, their former concerns no longer appear important to them. The story parallels that of Eurydice and Orpheus in the underworld.
"Giant Killer" is a science fiction short story by A. Bertram Chandler. It was first published in the October 1945 issue of Astounding Science Fiction, and later included in many science fiction anthologies, including World of Wonder edited by Fletcher Pratt. In 1996 it was shortlisted for a Retro Hugo Award for Best Novella.
Nebula Award Stories 5 is an anthology of award-winning science fiction short works edited by James Blish. It was first published in the United Kingdom in hardcover by Gollancz in November 1970. The first American edition was published by Doubleday in December of the same year. Paperback editions followed from Pocket Books in the U.S. in January 1972, and Panther in the U.K. in December 1972. The American editions bore the variant title Nebula Award Stories Five. The book has also been published in German.
Chains of the Sea is a 1973 anthology of three science-fiction novellas: "And Us, Too, I Guess" by George Alec Effinger, "Chains of the Sea" by Gardner Dozois, and "The Shrine of Sebastian" by Gordon Eklund, edited and with an introduction by Robert Silverberg.
