Roma Eterna is an ambitious attempt at alternate history and the base assumption is audacious indeed. What, asks Silverberg, if the Roman Empire had never really collapsed but instead endured and prospered? Silverberg proceeds to answer this question by highlighting a series of 10 historical moments in such an alternative history that could mark key turning points in such an Empire. The vignettes themselves are often absorbing and Silverberg mixes in just enough actual history to make the venture worthwhile. Human nature, one sees, remains the same irrespective of ruler or system of government. The Empire parallels with real history like the bloody purges of Robespierre and the colonial voyages that subjugated (often brutally) the Orient and the New World. For all its ponderous bureaucratic inertia and the sheer logistic barriers, the Empire is pervasive and powerful enough to crush any attempt at true democracy - brief flickers of a "Republic" which is more an oligarchy or merchant aristocracy are as far as we go. In the end, a band of Hebrews seeks to escape to another plant as the only alternative to Rome's crushing embrace.

Bold as this attempt at alternative history is, Silverberg strangely falters thereafter. His examination of the circumstances in each of the 10 events is disappointingly shallow and the ending in particular seems highly contrived. A map of the world using the Roman names for various countries and a parallel timeline linking the Roman dates with the AD calendar would have made things easier for the reader as well. Having read several of Silverberg's masterpieces. I expected better from him. I started reading this book as if sitting down to a delicious meal; by the end, it was as if the food had been but an illusion and my hunger remained unappeased.

The Exodus failed to take the Jews from Egypt into the Promised Land. Thus Christianity never surfaces as the Jewish people remain enslaved in Egypt. Still Rome rises to defeat the neighboring Barbarians. The rest is history (at least alternative) as key global events fostered by ROMA ETERNA starting in A.U.C. 1203 (A.D. 405 our time) into the next fifteen centuries occur as the Roman Empire ebbs and grows.

Robert Silverberg rewrites several of his related short stories into an epic alternative historical novel that engages the reader with intriguing theories of how much different the world would be if one pivotal event (albeit Moses leading the Jews) had a different ending. Though entertaining and easily hooking the audience, the tale still feels more like a short story collection as none of the characters (over the fifteen hundred years) feel fully developed. Still sub-genre readers will relish this fascinating saga of a seemingly eternal Roman Empire as each subsequent chapter builds off of events that chronologically (and literally) preceded it.

Harriet Klausner

Robert Silverberg's "Roma Eterna" is actually a collection of short stories he wrote between 1989 and 2003 detailing a Roman Empire that never fell. While each story is a stand-alone tale within the alternate history of the world, taken together, they read much like another recent alternate history that details a radically different history of Euroe and Asia: Kim Stanley Robinson's "Years of Rice and Salt".

It becomes apparent very early in the book that Silverberg envisions not merely one but a chain of events as being necessary for Rome to not fall: a failed Jewish Exodus, Christianity never arising, a strong Emperor heading off the Third Century crisis, a definitive destruction of the Northern barbarians and Persia and an assassination of Mohammed before he could spread the word of Allah. In the context of world history we as we know it, the chain is a pretty fragile one, but it does make for an interesting exercise in history - much like the entire book. Some of his ideas have a very real ring of possibility to them: a Rome squandering the military might of a generation on an unsuccessful attempt at invading the Americas, Eastern and Western Empires that eventually fall on each other in a series of Civil Wars, a Rome grown fat and decadent on trade throughout the world that breeds emperors even more insane and bizarre than those known historically. However, for each of these interesting and realistic twists, he allows himself more than a few historical parallels: the World Wars, Leonardo da Vinci, the French Revolution - and his modern Rome (of 1970) bears a great deal of resemblance to a modern Europe under a traditional Roman hegemony.

In all, though, I really liked this book, although I suspect it's not for everyone. In fact, I would direct scholars or fans of Roman and Byzantine history towards it before I would the average sci-fi/fantasy/alternate history fan. He knows his Roman history well, and he's not afraid to make obscure use of it. Sometimes this makes for neat touches (like having the Eastern Empire fall to the West in 1453, the year the Eastern Empire in actuality fell to the Ottomans), and sometimes it just makes for a lot of names and dates. The book is basically one great conceit to the 'what if' bundled inside an extensive history. If that's your sort of thing (and it certainly is mine), you'll love it. Otherwise, you may find youself rapidly bored or confused.

I would recomend people who are interested in fantasy, Atlantis, or time travel to read this. This book was very interesting to me because I'm really into fantasy and Atlantis. This is an extremely interesting theory of the destruction of Atlantis and it could very well be true. Another reason this is a good book is because of the conversations that Prince Ram and Roy have after Roy confesses he is in the Prince's mind. I thought that those were the best parts of the book.

As an Atlantean expert, I found that "Letters from Atlantis" tallies with the information given in Bruce Coville's "The Search for Snout", Disney's "A:TLE", and many other resources. It was also a terrific read, though the end was a bit less than I had expected. Anyone looking for more information on Atlantis, Atlantica, Athilan, Romany Star, or time travel should definately read this!

Julia "Atlantima" Butler
Master in "The City of Atlantis" ~ Neopets.com
The Lost Empire Poet ~ FanFiction.net
Diehard A:TLE fan ~ AIM
Devoted follower of St. Milo

This is one of the best books I have ever read. It is about a man, Roy, who travels back in time to Atlantis in a Prince's brain, and you won't believe what he discover's

This book is a collection of eighteen fantasy stories, from some very distinguished and well known authors. Unfortunately for me these stories have already been covered in almost every other fantasy anthology book available.

Still, there are some noteworthy tales here. While there are a few fantasy-fantasy stories (knights and dragons and minor magic) most of the stories are contemporary tales that, not fitting into the general "fiction" category, ended up as "fantasy." Many times such tales get classified under the "science fiction" category. Many in fact I do recognize from "Analog", "Science Fiction and Fantasy", and "Asimov's" magazines.

Included tales that struck my fancy are "The Edge of the World" (Michael Stanwick), about three bored contemporary teens who decide to descend the abyss at the edge of town. Good sense of wonder in this one (it really does seem to be the Edge of the World since there is an endless stairway that winds its way down, and down, and down endlessly), and the protagonists are real and believable with lots of angst, and confusion about life (and not the Edge itself). "Wong's Lost and Found Emporium" (William Wu) is about a strange shop where you can find things that you have lost; and not just that charm bracelet you lost at the beach but perhaps lost hopes and dreams as well. Not as cliche as it sounds.

The authors participating are (last name only for space): Zelazny, Haldeman, de Lint, Bishop, Martin, Kushner, Foster, Silverberg, Tiptree, Wu, Ellison, Bear, Springer, Le Guin, Norton, Stanwick, Card, Niven.

A Minus: the publishing rights/agency credits are given, but not the sources/bibliography. Each story here came from somewhere else; Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Asimov's, Locus, Interzone, etc. Not a mention of any resource. Some of us like to know this stuff.

It's clear that the publishers of this book elected Silverberg to cough up a fantasy anthology, and he wasn't quite up to the task. Usually he makes better selections when he edits such a book. In fairness I will say that most of the stories here have won, or have been nominated for, the various yearly awards (World Fantasy, Hugo, Nebula, etc.)

If you have three or more contemporary fantasy anthologies, chances are you already have all of the stories in this book. If you do not, and are looking for sword and sorcery, this book isn't it. If you are looking for "contemporary" style fantasy, this may suit your taste.

This is a good little book of Fantasy Short Fiction. Recommended

Murasaki star system contains a duo of inhabitable planets that orbit each other: Genji - a high-gravity world with a dense, soupy atmosphere; and Chujo - an arid, wintry world of canyons and wind-swept plains. Neither is perfect for humans - on Genji they must wear pressure suits in addition to getting used to gravity levels half-again as high as on Earth; Chujo is more forgiving, though it can be intensely cold. Both planets serve home to sapient races: the Ihrdizu of Genji - low-tech amphibians that congregate in small villages; and the humanoids of Chujo - aloof, mysterious beings that ignore the humans entirely. It is here that the first manned interstellar expeditions will arrive, bearing humans of all frames of mind - Earthlings and off-worlders, atheists and philosophers, mystics and iconoclasts...

Instead of being a collaborative novel, "Murasaki" is a mixed bag of science fiction stories that share a setting, each written by a different award-winning author. Mind the fact that the only interesting part is the fairly in-depth world-creation notes (included as appendices), and that the stories are pathetically shallow and lead virtually nowhere...

...That is precisely what I though about this "science fiction novel in six parts" prior to reading the last two parts, which are so refreshingly, profoundly excellent that I almost wept with awe. A mystery of interplanetary proportions is suddenly built up and then revealed in flying colors.

It's really a pity that the rest of Murasaki doesn't follow suit.

I became interested in this book after reading Otherness by David Brin. One of the short stories in Otherness is actually a chapter in Murasaki. The book itself is has a very intruiging storyline and I enjoyed reading much of it. The only problam I had was the mental transition I had to make with each chapter of the book, as they are all written by different authors.

All in all, I would definitely recommend this book for anyone who likes the work of Brin, Bear, Anderson, Pohl, Kress etc etc etc.. They all wrote parts of it.

A good read.

The best stories in this collection are the short ones for the simple reason that they inflict less suffering on the reader than do the long ones. Seldom has a sequel fallen as far short of the standards set by its predecessor as does this anthology which is the follow up to the highly regarded Alien Sex. It contains 18 stories, 16 of which were new for this collection in 1996. The other four stories go back as far as the sixties. There are also two poems.

The dominant theme in this anthology is prostitution. Almost half of the stories deal with this topic in one form or another. By contrast, in the original anthology, there is a much greater variety of subject matter.

No more than half of the stories in here merit inclusion in an anthology and the others range from poor to utterly dreadful.

I can recommend Brian Stableford's "The House of Mourning" and Elizabeth Hand's "In the Month of Athyr" as standing out from the rest but of the other 18 pieces, I awarded more lower rankings than I have ever done for any other anthology that I have ever read.

If there is one way in which collection is like "Alien Sex" it is the fact that this is not a book of of erotic writing. I doubt that any reader will feel aroused by the content of the book. That is not a criticism, it's just that some of the write ups on the jacket are misleading.

If you like the general idea of a collection of stories about alien sex, you should buy "Alien Sex" from the same editor. That is a far better book.

Ellen Datlow has done it once again -- assembling disparate tales, spanning decades of writing and a multitude of writing styles, into an anthology that is thematically cohesive and offers a bit of something for everyone. Anthologies are often difficult to review because of the diversity of voices, but if the reader approaches this collection as a buffet (from which one may pick and choose) rather than a 12 course meal, there will be more than one can consume at one sitting. Classic stories by Robert Silverberg and Samuel R. Delany have been intermixed with more recent works by Neil Gaiman, Joyce Carol Oates, Elizabeth Hand, and 17 more of today's leading writers. Off Limits includes provocative tales of close encounters -- love, sex and life -- and plays with your perceptions of what is truly alien. One piece of advice: skip reading the Foreward by Silverberg and the Introduction by Datlow as they unfairly offer judgements of what the reader will find between the book covers and tainted my desire to read further. I found much more depth and content to contemplate than Datlow and Silverberg gave the author's credit for

Being fond of ancient Sumer in general and the Gilgamesh epic in particular, I found Mr. Silverberg's book a profound disappointment. It appears that the author's intention was to rework the venerable story to remove its fantastic elements. Along the way he practically ignores an interesting milieu, makes the characters boring, and replaces dynamic episodes with confusing ones.

Admittedly, Mr. Silverberg did make an effort to make his characters seem as though they actually are living in a different day and time. However, as historical fiction this book falls flat. (If you want historical fiction set in Sumer check out The Three Brothers of Ur by J.G. Fyson, and forget this book.)

Gilgamesh The King is a thoroughly engrossing retelling of the famous Sumerian myth from the perspective of the figure himself. It creates a plausible blend of superstition, ancient knowledge and characterization as underpinnings of the legend.
In the same way that Mary Stewart's historical tales carry the reader to ancient times through the eyes and thoughts of the main character, Gilgamesh The King brings a profound humanity to such fabled material.

An entertaining spin on the myth of Gilgamesh, by one of our foremost living authors. I have read the original (or a translation, anyway) and it is remarkable how he manages to be so faithful to the tone of the book and yet to shore up an often-fragmentary narrative. Definitely, a must-read.

I hate to say it, but this series ended with more of a whimper than a bang. The first novel was good, a little strangely paced (took forever to get to the Isle, then -zip! the book was over), but still a good read. The second book was also good, probably the best of the three. But then this book takes a big dip in quality. Valentine comes off looking like a naive, almost[...]bumpkin, who insists on dealing with every situation with love and peace, even as it becomes more and more obvious that his enemies are out to destroy him. The book starts with him fainting because he has a premonition that Majipoor is in trouble, and he never really rallies from that experience. From there he bumbles from place to place, never quite sure what to do but determined to do it without force. And this guy leads 50 billion people?!

As noted by other reviewers, many of the surrounding characters are not well drawn out and in many cases, hardly have any dialog. And the ending is almost preposterous.

OK, I've painted a pretty bleak picture here. But the saving of this novel is Hissune, the young protege of Valentine who's up on Castle Mount learning how to become a Coronal. Training that apparently Valetine missed. Anyway, Hissune is a great strong character, and it is always a delight when he is the subject of a chapter. In the end, Silverberg makes some good points about governments and the governing process, but never brings this book up to the standard of the other two books. If you have read the other two books, then go ahead and read this, it is still decent. If you have never read Majipoor, then run away as fast as you can and go read the other two first, or you'll never pick up another Majipoor novel again!

The war between Valentine and the shapeshifters continues to mount throughout the book, until it comes to a silly ending.

Did Silverberg just get tired of writing? Complex problems seldom have such simple solutions.

I love Valentine, he's one of my favorite characters from all of literature. Valentine Pontifex is a bit weaker than the first two books, but is still a fitting end to the saga of Valentine, Metamorphs, and Majipoor. Hissune is cool!

Something about this book just didn't click for me. Hot Sky at Midnight takes place in the not-so-distant future, when humans have ruined the ecology to such an extent that they will die out unless genetically modified. The modifications needed to save the race would be so extreme that the survivors might not even be human anymore.

With this as a backdrop, we meet Nick Rhodes, a brilliant but naive geneticist struggling with the ethics of his work. We also meet Paul Carpenter, a very junior exec who is trying to move up in the corporate world. Mr. Silverberg does a very good job at the beginning of introducing these characters and the decisions they struggle with. However, about halfway through the book, he has the characters do things "out of character." Paul, supposedly a moral anchor who does the right thing out of instinct, makes an incredibly stupid and callous decision which kills people. Nick, an indecisive incipient alcoholic, is able to make up his own mind to remove a monopoly on genetic technology.

It seemed that halfway through the book, Mr. Silverberg needed to find a way to finish it. He did so, but not in a satisfying way.

A bit of skyward soap opera here complete with love and lust. The Author presents cast of characters all submerged in the dystopian world of lust within environmentally ruined cities. Global warming has flooded the seacoasts, nearly destroyed Japan and turned the good old days on its head. To finalize this headlong dive into dystopia many of the characters are blown up in an ill fated plot to conquer a space station, get rich quick and live happily ever after.

There were a few flaws in this story where irrelevant questions were given high priority. For example, one big question posed was whether company S or company K would make the adapto metabolic breakthroughs, thus allowing for a new species of man who could breath methane rather than oxygen. Such a successful process would allow either company to one day control the world. This reader didn't see what difference it would make who the winner was.

The stories most novel idea was that faster than light space travel will render ordinary human sight useless, requiring man to develop trick vision in order to pilot space ships to new worlds. Even the brilliant character, Farcas, who develops a new kind of sightless vision, must be sacrificed to the plot's need to end the story. Another main character is led through a series of failures so mind shattering that he volunteers for the flight to outer space with no other hope but to erase the memory of his life on planet earth. With no dreams there will be no further disillusionment.

In a not too distant future the ecological mistakes of the 20th Century will have led to disaster. The melting of the polar ice cap will have flooded low-lying cities and initiated a cycle of climatic changes that mankind's technology will be unable to break. As a result, most of the U.S. will be covered by desert, pollution will make the air almost unbreathable, and ozone depletion will make even the sun dangerous. These are simple facts of everyday life in this compelling novel of intrigue by sci-fi master Robert Silverberg.

Amidst numerous twists and turns, the story focuses on a plot to overthrow the ruling government of the artificial satellite world called Valparaiso Nuevo. A shadowy figure known as the Generalissimo runs this environmental paradise as a safe haven for any who can pay for its protection. But no one can foresee the catastrophic effects of the actions of a tiny group of men who plan to oust the Generalissimo for their own selfish purposes.

Paul Carpenter is the most sympathetic of these characters, a salaryman who takes a position as a sea captain in his eternal quest for promotion in the Japanese megacorporation that controls half the world's business and industry. His fortunes decline dramatically after a mutiny on the high seas leaves him unemployable. His childhood friend, Nick Rhodes, a brilliant geneticist who is collapsing under the weight of his own ethical dilemma, introduces him to an acquaintance of his driven, opinionated girlfriend Isabelle, the seductive Jolanda. A talented sculptor and even more talented lover, Jolanda is the lynch pin of a plot that includes Enron, an Israeli spy, and Farkus, a genetically altered agent of a rival corporation. Together, their greed, suspicion, ambition, stupidity, and insatiable lust lead to a dramatic conclusion that stands as a brilliant metaphor for the destruction man has wreaked upon his own planet.

This novel features powerful, realistic characters, crushing descriptions of a ravaged earth, and a series of intense situations. Silverberg warns us that our present day course will shortly lead us to a time and place where tough decisions will routinely have to made, and their often tragic consequences accepted, simply because no better alternatives are available. The science is carefuly thought out, but includes plenty of radical surprises as well. This is a fine selection for all fans of science fiction, and a must for those who are interested in how incremental ecological changes can have enormous effects on our future.

God help me, but I cannot comprehend how someone can stand this author.

It is now three novels I have attempted to care about by Silverberg, and I have failed utterly.

For those of us who have read Silverberg's novels located in huge, beautiful and diverse Majipoor, the publication of a new book on this marvelous world is always a special event. Two of three previous books in this saga ("Lord Valentine's Castle" and "Valentine Pontifex"), have been full-length novels, with well developed characters and plots, covering 400 pages or more. The third one ("Majipoor Chronicles")is a collection of short stories, which contains one titled "A thief in Nimoya", which I consider one of the best ever written by Silverberg. However, "Mountains of Majipor" is only a short story, maybe what is considered a "novella" in the science fiction jargon. A large print and a clever page layout converted an otherwise short-story in a novel. The books depicts the adventures of a court noble who is disgraced and sent to one of the most remote and harshest areas of Majipoor, where he finds a primitive people, with very strange customs. His mission is to rescue several scientists who have been kidnapped by that isolated tribe. Silverberg's talent for creating believable and interesting aliens appears again in this book, which offers clues to the origin of one of the native peoples of the planet, the shapeshifters. I consider "Mountains of Majipoor" a loosening exercise by the author, preparing himself for the bigger task of giving his readers once again a full novel placed in Majipoor. That one is "Sorcerers of Majipoor", recently published. It was a good read, I liked it, but I expected a little more depth from one of the most respected authors in science fiction.

I had a hard time getting started with The Mountains of Majipoor, but once I did I couldn't put it down. This book is outstanding. The story is so well defined that I plan on reading it again in the near future. It's a must buy for all sci-fi lovers!

When I first picked this the book while on holiday in Canada the back cover sounded like a real winner. However after a promising first chapter things quickly grind to a halt. Basically aliens invade Earth and take over the planet overnight. Then the Humans bumble around for the next fifty odd years doing very little till the aliens just decide to pack up and leave for no apparent reason.

Now this may sound like a pretty simple and rather boring idea for a book but that is exactly what happens. The main characters are dominated by the Carmichael family. In fact there are so many Carmichaes in the book I had trouble telling them apart after a while, that plus the fact that half of them are named Anson didn't help. Some characters are well developed like Khalid and Borgman but the main family of resistance fighters (I use this term very loosly because in 400 odd pages they do very little resisting) are very forgettable.

The alien motives are never even hinted at let alone explored and I felt very cheated when I finally slugged my way to the final pages. It was like the author coudn't think of a genuine reason why they were there at all. I kept reading just waiting for something to happen. Sadly it never came.

2 out of 5

The plot of this novel makes no secret of being based on H.G. Well's "War of the Worlds." In the forward, author Silverberg discusses that, for him, Well's battle between Martian and Earthling was disappointing. (The common cold was a bit much for them--hardly a military triumph.)

If you saw the film Independence Day, you will recognize many similar elements of an alien-invasion plot; a sudden appearance of an impressive mothership, a ditzy new-age hippy that wants to communicate with the obviously-superior aliens who doubtless have come to liberate mankind (NOT!) and attempts to break into the alien computer system.

However, unlike Independence Day, the resistance takes years and mostly seems (as the Borg would say) futile. Ultimately, the Resistance does make a critical strike with a predictable result (boring.) The novel ends on a surprise, nonetheless.

To me, this is a mediocre novel at best. Only a few characters are well-developed. The novelistic trick used by Silverberg to indicate the passing of time served to spotlight the fact that Silverberg is really more comfortable with the novella format. When he goes long, he gets dull. And the surprise ending did not work for me. It was a very credible ending, but in terms of a resolution, it fell flat for me.

Should you read "The Alien Years?" Sure, it's solid, good sci-fi from one of the true masters of the genre. But if you want Silverberg at his very best, then be sure to read his novellas. In particular, I recommend "Sailing to Byzantium," "The World Inside" and "Born with the Dead." These are award-winning science fiction novellas showing Silverberg's mastery of creativity and language. There is none of his characteristic style and beauty in "The Alien Years." A slight disappointment from one of my favorite science-fiction authors.

Silverberg gives a new twist to the old sci-fi staple of the invasion story, giving the readers a multi-generational epic of life under alien rule. The three distinct species of aliens (one resembling the octopoids of the Wellsian classic fairly closely) arrive on Earth unannounced. Using an undefinable control over electronic devices, the aliens conquer Earth in a matter of days. They punish resistance with overwhelming force and enslave large portions of the remaining human population through telepathic dominance. They give no reason for their conquest, no explanation for the projects they force upon their slaves. They simply arrive -- and take, and take, and take. The will to resist slowly dies as the generations who grew up in a human-ruled world age and die themselves. Throughout the Alien Years, however, a family in southern California, the Carmichaels, remain dedicated to the cause of humanity's ultimate liberation. The book views the occupation largely through the Carmichaels' eyes, as the family evolves from a loose collection of relatives, to a tightly knit clan, to a society apart.