re:mote voices

Title: Lion Time In Timbuctoo
Author: Robert Silverberg
Publisher: Voyager

Lion Time In Timbuctoo is volume 6 in a series of collections of material by science fiction writer Robert Silverberg. Each of the volumes covers a period in Silverberg's 40 some years writing. This collection covers a period between 1989 and 1995, a point where Silverberg was far from his most productive. For me Silverberg is influential, I read dozens of the novels he churned out at his peak while I was in my early 20's. It has been a while since then, and with that it has been awhile since I read very much of Silverberg's work. So for me this is a decent collection of work, which reminds of the sort of range and material he covers. Though, for me, I found the commentary on each story and how it fit into his career just as interesting.

The collection features 14 pieces, which range from shorts to what would more likely be considered novellas. With Red Blaze In The Morning being the only piece I had actually read prior to engaging with this collection. The first piece is the novella Lion Time In Timbuctoo from which the collection takes its title. Lion Time is a follow up to a novel Silverberg did something like 30 years before this story. In there he set up an alternate history, in which Europe had been wiped out by the black plague of 1348. From there the Ottoman Empire had dominated Europe, while African and South American cultures remained strong. Lion Time found itself into print in a number of ways, it was published in magazine form, and as one of 3 novellas set in this environment. As the title suggests, the piece is set in Timbuctoo, and follows a transitional period. Perhaps particularly resonant given the illness and replacement of the Pope recently, the current king "Big Father" has fallen ill and "Little Father" is on stand by. The story follows the tensions of a protracted illness, and the schemes which build up to prevent Little Father taking his rightful place as king.

A Tip On A Turtle, the first of the stories in the collection to have originally been printed in Playboy magazine, follows this. The market that these stories has been written for might sum up why some of these pieces feel a little more understated and tamer than we might expect from classic Silverberg. The plot sees a woman going to a Caribbean island after the break up of her marriage - some time to pull her life back together and relax after the strains of her divorce. While there she meets a strange man, somehow creepy and compelling, and his ability to always bet on the winner of the hotel's nightly turtle races is increasingly unnerving.

In The Clone Zone is another interesting piece like Lion Time, having it at its centre a more exotic location than many Earth based stories perhaps going for. Again this has elements that have a particularly contemporary edge. While cloning is banned in many places around the world at the moment, it is not banned everywhere. This story comes off of the idea that a country somewhere in South America could decide to allow cloning to go ahead. Combined with this is the idea that South America has a history of unstable governments and dictatorships, so that we have a leader who clones himself to maintain his power while cornering the market in the technology. But of course what might seem like a good idea to someone to start with, isn't necessarily going to remain a good idea.

Hunters In The Forest is a mixed piece, one that brings dinosaurs and time travel into play. A man bored of life in the 23rd century has scraped the money together to travel back in time to see dinosaurs, but struggles to build up the enthusiasm he was hoping for. To a degree this is a story about how things change, how we have an ever increasing tendency to make things safe, homogenous, sterile. Although in the process Silverberg also manages to create a quandary for the character, offering him options and forcing him to chose.

A Long Night's Vigil At The Temple is probably the only contribution to the collection that I particularly didn't like. A big part of that is likely to be its context, sold as it is as "the only science fiction homage to Tolkien." The piece was originally printed in a collection of stories celebrating an anniversary of Tolkien's, particularly odd given Silverberg's confessed unfamiliarity with his work. The person compiling the book decided that it didn't matter, and Silverberg wrote Vigil At The Temple based on his vague understanding of Tolkien's themes. The result is a piece which I would tend not to call SF for starters, or particularly bearing resemblance to Tolkien for that matter. A temple has been built based on a religion involving three strange people who weren't human, with inferences of possibly being elves to give that token gesture connection, or aliens for the SF one.

It Comes And Goes is another of the obvious contributions that were originally printed in Playboy. Which in this case led to some changes being requested from Silverberg, would it be possible for a story that is going to be printed in magazine full of adverts for alcohol not to feature an alcoholic? Given that it wasn't a big deal, he agreed to change it to a drug addiction. In the case of the version in this collection, Silverberg has reverted to the original text. Where a recovering alcoholic is struggling to stay dry and get his life back together. So when he comes across a house that comes and goes he initially assumes that he is still experiencing some kind of side effects. However the plot thickens and is increasingly convinced that there is something strange going on. Another of those pieces like Tip On A Turtle that perhaps has more of a Twilight Zone type feel rather than "real" SF.

The Way To Spook City is another novella, a longer piece that Silverberg was able to persuade Playboy to go with. From the notes this was a problematic piece, beset with all sorts of computer problems that threatened to see it to disappear before it was ever finished. The end product has thematic connections with several of the other pieces here, the idea of the familiar turned a little and someone's exploration of that. The aliens have arrived and split America in two, so that the East and West coast remain independent states, but the middle part has become alien territory. This has been the state for 150 years, so people have grown to accept it as much as they can. The story follows one man who holds on to his xenophobia, but is forced to visit the alien capital Spook City when his brother disappears during a rite of passage in alien territory.

Death Us Do Part provides the idea of extended life times, and the effects that can have on people and in particular relationships. Following as it does a woman in her 30's to a man in his 300's, and how she copes with his numerous ex-wifes and kids all of whom are 3 to 10 times older than she is.

The Martian Invasion Journals of Henry James is another of those tribute anthology pieces like the Tolkien one, though in this case the theme was H.G. Wells' War Of The Worlds as seen from the point of view of his contemporaries. Silverberg chose to write the story in the style of Henry James, so it follows the adventures of James and his friend Wells during a period of Martian invasion. I'm not especially aware of James other than as a name that crops up, so I can only assume that Silverberg does a reasonable job in paying tribute to the style. Though for me that style was a little annoying to start with, even if I did eventually get passed that to get on with the story.

Crossing Into Empire is another one of those pieces that contains a number of classic Silverberg themes, as well as having originally been intended to be published in Playboy. However the history of this piece was changed when Silverberg was invited to contribute to a collection being "curated" by the magician David Coperfield. Given that Crossing Into Empire involves the disappearance of a city, Silverberg decided it was particularly suitable for Coperfield. An ancient city appears twice a year in the middle of modern day Chicago, and of course a business has grown up around its appearance. This follows one such appearance, and the dealers who go in to trade modern objects for museum grade artefacts from the past.