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foto Robert Silverberg

Narodil se 1935 v New Yorku, roce 1955 mu byl vydan prvni roman. O rok pozdeji dokoncil na Columbia University obor srovnavaci literatura, a ziskal na Worldconu cenu jako nejlepsi novy autor roku 1955. V roce 1968 se stal presidentem SFWA. Autor nekolika desitek romanu a povidkovych sbirek. Napsal take stovky povidek a nekolik romanovych serii, jeden z nejznamnejsich svetovych autoru SF. Rada jeho del vysla i v Ceske republice. Ceny - 4x Locus Poll Award, 3x Hugo, 5x Nebula, Apollo Award, John W. Campbell Memorial Award a SF Chronicle Award.

Born in 1935 in New York, studied literature at Columbia University. He published his first novel in 1955, the same year he won Worldcon´s award as a new author. Author of thousands of novels and story collections, hundreds of stories and several series, one of the most world-wide known SF writers, a lot of his work was published in Czech Republic too. He was the president of SFWA. Awards - 4x Locus Poll Award, 3x Hugo, 5x Nebula, Apollo Award, John W. Campbell Memorial Award and SF Chronicle Award.

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od/from: Jan Vanek jr. 6.7.1998, 19:26
otazka: Mam dojem, ze jste v 70. letech verejne "vystoupil ze zanru SF". Co vas k tomu primelo a co vas primelo se vratit? question: I seem to recall that you publicly "resigned from the SF genre" in the 70's. What made you do this and what made you come back?
odpoved: V te dobe se zdalo, ze vsechno inteligentni a cenne ve science fiction vyhaneji z trhu veci jako Perry Rhodan. Psal jsem science fiction uz 25 let a splnil si vetsinu spisovatelskych ambici. Jelikoz to vypadalo, ze vysoka kultura se kolem me hrouti, a ja uz jsem nemel financni motivy pro to psat dal, proste jsem odkracel pryc. Po ctyrech a pul roce jsem zjistil, ze mi psani science fiction chybi, a tak jsem se k praci vratil. Byl jsem tehdy porad relativne mlady a bylo moc brzo na to odejit na odpocinek.

Dnesni situace je pro me mnohem vic zneklidnujici nez byla roku 1974 -- Perry Rhodan je pryc, ale mame Star Trek a Hvezdne valky a spoustu dalsich hollywoodskych veci, ktere skoro uplne pohrbily ten druh science fiction, ktery jsem rad cetl a psal. Ale protoze ted uz mi je pres 60 a ne 40, rozhodl jsem se psat dal, jako by se nic nezmenilo, jenom uz ne tolik jako driv; totiz ackoli valka je prohrana a nema smysl bojovat dal, ja jsem si nasel tichy koutek bojiste, kde muzu dal predstirat, ze se nic nezmenilo. Me publikum je mnohem mensi nez publikum knih o Star Treku, ale zda se, ze nejaci lide me porad ctou a ja neplanuji vykrast se pryc v hnevu, jako jsem to udelal v 70. letech. Napisu knihu nebo povidku, kdyz budu citit potrebu to udelat, a necham umelecke bitvy mladsim.

answer: At the time, it seemed that everything intelligent and worthwhile in science fiction was being driven out of print by such stuff as the Perry Rhodan novels. I had been writing science fiction for twenty-five years and had fulfilled most of my ambitions as a writer. Since the artistic culture seemed to be collapsing around me and I no longer had a financial motive for continuing to write, I simply walked away. After four and a half years I found that I missed writing science fiction and returned to work. I was still relatively young then and it was too early to retire.

The situation today is far more distressing to me than it was in 1974 -- Perry Rhodan is gone, but we have Star Trek and Star Wars and a lot of other Hollywood stuff that has almost entirely buried the kind of science fiction I liked to read and write. But because I am in my sixties now instead of my forties, I have decided to keep on writing as though nothing has changed, only not to do as much as I did before; that is, even though the war has been lost and there's no sense in fighting on, I have found a quiet corner of the battlefield where I can continue to pretend that nothing has changed. My audience is much smaller than the audience for Star Trek books but some people still seem to be reading me and I don't plan to go stalking off in anger as I did in the '70s. I'll write a book or a story whenever I feel the need to do so and leave the artistic battles to younger people.

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od/from: jansan 6.7.1998, 2:50
otazka: preklad zatim neni k dispozici question: Dear Mr. Silverberg,

I can only agree. Still, entertainment can be art and art can be entertaining, too. By the same token the writer writes for his readers and readers read their books. And if there is a feedback, the circle closes and ideas can move around. Unfortunately, there are also middlemen, who control the demand and supply but that is only the necessary evil and its influence is sometimes exaggerated, too.

Sure the number of themes for sci-fi is limited but so it is for any other form of art. Limited, but far from exhausted. What I was trying to point out was that the sci-fi can be entertaining and inventive as well. If we ever get in contact with intelligent aliens, our challenges would probably expand on every field of our life.

Example: only in few sci-fi books describing inter-galactic fight I was able to find any traces of strategic or tactical elements. Yet, one could not be able to write any book about W.W.II without minimum knowledge of those. Most sci-fi nowadays reads more like some superficial newspaper article. Many of so called "superintelligent" aliens there do not reach intelligence level of our elementary school student.

I previously mentioned Verne - his heroes are intelligent, there is a lot of technical stuff there, (which was, by the way, at his time only fantasy) and his books are entertaining and exciting even now, hundred years later. We may say he had it easy, his heroes were people only.

But that's the whole point: sci-fi is written for people and logically reflects - or should reflect - our thinking, our feeling, and at least our level of intelligence. I do not believe that readers get what they want, even if they may "want what they get". Deep down, even authors know they can do better. After all, that's what the art is all about.

Fortunately, there are many books which are entertaining and artistic as well, and yours are among them. Let's hope that more and more writers will follow the suit. Or should we wait for aliens to come and convince us themselves?

odpoved: preklad neni zatim k dispozici answer: I don't think we have any real area of disagreement. Most writers do the best they can. Certainly I have tried to give my full mind to what I write and to make each book the richest possible experience for the reader.

If there ideas that you think none of us has touched, why not -- and I am not being sarcastic or hostile here -- why not try to write them yourself? Despite all the difficulties I mentioned in my earlier reply.

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od/from: jXb 5.7.1998, 19:30
otazka: Ovlivnuje Vase zkusenost Vase dilo? Zda se, ze autori zkousi vice povolani pred tim, nez se daji na spisovatelskou karieru a pouziji pak znalosti z teto "skoly zivota" pri psani. Kolik z Vasi tvorby je o Vas a kolik je ryzi abstrakce? question: Do your experiences influence your work? It seems some writers try to do many jobs before their writers career begins and use the knowledge from this "school of life" for writing. How much of your work is about you and how much of it is a pure abstraction?
odpoved: preklad neni zatim k dispozici answer: As Immanuel Kant pointed out two hundred years ago, we can only write about things we know. The special gift of science-fiction writers is to be able to transmute experience into fantastic invention through a process of abstracting from reality to unreality. But at the bottom of it all lies experience -- things seen, things read, things done, things considered in thought. As for quantifying the answer -- how much is about me, how much is pure abstraction -- the best reply I can give is that it's 100% of each.
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od/from: Ivan 5.7.1998, 10:39
otazka: Chapete internetove publikovani a hypertextove pristupy k textu jako vyzvu (ohrozeni)? Zmeni to budoucnost psani knih? question: Do you regard the internet publishing and hypertextual approach to the text as a challenge? Could it change the future of book writing?
odpoved: preklad neni zatim k dispozici answer: translation not available now
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od/from: Ivan Adamovic 5.7.1998, 10:29
otazka: Jste skeptikem, co se tyce gusta americkych ctenaru SF - zda se, ze chteji stale to same a neradi zkousi nove pristupy. Nicmene nemyslite, ze SF komunita je mozna nejvice "objevujici" a otevrena k eperimentum narozdil od vsech ostatnich ctenaru. Nektere magaziny a antologie jsou plne velice experimenalnich praci. question: You are sceptical regarding the taste of American SF readers - they seem to want still the same and they are reluctant to try the new approaches. But don't you think that the SF community is still maybe the most "exploring" and open to experiments from all the readers? Some magazines and anthologies are full of very experimental writing.
odpoved: neni k dispozici answer: I know, there is some small press s-f being published that tries to go beyond the standard commercial material -- INTERZONE in England, etc. I wish them well in their valiant struggle to find readers. I myself, having been part of the experimental-s-f revolution of thirty years ago that was called the New Wave, don't have the heart any more for getting out on the barricades and throwing bombs. It was exciting for me in 1969 but I no longer feel like any kind of revolutionary. At least I played my part in the good fight once upon a time.
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od/from: Ivan Adamovic 5.7.1998, 10:16
otazka: preklad zatim neni k dispozici question: Dear Robert Silverberg, greetings from Ivan Adamovic (Ikarie magazine). You already admitted that American (and British) SF dictates the canon of the world s SF. But we can just see that European movie directors like Verhoeven or Besson refreshed the old Hollywood schemas and brought us some inventive movies. Do you think that there is an equal potential inside European writing? That SF from the Continent could somehow shake the SF genre in the near future?
odpoved: preklad neni zatim k dispozici answer: Science fiction was not an American invention and there's no reason why major science-fiction novels can't come from European writers. In the early days of the American science-fiction magazines (the ones edited by Hugo Gernsback seventy years ago) many of the novels were translations of then-recent German and French science fiction. I have no doubt that important science fiction is being written right now in France and the Czech Republic and even perhaps Romania, to name just a few of the many countries where there is an active colony of s-f writers.

But as for "shaking" the s-f genre, no, I don't see how even the finest of European-language s-f can shake anything outside its own country. The first problem is to get published in English, which is next to impossible now for a non-Anglophone writer. (Wolfgang Jeschke, an excellent science-fiction writer as well as an important editor, tried to solve the problem by commissioning his own translations into English!) No American or English publisher is willing to look at s-f manuscripts in any language other than English. The second problem is that the higher the quality of a foreign-language science-fiction novel is, the more reluctant any American or English publisher would be to print it, even if handed a translation in perfect English. Science fiction capable of "shaking" people is definitely not wanted by today's publishers -- they all want the same old familiar product.

It's a sad situation. I wish I could offer more hope. Speaking as a reader, I'd love to have the experience of reading a great science fiction novel that came from outside the English-language zone.

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od/from: Z.Rampas 4.7.1998, 17:38
otazka: Zde, v Ceske republice mame problem s preklady. Nekteri nakladatele zkousi minimalizovat cenu knihy tim, ze najmou "rychle a levne" prekladatele. Celkovy dojem z takoveho romanu je pak sporny.
Mate coby spisovatel nejakou kontrolu nad prekladem svych textu do cizich jazyku?
question: There is a problem with translations here in Czech Republic. Some publishing houses try to minimalize price of the book by hiring "fast and cheep" translators. The overall impression from such novel is then questionable.
Do you, as a writer, any control about the translation of your texts to foreign languages?
odpoved: preklad neni zatim k dispozici answer: We have very little control over translations of our work into the European languages. Occasionally I get a letter or even a telephone call from a translator, asking me to explain some detail of one of my books. (One of my French translators did this quite recently.) But usually the translations happen without our ever having any contact with the European publisher. In fact, much of the time we never even get to see the published books themselves! (When I was in Prague in 1993 I bought a number of my Czech-published books that I had never seen before. And probably a good many have come out since 1993.) Sometimes a foreign publisher, in making an offer to buy one of my books, will tell me that he can't pay a great deal of money, but he can guarantee me a good translation. The first time I heard something like that, I began to understand how terrible some of the translations of my books had been. (This was in Germany in 1970.) I often wonder what impression foreign readers are getting from my books. I write them with great care, revising again and again, but what happens after some poor underpaid translator quickly turns them into another language? I don't know. It can't be a happy experience for the reader.
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od/from: moderator 4.7.1998, 12:09
otazka: Setkani s mimozemskymi civilizacemi. Sleduji nas? question: Extra-terrestrial encounters. Do they watch us?
odpoved: Co se tyce tematu inteligentnich, ale presto nasilnych a destruktivnich mimozemstanu (nebo prinejmensim mimozemstanu zamerenych na dobyvani). Doporucuji vam svuj novy roman The Alien Years, ktery obsahuje nektere "nehollywoodske" myslenky na toto tema. Nekrtere z pasazi se mimochodem odehravaji v Praze. answer: As for the theme of aliens who are intelligent but yet violent and destructive (or at least intent on conquest) I recommend to you my new novel THE ALIEN YEARS for some non-Hollywood-like thoughts on the subject. Parts of the book take place in Prague, by the way!
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od/from: jirka 4.7.1998, 12:02
otazka: Jaka Vase kniha, podle Vaseho nazoru, je nejlepsi - kniha, kterou bych opravdu mel cist? question: Which do you believe is your best book - the one I should definitely read?
odpoved: preklad neni zatim k dispozici answer: It's an impossible question. I don't know your tastes; I have no way of directing you to a book that -you- should definitely read. Especially with translation adding an extra layer of opacity between my work and your reception of it.

And how do I decide which is my "best" book? The one with the deepest view of character? DYING INSIDE. The one with the most inventive alien landscape? LORD VALENTINE'S CASTLE. The one with the greatest visionary sweep? SON OF MAN. And so on. Each book has its own virtues. The "best?" How can I say? You tell me which one you think is best.

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od/from: jansan 4.7.1998, 0:48
otazka: Dnes se casto hovori o "krizi" soucasne sci-fi a to jak filmove, televizni, knizni a webove. Dokonce i umirneni hovori prinejlepsim o stagnaci. Ja se pod tento nazor nepodepisuji, trebaze je pravda, ze se behem nekolika uplynulych desetileti temata formy a pribehy castecne vycerpaly a otrepaly.
Vetsina literatury je venovana mimozemstanum, kteri jsou vetsinou zobrazeni jako prinejlepsim nasilne ci destruktivni bytosti. Soucasne jsou prekvapive natolik vyvynuti, ze maji tolik rozumu, aby dokazali potlacit ponekud primitivni chovani. Je nase fantasie tak povrchni, nebo je to zpusobeno tim, ze nasi ctenari si diky Hollywoodu nedokazou predstavit vzruseni bez zabijeni a likvidace? Dusevni procesy mimozemstanu jaksi nedosahuji urovne jejich technickeho pokroku a clovek se az divi, jestli nahodou jejich Darwin nepracoval ponekud zvlastnim zpusobem a zcela nezapomel pridat jejich inteligenci. V kazdem pripade jsme vsak my lide jejich svetu zcela cizi. Vsichni vime, ze "fantazirovani" Julese Verna se stalo v nasem stoleti skutecnosti. Nedokazu si predstavit, ze by se totez stalo s dnesni sci-fi.
Nechci tim rici, ze by jadro sci-fi literatury nebylo umelecke ci zdrave. Skutecnost, ze se nekteri autori opakuji, je bohuzel znepokojujici. Dochazi nam uz skutecne para? Nemela by kvalita opet prevazit nad kvantitou? Co je podle vas poslanim SF a jak ho muzeme dosahnout?
question: There is a talk about "crisis" in contemporary "sci-fi", be it film, TV, books or WEB while even moderates talk about stagnation, at the best. I do not subscribe to that opinion, however it is true, that after several decades, the themes, forms and stories are partially exhausted and worn-out. Much of the literature is devoted to aliens, who are portrayed mostly as violent or destructive creatures at best. At the same time they are -supposingly - greatly advanced to be intelligent enough to suppress that rather primitive behaviour. Is our fantasy so shallow or is it because our readers - thanks to Hollywood - cannot imagine excitement without killing or anihilation? Their mental processes somehow does not reach the level of their technological advancement and one wonders if their Darwin didn't work some strange way, missing the "human level" of intelligence completely. Either way, we people seem to be quite strange to their world. We all know that "fantasizing" of Jules Verne became reality in our century. I cannot imagine the same happening with today's science fiction. That is not to say that the core of the sci-fi literature is not artistic or healthy. Unfortunately, the repetitious efforts of some authors are alarming. Are we really running out of steam? Shouldn't quality again prevail over quantity? What is - according to you - the mission of sci-fi and how can we achieve it?
odpoved: Velka temata SF jsou nevycerpatelna. H.G. Wells napsal sve skvele romany na tema cestovani casem (Stroj casu) a meziplanetarniho vpadu (valka svetu) uz pred sto lety. A trebaze jsou tyto romany skvele, melo i v uplynulem stoleti mnoho autoru k temto tematum co rici. Zrovna letos jsem ja sam vydal roman o vpadu mimozemstanu, ktery jsem venoval H.G. Wellsovi jako vyraz ucty k jeho skvelemu dilu. Mel jsem tedy i o sto let pozdeji co rici k vpadu inteligentnich bytosti z jineho sveta na planetu Zemi. Ne vsechno tedy Wells ve sve knize rekl.

Problem nejsou spisovatele, ale ctenarska obec. Jednotlivi spisovatele se mohou vycerpat a mohou se zacit opakovat. To se stava v kazdem umeleckem zanru. Neustale se ale objevuji nove, velke talenty a nekdy dokonce i geniove. Potiz je v tom, ze ctenari SF zacali mit nizsi pozadavky, nebo spis pozaduji prostou, lehkou zabavu, namisto narocnych vyzkumu a slozitych otazek a vydavatele, pokud nechteji zkrachovat, musi vychazet onomu velkemu hladu ctenaru vstric, musi se postarat o to, aby knihy do nichz vkladaji nejvic energie byly takovymi, u nichz je pravdepodobnost, ze na ne ceka pocetna nekriticka ctenarska obec. Ja sam neznam reseni tohoto problemu. Jsem rad, ze jsem mel prilezitost psat sve knihy tak, jak jsem je psat chtel a ze se dostaly do rukou rozumne velkemu poctu ctenaru a to jeste pred tim, nez se vydavani americke SF stalo tak velkou obchodni zalezitosti, ktera ubiji individualitu a kreativitu. Amerika nyni vyvazi tento druh SF do zbytku sveta a mne je to lito. Zda se ale, ze zbytek sveta pocituje stejny hlad proste lehke zabave jako americane.

Podle mne neni na proste, lehke zabave nic spatneho, ale nekteri ctenari ocekavaji neco vic a mne je lito, ze pro nas dnes tak obtizne vam neco takoveho poskytnout.

answer: The great themes of science fiction are inexhaustible. H.G. Wells wrote brilliant novels on the theme of time travel (THE TIME MACHINE) and interplanetary invasion (THE WAR OF THE WORLDS) a hundred years ago, and, great as those novels were, many other writers have found important things to say on those subjects in the past ten decades. Just this year I myself published a novel about alien invasion that is dedicated to H.G. Wells in recognition of his great achievement; and, a hundred years later, I had things to say about the invasion of Earth by intelligent beings from another world that Wells had left unsaid. The problem is not with the writers but with the audience. Individual writers may become exhausted and begin to repeat themselves -- that happens in any of the arts -- but new ones of enormous talent, even genius, keep arriving. The difficulty is that the -audience- for science fiction has become less demanding, or, rather, demands simple light entertainment instead of searching examinations of the great issues, and the publishers, because they must satisfy that large hungry audience to stay in business, see to it that the books that they give the greatest energy to are the ones that are most likely to reach large uncritical audiences. I see no solution to this problem. I'm happy that I had a chance to write my own books the way I wanted to write them, and to reach a reasonably large audience, in the days before American science fiction publishing became such a big-business operation that individuality and creativity were stifled. America is now exporting that kind of science fiction to the rest of the world, and I regret that; but it seems that the rest of the world is just as hungry for simple light entertainment as Americans are. Nothing wrong with simple light entertainment, I guess. But some readers want more than that out of science fiction. I'm sorry that it's now so difficult for us to provide that for you.
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