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Three For Tomorrow
Three fine novellas by science-fiction writers, Robert Silverberg, Robert Zelazny, and James Blish, dramatize a theme set forth by Arthur C. With increaing technology goes increasing vulnerability.
204 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1969
5 people are currently reading
103 people want to read
About the author
Robert Silverberg
2,328 books1,624 followersThere are many authors in the database with this name.
Robert Silverberg is a highly celebrated American science fiction author and editor known for his prolific output and literary range. Over a career spanning decades, he has won multiple Hugo and Nebula Awards and was named a Grand Master by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America in 2004. Inducted into the Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame in 1999, Silverberg is recognized for both his immense productivity and his contributions to the genre's evolution.
Born in Brooklyn, he began writing in his teens and won his first Hugo Award in 1956 as the best new writer. Throughout the 1950s, he produced vast amounts of fiction, often under pseudonyms, and was known for writing up to a million words a year. When the market declined, he diversified into other genres, including historical nonfiction and erotica.
Silverberg’s return to science fiction in the 1960s marked a shift toward deeper psychological and literary themes, contributing significantly to the New Wave movement. Acclaimed works from this period include Downward to the Earth, Dying Inside, Nightwings, and The World Inside. In the 1980s, he launched the Majipoor series with Lord Valentine’s Castle, creating one of the most imaginative planetary settings in science fiction.
Though he announced his retirement from writing in the mid-1970s, Silverberg returned with renewed vigor and continued to publish acclaimed fiction into the 1990s. He received further recognition with the Nebula-winning Sailing to Byzantium and the Hugo-winning Gilgamesh in the Outback.
Silverberg has also played a significant role as an editor and anthologist, shaping science fiction literature through both his own work and his influence on others. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with his wife, author Karen Haber.
Robert Silverberg is a highly celebrated American science fiction author and editor known for his prolific output and literary range. Over a career spanning decades, he has won multiple Hugo and Nebula Awards and was named a Grand Master by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America in 2004. Inducted into the Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame in 1999, Silverberg is recognized for both his immense productivity and his contributions to the genre's evolution.
Born in Brooklyn, he began writing in his teens and won his first Hugo Award in 1956 as the best new writer. Throughout the 1950s, he produced vast amounts of fiction, often under pseudonyms, and was known for writing up to a million words a year. When the market declined, he diversified into other genres, including historical nonfiction and erotica.
Silverberg’s return to science fiction in the 1960s marked a shift toward deeper psychological and literary themes, contributing significantly to the New Wave movement. Acclaimed works from this period include Downward to the Earth, Dying Inside, Nightwings, and The World Inside. In the 1980s, he launched the Majipoor series with Lord Valentine’s Castle, creating one of the most imaginative planetary settings in science fiction.
Though he announced his retirement from writing in the mid-1970s, Silverberg returned with renewed vigor and continued to publish acclaimed fiction into the 1990s. He received further recognition with the Nebula-winning Sailing to Byzantium and the Hugo-winning Gilgamesh in the Outback.
Silverberg has also played a significant role as an editor and anthologist, shaping science fiction literature through both his own work and his influence on others. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with his wife, author Karen Haber.
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Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews
June 23, 2025
Three for Tomorrow is an anthology of three original novellas that Silverberg edited (anonymously) that were based on a proposal conceived by Arthur C. Clarke. The first story is his own novella How It Was When the Past Went Away, which is a story about drug use in the future (the story is set in far-off 2003!), and the impact memory loss has on many everyday people. The second story is my favorite, The Eve of RUMOKO by Roger Zelazny, which was the first of his Nemo novellas, collected together in My Name is Legion. It's intelligent James Bond sf, perfect for fans of Larry Niven's Gil Hamilton. The final story is the shortest and weakest, We All Die Naked, a novelette by James Blish about ecological apocalypse and collapse. Silverberg was a terrific editor as well as writer.
October 8, 2021
• Robert Silverberg takes us to San Francisco in 2003 where a drug that causes amnesia has been deliberately added to the water supply in “How It Was When The Past Went Away”. The tale follows the various effects, both good and bad, on a selection of residents. An embezzler forgets what his transactions were; a divorced artist is reunited with his remarried wife; a professional mnemonist playing Vegas wakes with his act in ruins. A good read. • A project to drill into the mantle near Iceland called RUMOKO is being sabotaged and a fixer-for-hire going by the pseudonym Albert Schweitzer is hired to stop them. The project is supposed to create new lands but the saboteurs are worried about creating seafloor earthquakes which threaten colonies there. At the pointy end of the mission Albert suspects he may be on the wrong side. “The Eve Of RUMOKO” by Roger Zelazny is another entertaining tale. • Lastly we have James Blish consulting his Delphic oracle and seeing quite accurately: ocean plastic pollution, global climate change due to CO2, sea-level rises and the perils of fracking! “We All Die Naked” is prophetic, if a bit naive about the future of spaceflight. This is a surprisingly good little book!
February 10, 2020
How it Was When the Past Went Away, Robert Silverberg
2 🌟
In San Francisco, drugs erasing human memory are dumped in the water supply by an unknown. Overnight, anyone who had drink of the tap water had lost their memory. Oddly enough, their friends and acquaintances had the memories they could relate to them, intact. In other words, Person B could tell Person A that he was married, happily, for five years, but Person B could not remember anything about his own life. And Robert Silverberg, being Robert Silverberg, has to use the word "girl" for a grown-up woman, while any male over 18 is a "man."
P.63:
"Bryce finished speaking and the camera lights left him. He said to Lisa, 'what about lunch? Or breakfast, or whatever meal it is we're up to now.'
'Everything's ready, Tim. Whenever you are.'
They ate together in the holographic room, which had become the kitchen of the command post... these brief shared meals were the only fragments of privacy he and Lisa had had, in the 52 hours since he had awakened to find her sleeping beside him.
He stared across the table in Wonder at this delectable blond girl who they said was his wife. how beautiful her soft brown eyes were against that backdrop of golden hair! How perfect the line of her lips, the curve of her earlobes! Bryce knew that no one would object if he and Lisa went off and locked themselves into one of the private rooms for a few hours. He wasn't that indispensable; and there was so much he had to begin relearning about his wife."
The Eve of Rumoko, by Samuel Delaney
2 🌟
A novella about an Earth in which underwater cities have become a reality. The development of an underwater"highway" to serve the development of these "bubble cities," is underway. To fuel this intensive underwater work, the developers are using explosive charges to tap the volcanic energy beneath the thinner (as opposed to the Earth's crust above the ocean) crust. But not every one is onboard with this idea, and they mean to sabotage this project. The protagonist has been hired by an unknown employer to find out the identity of the saboteurs.
P.103
"Everybody, nowadays, has a birth certificate, academic record, credit rating, a history of all his travels and places of residence and, ultimately, there is a death certificate somewhere on file. Once, all things of this sort existed in separate places. Then, some joker set out to combine them. They called it a Central Data Bank. It resulted in massive changes in the order of human existence. Not all of these changes, I am now certain, were for the better.
I was one of those Jokers, and it was not until things were well along that I began to have second thoughts on the matter. By then, it was too late to do anything about it, I'd supposed.
What the people in my project were doing was linking every databank in existence, so that public records, financial records, medical records, specialized technical records all existed and were available from One source -- through key stations whose personnel had access to this information at various levels of confidentiality."
All except those who could "buy" their anonymity. And those who could hide their money in offshore accounts.
The protagonist's lost love lived in one of those underwater cities... until the plumbing of those depths had a not-quite-unexpected result, and cracked the walls of her "bubble city. Our protagonist has a stupid way of talking about, and reminiscing about, his lady loves.
P.117
"I probably should have gone along with her when she went back. She had asked me.
She had been on vacation - seeing the big place - and so had I. I didn't get into New York Often.
'Marry me,' though, I'd said.
But she would not give up her bubble and I would not give up my dream. I wanted the big, above-the-waves world--all of it--and I had just about figured it by then, except for the Christmas cards. They came later. I loved that blue-eyed bitch from 500 fathoms, though, and I realize now that I probably should have taken her on her own terms. I'm too damned independent, though. If either of us had been normal... Well, we weren't, and that's that."
The protagonist is SO cool, that he can get past truth-serum drugs, when the saboteurs think they've gotten hold of the one who has been thwarting their efforts to stop the development of the underwater cities. He elaborates on the means he has found on said thwartism, reminding me of the way I talked about acing their essays to some students that I mentored when I tutored undergrads at The National Hispanic University.
P.118
"What is drug consciousness?
ever go looking for a job and get an intelligence test or an aptitude test or a personality inventory for your pains? Sure. Everybody has by now. (they're all on file in central, by the way.) you get used to taking them after a time. They start you in early, and throughout your life you learn about taking the goddamn things. You get to be what psychologists refer to as 'test conscious.' what it means is that you get so damn used to them that you know what kind of asininity is Right, according to the book.
So okay. You learn to give them the answers they're looking for. You learn all the little time-saving tricks. You feel secure, you know it is a game and you are game-conscious. It's the same thing.
Here's a scene between the (female) security officer and the protagonist, when she suspects that he is the one throwing a wrench into the works of the saboteurs of the underwater cities development, when he's supposed to be an innocent electrical engineer aboard the Asquith. Why would he know about bombs being planted? As they have their little interview, she decides she's fallen in love with him, and wants to jump on his bandwagon. Samuel Delaney, why?
P.131
" 'let's look at it this way,' she told me. 'You're different, I know that. I wish I could do different things.'
'like what?'
'lie to computers and get away with it.'
'what makes you say that?'
'it's the only answer, if you're real.'
'I'm real.'
'then you know how to beat the system.'
'I doubt it.'
'take me along.' she said. 'I like to do the same thing.'
and I looked at her. A little wisp of hair was touching her cheek, and she looked as if she wanted to cry.
'I'm your last chance, aren't I? You met me at a strange moment in your life, and you want to gamble?'
'yes.'
'you're nuts, and I can't promise you security unless you want to quit the game and I can't. I play it by my own rules, though - and they're kind of strange. If you are and I got together, you would probably be a young widow. -- so you would have that going for you.'
'you're tough enough to disarm bombs.'
'I will meet an early grave. I do lots of stupid things when I have to.'
'I think I might be in love with you.'
'then, for God's sake, let me talk to you later. I have lots of things to think about now.'
'all right.'
'you're a dumb broad.'
'I don't think so.'
'well, we'll see.'
ONE redeeming part of this novella:
P.141
"while it has been proved that we can create such things, I do not believe that the answer to our population problem lies in the manufacturing of new lands. No.
Off hand, I would say that since everything else is controlled these days, we might as well do it with the population, too. I will even get myself an identity - many identities, in fact -- and vote for it, if it ever comes to a referendum. And I submit that there should be more bubble cities, and increased appropriations with respect to the exploration of outer space. But no more Rumokos. No. People got hurt that way, girl, and this one almost killed me, too."
Oh, boohoo
We All Die Naked, by James Blish
2 🌟
in this version of the not too far future, Blish tells us the world is terribly polluted. Mankind, with his plastic, cans, bottles, etc has trashed the planet. digging huge holes in the ground to bury the trash hasn't done the Earth any good. In fact, it has made the matter worse.
P.165:
" '14 months.'
'14 months! Are you sure you've got that right?'
'that's what it says here,' de Tohil Vaca said grimly. 'and it's been known for 20 years that any major variation in the cycle is a signal that a very large strain release is about to occur somewhere in the crust. Lately, my dear fellow, the polar path has been wobbling irregularly all over northern Canada.
'the outcome is going to be vulcanism on a scale never seen before in the lifetime of man. I'm told that we are in for a new era of mountain - building, the first since the Rockies were thrust up. That will bury all our old cans and bottles and junked cars very nicely - but there'll be nobody left around to rejoice.'
'my God,' Alex said slowly. 'and obviously it's irreversible - we can't take the carbon dioxide and the other heavy gases out of the air. We've changed the climate, and that's that. The ice is going to go right on melting. Faster and faster, in fact as more energy is released.'
'precisely.'
So, what's man going to do? The solution is to let a privileged few fly off to the Moon in a rocket, carrying select resources with them, in order to be able to build some kind of habitat. Everybody knows that this is not sustainable, but the hope is that the colonists will be able to fly on to Mars and establish a more sustainable future there. There's a lot of problems with this, not least the fact that everybody wants to go.
2 🌟
In San Francisco, drugs erasing human memory are dumped in the water supply by an unknown. Overnight, anyone who had drink of the tap water had lost their memory. Oddly enough, their friends and acquaintances had the memories they could relate to them, intact. In other words, Person B could tell Person A that he was married, happily, for five years, but Person B could not remember anything about his own life. And Robert Silverberg, being Robert Silverberg, has to use the word "girl" for a grown-up woman, while any male over 18 is a "man."
P.63:
"Bryce finished speaking and the camera lights left him. He said to Lisa, 'what about lunch? Or breakfast, or whatever meal it is we're up to now.'
'Everything's ready, Tim. Whenever you are.'
They ate together in the holographic room, which had become the kitchen of the command post... these brief shared meals were the only fragments of privacy he and Lisa had had, in the 52 hours since he had awakened to find her sleeping beside him.
He stared across the table in Wonder at this delectable blond girl who they said was his wife. how beautiful her soft brown eyes were against that backdrop of golden hair! How perfect the line of her lips, the curve of her earlobes! Bryce knew that no one would object if he and Lisa went off and locked themselves into one of the private rooms for a few hours. He wasn't that indispensable; and there was so much he had to begin relearning about his wife."
The Eve of Rumoko, by Samuel Delaney
2 🌟
A novella about an Earth in which underwater cities have become a reality. The development of an underwater"highway" to serve the development of these "bubble cities," is underway. To fuel this intensive underwater work, the developers are using explosive charges to tap the volcanic energy beneath the thinner (as opposed to the Earth's crust above the ocean) crust. But not every one is onboard with this idea, and they mean to sabotage this project. The protagonist has been hired by an unknown employer to find out the identity of the saboteurs.
P.103
"Everybody, nowadays, has a birth certificate, academic record, credit rating, a history of all his travels and places of residence and, ultimately, there is a death certificate somewhere on file. Once, all things of this sort existed in separate places. Then, some joker set out to combine them. They called it a Central Data Bank. It resulted in massive changes in the order of human existence. Not all of these changes, I am now certain, were for the better.
I was one of those Jokers, and it was not until things were well along that I began to have second thoughts on the matter. By then, it was too late to do anything about it, I'd supposed.
What the people in my project were doing was linking every databank in existence, so that public records, financial records, medical records, specialized technical records all existed and were available from One source -- through key stations whose personnel had access to this information at various levels of confidentiality."
All except those who could "buy" their anonymity. And those who could hide their money in offshore accounts.
The protagonist's lost love lived in one of those underwater cities... until the plumbing of those depths had a not-quite-unexpected result, and cracked the walls of her "bubble city. Our protagonist has a stupid way of talking about, and reminiscing about, his lady loves.
P.117
"I probably should have gone along with her when she went back. She had asked me.
She had been on vacation - seeing the big place - and so had I. I didn't get into New York Often.
'Marry me,' though, I'd said.
But she would not give up her bubble and I would not give up my dream. I wanted the big, above-the-waves world--all of it--and I had just about figured it by then, except for the Christmas cards. They came later. I loved that blue-eyed bitch from 500 fathoms, though, and I realize now that I probably should have taken her on her own terms. I'm too damned independent, though. If either of us had been normal... Well, we weren't, and that's that."
The protagonist is SO cool, that he can get past truth-serum drugs, when the saboteurs think they've gotten hold of the one who has been thwarting their efforts to stop the development of the underwater cities. He elaborates on the means he has found on said thwartism, reminding me of the way I talked about acing their essays to some students that I mentored when I tutored undergrads at The National Hispanic University.
P.118
"What is drug consciousness?
ever go looking for a job and get an intelligence test or an aptitude test or a personality inventory for your pains? Sure. Everybody has by now. (they're all on file in central, by the way.) you get used to taking them after a time. They start you in early, and throughout your life you learn about taking the goddamn things. You get to be what psychologists refer to as 'test conscious.' what it means is that you get so damn used to them that you know what kind of asininity is Right, according to the book.
So okay. You learn to give them the answers they're looking for. You learn all the little time-saving tricks. You feel secure, you know it is a game and you are game-conscious. It's the same thing.
Here's a scene between the (female) security officer and the protagonist, when she suspects that he is the one throwing a wrench into the works of the saboteurs of the underwater cities development, when he's supposed to be an innocent electrical engineer aboard the Asquith. Why would he know about bombs being planted? As they have their little interview, she decides she's fallen in love with him, and wants to jump on his bandwagon. Samuel Delaney, why?
P.131
" 'let's look at it this way,' she told me. 'You're different, I know that. I wish I could do different things.'
'like what?'
'lie to computers and get away with it.'
'what makes you say that?'
'it's the only answer, if you're real.'
'I'm real.'
'then you know how to beat the system.'
'I doubt it.'
'take me along.' she said. 'I like to do the same thing.'
and I looked at her. A little wisp of hair was touching her cheek, and she looked as if she wanted to cry.
'I'm your last chance, aren't I? You met me at a strange moment in your life, and you want to gamble?'
'yes.'
'you're nuts, and I can't promise you security unless you want to quit the game and I can't. I play it by my own rules, though - and they're kind of strange. If you are and I got together, you would probably be a young widow. -- so you would have that going for you.'
'you're tough enough to disarm bombs.'
'I will meet an early grave. I do lots of stupid things when I have to.'
'I think I might be in love with you.'
'then, for God's sake, let me talk to you later. I have lots of things to think about now.'
'all right.'
'you're a dumb broad.'
'I don't think so.'
'well, we'll see.'
ONE redeeming part of this novella:
P.141
"while it has been proved that we can create such things, I do not believe that the answer to our population problem lies in the manufacturing of new lands. No.
Off hand, I would say that since everything else is controlled these days, we might as well do it with the population, too. I will even get myself an identity - many identities, in fact -- and vote for it, if it ever comes to a referendum. And I submit that there should be more bubble cities, and increased appropriations with respect to the exploration of outer space. But no more Rumokos. No. People got hurt that way, girl, and this one almost killed me, too."
Oh, boohoo
We All Die Naked, by James Blish
2 🌟
in this version of the not too far future, Blish tells us the world is terribly polluted. Mankind, with his plastic, cans, bottles, etc has trashed the planet. digging huge holes in the ground to bury the trash hasn't done the Earth any good. In fact, it has made the matter worse.
P.165:
" '14 months.'
'14 months! Are you sure you've got that right?'
'that's what it says here,' de Tohil Vaca said grimly. 'and it's been known for 20 years that any major variation in the cycle is a signal that a very large strain release is about to occur somewhere in the crust. Lately, my dear fellow, the polar path has been wobbling irregularly all over northern Canada.
'the outcome is going to be vulcanism on a scale never seen before in the lifetime of man. I'm told that we are in for a new era of mountain - building, the first since the Rockies were thrust up. That will bury all our old cans and bottles and junked cars very nicely - but there'll be nobody left around to rejoice.'
'my God,' Alex said slowly. 'and obviously it's irreversible - we can't take the carbon dioxide and the other heavy gases out of the air. We've changed the climate, and that's that. The ice is going to go right on melting. Faster and faster, in fact as more energy is released.'
'precisely.'
So, what's man going to do? The solution is to let a privileged few fly off to the Moon in a rocket, carrying select resources with them, in order to be able to build some kind of habitat. Everybody knows that this is not sustainable, but the hope is that the colonists will be able to fly on to Mars and establish a more sustainable future there. There's a lot of problems with this, not least the fact that everybody wants to go.
January 10, 2015
Includes Robert Silverberg's "How It Was When The Past Went Away" - vrlo dobra priča
"The Eve of RUMOKO" by Roger Zelazny - ova je odlična
"We All Die Naked" by James Blish - a ovu nisam pročitao jer ju je gotovo nemoguće nabaviti
"The Eve of RUMOKO" by Roger Zelazny - ova je odlična
"We All Die Naked" by James Blish - a ovu nisam pročitao jer ju je gotovo nemoguće nabaviti
November 1, 2024
[Victor Gollancz Limited] (1970). HB/DJ. 1/1. 204 Pages. Purchased from Cold Tonnage Books.
“Three Original Novellas of Science Fiction” written in keeping with a theme set out by Arthur C. Clarke in his ultra-compact Foreword - the evolution of disaster potential in line with technological advances.
“How It Was When The Past Went Away” - Robert Silverberg (1969)
“…epidemic of amnesia… criminal saboteurs contaminated the municipal water supply with certain restricted drugs that have the ability to dissolve memory structures…”
Interesting but somewhat incoherent. The ending is absurd.
“The Eve of RUMOKO” - Roger Zelazny (1969)
I quite like the author’s rather spare style but the terrorism oriented narrative’s quite weak.
“We All Die Naked” - James Blish (1969)
Rather overwritten, messy prose. A stark picture of environmental meltdown. Tedious.
A strong literary cast and promising premise yield mediocrity.
Prescient; grimly so.
“Three Original Novellas of Science Fiction” written in keeping with a theme set out by Arthur C. Clarke in his ultra-compact Foreword - the evolution of disaster potential in line with technological advances.
“How It Was When The Past Went Away” - Robert Silverberg (1969)
“…epidemic of amnesia… criminal saboteurs contaminated the municipal water supply with certain restricted drugs that have the ability to dissolve memory structures…”
Interesting but somewhat incoherent. The ending is absurd.
“The Eve of RUMOKO” - Roger Zelazny (1969)
I quite like the author’s rather spare style but the terrorism oriented narrative’s quite weak.
“We All Die Naked” - James Blish (1969)
Rather overwritten, messy prose. A stark picture of environmental meltdown. Tedious.
A strong literary cast and promising premise yield mediocrity.
Prescient; grimly so.
January 25, 2020
3.5/5 (collated rating: Good)
Three for Tomorrow (1969) contains three novellas written specially for the volume on the following theme selected by Arthur C. Clarke: “with increasing technology goes increasing vulnerability: the more man conquers Nature, the more prone he becomes to artificial catastrophe” (foreword, 8). In my continuing quest for Robert Silverberg’s work from his Glory Period (proclaimed by me) 1967-1976, I was delighted [..]
Full review: https://sciencefictionruminations.com...
Three for Tomorrow (1969) contains three novellas written specially for the volume on the following theme selected by Arthur C. Clarke: “with increasing technology goes increasing vulnerability: the more man conquers Nature, the more prone he becomes to artificial catastrophe” (foreword, 8). In my continuing quest for Robert Silverberg’s work from his Glory Period (proclaimed by me) 1967-1976, I was delighted [..]
Full review: https://sciencefictionruminations.com...
September 20, 2017
I've been reading science fiction since about 1965. I read a lot. This background perhaps colors my review. I did not find any of these stories either compelling or original. The Eve of RUMOKO had some entertaining moments. Mostly doom and gloom.
May 26, 2019
I really liked Blish's story.
July 16, 2020
Liked the Zelazny story. The other two were OK.
January 4, 2024
Fun to read old sci-fi from a point in the future after the time period about which the story was written.
January 8, 2023
3 novellas:
**** How It Was When the Past Went Away (1969) • Robert Silverberg
**** The Eve of RUMOKO (1969) • Roger Zelazny
* We All Die Naked (1969) • James Blish
**** How It Was When the Past Went Away (1969) • Robert Silverberg
**** The Eve of RUMOKO (1969) • Roger Zelazny
* We All Die Naked (1969) • James Blish
July 7, 2017
The first story "How It Was When the Past Went Away" takes place in the far off futuristic world of 2003, when a cult contaminates the water supply of San Francisco, causing most of the population to lose their memories. The consequences are drastic, but not all necessarily bad. Some of the characters use this memory loss as a second chance at their lives, or in a growing number of cases towards the end, their salvation and the answer to life's problems. And, yeah, part of the interest was seeing that some of the predictions have not come to reality (like the credit sanctuary on the moon), and others simply missed the mark (a man is considered paranoid because, among other things, he drinks bottled water.)
The Eve of RUMOKO centers on a hit man of sorts who agrees to a job that he cannot morally stomach. This story was a little harder to follow than the other two stories: I was being dropped into the middle of the story. The main character is rather secretive and vague, and it was hard to get a sense of who the other characters were. Had it been a real life story taking place on our Earth, it may have made more sense, because we would understand the politics behind this world to some extent, but in this different world, unless this story is part of a bigger series that the reader already knows, you just have to go along with the ride.
The last story, "We All Die Naked" by James Blish, deals with the last days of Earth. The humans' only chance of salvation is to send a few people to the moon to start a colony. The main character is granted with the decision of who among his friends should survive. Who is the best equipped to thrive and build a new civilization from scratch, and how do they maximize the gene pool with so few people? And there are more personal concerns: should he ask one friend to separate from his/her spouse, or does the selector himself want to be one of the survivors?
The Eve of RUMOKO centers on a hit man of sorts who agrees to a job that he cannot morally stomach. This story was a little harder to follow than the other two stories: I was being dropped into the middle of the story. The main character is rather secretive and vague, and it was hard to get a sense of who the other characters were. Had it been a real life story taking place on our Earth, it may have made more sense, because we would understand the politics behind this world to some extent, but in this different world, unless this story is part of a bigger series that the reader already knows, you just have to go along with the ride.
The last story, "We All Die Naked" by James Blish, deals with the last days of Earth. The humans' only chance of salvation is to send a few people to the moon to start a colony. The main character is granted with the decision of who among his friends should survive. Who is the best equipped to thrive and build a new civilization from scratch, and how do they maximize the gene pool with so few people? And there are more personal concerns: should he ask one friend to separate from his/her spouse, or does the selector himself want to be one of the survivors?
August 29, 2015
Three For Tomorrow is a collection of three short stories, one each by Robert Silverberg, Roger Zelazny, and James Blish, on the theme of future disasters. For one reason or another, all three of these stories show their age in less-than-pleasant ways, though they seemed to get better as I went (whether objectively or simply because the previous work had reduced my expectations, I can't say).
Silverberg envisions a future San Francisco (in a year which has now passed) that is apparently still stuck in the Woodstock era, with robots. He explores some interesting ideas about the safety of our water supply and cults, but can't seem to envision an end to an era which may have been ending around the time this book originally hit the store shelves.
Zelazny writes a 007-style story set in another future (which also has passed) which still feels pretty much like 60s-era James Bond flicks, except that he does give a clear glimpse of a world in which everyone's lives are tracked in a global database (which uses punch-cards for data entry). He gives a bit of a primer on geology which probably would have been easier to get through if the original audience had the benefit of primary school education on plate tectonics (or even the author, for that matter, since the theory gained acceptance in the 50s and 60s).
Blish brings us to New York after the Arctic ice cap has melted (apparently in the 1980s). In some ways this story still serves as a dire warning to deniers of climate change, though the deniers are more likely to simply point out that New York isn't underwater, yet, ~30 years after predicted.
All three of these stories probably suffered more because they were short stories (and written to a theme) than because of any significant shortcomings in their writing. Having only read other work by Zelazny, this story showed notably less polish (especially in the dialog) than I expected from him. I would not be surprised if this were the same for the other two authors.
Silverberg envisions a future San Francisco (in a year which has now passed) that is apparently still stuck in the Woodstock era, with robots. He explores some interesting ideas about the safety of our water supply and cults, but can't seem to envision an end to an era which may have been ending around the time this book originally hit the store shelves.
Zelazny writes a 007-style story set in another future (which also has passed) which still feels pretty much like 60s-era James Bond flicks, except that he does give a clear glimpse of a world in which everyone's lives are tracked in a global database (which uses punch-cards for data entry). He gives a bit of a primer on geology which probably would have been easier to get through if the original audience had the benefit of primary school education on plate tectonics (or even the author, for that matter, since the theory gained acceptance in the 50s and 60s).
Blish brings us to New York after the Arctic ice cap has melted (apparently in the 1980s). In some ways this story still serves as a dire warning to deniers of climate change, though the deniers are more likely to simply point out that New York isn't underwater, yet, ~30 years after predicted.
All three of these stories probably suffered more because they were short stories (and written to a theme) than because of any significant shortcomings in their writing. Having only read other work by Zelazny, this story showed notably less polish (especially in the dialog) than I expected from him. I would not be surprised if this were the same for the other two authors.
September 3, 2010
This is an anthology based on an idea by Clarke, an idea of how our future might go drastically wrong!
In this book we have 3 novellas;
How it was When the Past Went Away by Robert Silverberg,
The Eve of RUMOKO by Roger Zelazny and
We All Die Naked by James Blish
The Silverberg piece is a very good story about a city brought to its knees by an amnesia epidemic!
The Zelazny story has a strange, fast paced style similar to the Stainless Steel Rat books of Harry Harisson-but the dialogue is very choppy-I'm not sure I enjoyed that one.
Lastly Blish's We All Die Naked. It seems they saved the best till last with this book-it is a true Earth disaster story with a very abrupt and unusual ending!
In this book we have 3 novellas;
How it was When the Past Went Away by Robert Silverberg,
The Eve of RUMOKO by Roger Zelazny and
We All Die Naked by James Blish
The Silverberg piece is a very good story about a city brought to its knees by an amnesia epidemic!
The Zelazny story has a strange, fast paced style similar to the Stainless Steel Rat books of Harry Harisson-but the dialogue is very choppy-I'm not sure I enjoyed that one.
Lastly Blish's We All Die Naked. It seems they saved the best till last with this book-it is a true Earth disaster story with a very abrupt and unusual ending!
May 24, 2024
Collection of three short stories from different authors about new disasters facing us. The one by my fav author, Zelazny, I liked the best but they're all great. The final story even predicts our current environmental problems and gives them some interesting twists. All still very readable after 50 years.
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December 13, 2007N/A
October 1, 2020
Classic science fiction at its best, still relevant even though the timeline is a little off.
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