Time and Time Again: Sixteen Trips in Time

Robert Silverberg isn’t just an icon in science fiction. He’s one of the tallest pairs of shoulders on which the rest of the genre stands to gaze toward the horizon. For six decades, he has shaped science fiction, constantly evolving and looking forward, even as he revisits favorite tropes and topics.

Time and Time Again collects sixteen stories from Silverberg’s half-century legacy in sci-fi that focus on his favorite science fiction convention: time travel. Whether it’s tourists in the Cretaceous or refugees from the future, these stories are as thought-provoking and ambitious as any in the genre’s history.

What separates Silverberg from so many sci-fi legends is the humanity and heart that goes into his work. Although his stories are technically sound and full of hard science, they would collapse without the human touches he includes. This is plainly evident in the best story in the collection, “Needle in a Timestack,” where one couple’s loving marriage is constantly under siege by the time travel machinations of her obsessive ex.

Time and Time Again is science-fiction magic and history all at once. Read it.