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Biography
Robert Silverberg was born in New York City on 15 January 1935 to Michael and Helen
Silverberg, an only child. He tends to keep his personal life to himself, but he has made
allusions to being a lonely and bitter child who found a release of a sort in science
fiction and fantasy.
In 1949 he started a science fiction fanzine called Spaceship and made his first
professional sale to Science Fiction Adventures, a non-fiction piece called "Fanmag," in
the December 1953 issue. His first professional fiction publication was "Gorgon Planet"
in the February 1954 issue of the British magazine Nebula Science Fiction. His first
novel, Revolt on Alpha C, was published in 1955.
His major works are Nightwings, Dying Inside, Tower of Glass, Thorns, Downward to
the Earth, The Book of Skulls, and Shadrach in the Furnace. Among the excellent
shorter works are "Sundance", "Born with the Dead", "Caliban", and "In Entropy's
Jaws". Virtually everything dated from about 1969 to 1974 is of high quality. It is this
period which produced the main concentration of awards.