Overpopulation and Robert Silverberg

This week sees the reissue of The World Inside, a long-obscure science-fiction novel that could become a miniseries on HBO.

Of course, it's delicious to think of this hyper-urbanized future world -- in which people live in 800-story apartment complexes and have sex whenever they want -- serving as the setting for the next Deadwood or The Wire.

The novel's author, Robert Silverberg, is a veteran sf writer who really his his stride in the early '70s, around the time he moved to Oakland, where he still lives.

He's aways been a bit of a contrarian, and during the field's late '60s/early '70s period, much of sf was especially left wing. Silverberg has framed himself in contrast as a Burkean conservative with a respect for tradition, allegiances to traditional "high" culture and libertarian leanings.

With books like The Population Bomb and other expressions of Malthusian dread appearing in this period, Silverberg released a novel in which people have adapted to overpopulation and live with it more or less happily.

Here is my piece on The World Inside for io9, which includes a brief interview with Silverberg. And here an earlier (and broader) LA Times profile of the author, tied to the reissue of another "lost" early '70s classic, Dying Inside.

The End is Near

The apocalypse novel is one of my favorite literary genres, and I've been thinking lately about a subgenre I'm calling the soft apocalypse. It's halfway between Noah's Arc and the Book of Revelation -- midway between "London Calling" and "Ecotopia" -- and for historical reasons has been picking up steam the last few years. It's typically rustic, sad and often ambiguous rather than ultra-violent and abrupt. Though some of these books are described as science-fiction, there is typically little science extant in the worlds these novels describe.

HERE is my week of work on the science/technology/futurism/sci-fi site io9, with the apocalypse piece as my top post. Did not have room or time for some of my almost-favorites -- LeGuin's tribal, post-apoc Napa Valley in Always Coming Home, or Denis Johnson's shattered seaside world of cargo-cult pop-cult superstition in Fiskadoro.

Apocalypse authority Justin Taylor, whose Apocalypse Reader I heartily recommend, has pointed out that Robinson Jeffers rugged West Coast poetry, in its relations of human beings to surrounding flora and fauna, in its individualistic way fits the category.

One of my most requested pieces from the LATimes -- reprinted as the lead piece in the journal The Los Angeles Review -- was a an '07 piece about apocalypse fiction and where it was going. Cormac McCarthy's The Road was one of the keystones. That piece also asked, Why this? And why now? Here it is.

Eight Decades of Ursula K. Le Guin

TODAY one of the most innovative and intriguing writers in the english language marks her 80th birthday. there aren't many novelists who i enjoy as much today as i did when i was in elementary school; ursula le guin is one of them.

here is the recent LA Times piece i wrote on her after visiting her in portland and re-immersing myself in her body of work and the debates around it. she was a very sharp, wide-ranging conversationalist i wish i could have spent more time with.

and here is a guardian piece in which i discuss her role (alongside berkeley high classmate philip k. dick, among others) in leading my generation of novelists away from realism.

le guin is best known for her "earthsea" books, which are inspired by tolkien and carl jung and in turn inspired the harry potter novels. her two consensus science-fiction masterpieces are "the left hand of darkness" and "the dispossessed," which grow in rereading. but her last novel, "lavinia," which pursues a minor character from virgil's "aeniad," is wonderful as well.

(here is a birthday note from the SFWA, and a characteristically wry note from sf writer robert silverberg.)

looking forward to many more years of productivity from this american original.

The Visions of Robert Silverberg

THE term "literary science-fiction writer" is nearly as awkward as renaming comic books "graphic novels." but for some figures it's important to understanding, as it is in the case of robert silverberg, author of "nightwings," "the book of skulls," the valentine series of fantasy novels and the darker-than-dark philip-roth-gone-telepath novel from the early '70s, "dying inside."

i had the great honor to meet silverberg up at his medieval style home in oakland recently, and HERE is the ensuing LATimes story. was surprised by silverberg's presence -- he is a kind of dignified old dude, gore vidal in the body of a straight jewish libertarian. his idols are h.g. wells and edmund burke.

glad to report that my rereading of "dying inside," which was just reissued and which i had not read since i was a teenager, confirmed my earlier ardor for it. michael chabon and jonathan lethem, who i interviewed for the story, share my fondness for the novel. the esteemed pulitzer winning critic michael dirda just penned this wonderful washpost review.

interested parties should come see my panel at latimes bookfest this saturday, where i interview silverberg alongside SF legends harry harrison and joe haldeman.

Photo credit: Locus magazine