I cannot endorse Silverberg strongly enough. I’m also a big fan of The World Inside, The Second Trip, and Son of Man (although Silverberg experimented with stream
of consciousness and otherwise overtly experimentalist techniques in bits in his other books - Dying Inside often employs them - Son of Man is the only one where the whole book is written in such a mode), and the short story collection Beyond the Safe Zone.
You can feel free to call on me for any of your Robert Silverberg related needs (also should plug The Glass Tower); while I’m here, I just wanted to let you know how much I enjoyed and also learned from The Infernal Library and how convinced I was by the argument that Communism (and other regimes, but there’s a continuous tradition of it in Communism) needs to create a huge body of texts to support an alternate reality from what is actually happening; I’m currently reading The Wilder Shores of Marx by Theodore Dalrymple (one of his best) and it explores a number of related ideas - I strongly recommend it.
Thank you! And I'm very glad that you enjoyed The Infernal Library. I agree that The Wilder Shores of Marx is an excellent book — I even think I may have quoted Dalrymple's observations on how propaganda works in TIL....
The piece on the Californication of Texas in Unherd is very good, acutely observed, recommended.
I cannot endorse Silverberg strongly enough. I’m also a big fan of The World Inside, The Second Trip, and Son of Man (although Silverberg experimented with stream
of consciousness and otherwise overtly experimentalist techniques in bits in his other books - Dying Inside often employs them - Son of Man is the only one where the whole book is written in such a mode), and the short story collection Beyond the Safe Zone.
Thank you for these recommendations—since Silverberg's bibliography is so vast it is very helpful to have some pointers for where to go next.
You can feel free to call on me for any of your Robert Silverberg related needs (also should plug The Glass Tower); while I’m here, I just wanted to let you know how much I enjoyed and also learned from The Infernal Library and how convinced I was by the argument that Communism (and other regimes, but there’s a continuous tradition of it in Communism) needs to create a huge body of texts to support an alternate reality from what is actually happening; I’m currently reading The Wilder Shores of Marx by Theodore Dalrymple (one of his best) and it explores a number of related ideas - I strongly recommend it.
Thank you! And I'm very glad that you enjoyed The Infernal Library. I agree that The Wilder Shores of Marx is an excellent book — I even think I may have quoted Dalrymple's observations on how propaganda works in TIL....