Enter a Soldier. Later: Enter Another

by Robert Silverberg

A perfect simulation of historic figures may be more than the simulators have bargained for. Hugo Award Winner

Genres: Science Fiction, Short Stories, Fiction

Kindle Edition

First published June 1, 1989

About the author

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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.

Reviews

[Peter Tillman · Rating 5 out of 5]

Silverberg's finest short fiction? A masterwork. Amazingly good story.

Here's the author:
"I wrote this one in October, 1987 for an anthology I was editing myself, the basic idea of which involved using computer-generated simulacra of actual historical figures set in conflict against one another. The ones I chose were Socrates and Francisco Pizarro, and the story very quickly became an exciting thing to write as these two powerful personalities began to clash. I think it’s one of the major achievements of my career."

Here's an online copy:
http://www.baen.com/Chapters/97816257...
Absolutely not to be missed! One of my 100 (or so) "Desert Island" reads.

[Jen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not sure how the invention in this book could be useful for the world, but it was an awesome story! I wonder who I would want to meet like that? Food for thought. 4 solid stars. Maybe five if the story stays with me the rest of the day.

[Michael Magy · Rating 5 out of 5]

I finally read a Robert Silverberg story. Not a novel, a story. I don't usually read stories. Novels only. I write stories. Not novels. I don't know why. I don't even try. Logic need not apply.

This story, 'Enter a Soldier. Later Another', won a Hugo Award, science fiction's highest writing honor, for excellence. It is excellent. Example. During the first two and a half pages the reader can deduce some of what is happening. We are introduced to a character, Francisco Pizarro, Spanish butcher and civilization (Inca) destroyer. He becomes aware he is floating 'midway between nothing and nothing.' An afterlife, one might reasonably think. Then comes some brilliant creative writing. Pizarro speaks aloud and doesn't recognize his own voice. 'Too thick, too deep.' A nice introduction to a puzzle piece. He speaks aloud again and hears an accent not his own. He expects the 'crisp Spanish of Estremadura' but hears the 'spluttering foppishness of Madrid' perhaps mixed with 'the furry babble that they spoke in Barcelona.' Beautiful! The historic Pizarro was from the autonomous region in Spain collectively called Estremadura. It has a dialect sound different from those of other regions. Nice research. We readers are then given a printed aurality of what he heard. 'I am Francisco Pizarro!' He hears 'Frantheethco Peetharro.' For those with a bit of knowledge of the sounds of spoken Spanish from the Mother Country, that's the Castilian dialect. We readers feel a wrongness here. But then this wrongness is set on the path to rightness by the first sentence close to page three. It contains a modern name and a taste of future tech. 'Imaging lab' and holotank'. Clarity. Pizarro, at this stage in the story, appears to be a re-creation of a historical person from existing academic records put into an algometric matrix to push out an Artificial Intelligence which thinks its a human being. Well done by the programmers, save for timbre and sibilance glitch. This is Silverberg at his creative best.

Silverberg considers this story to be a high point in his long career. I agree. Within the story's framework many important ideas are touched upon. For example: Regarding science -- We have the technology to do this thing. Should we? Pure research can produce unintended consequences, both negative and positive. Can the negative ever be positively rechanneled? Regarding metaphysics: Is there life after life? Assuming so, how does one differentiate that unique experience from the frequent dream experience? Regarding sin and virtue: Do those concepts change with context? Are there eternal verities made manifest through a mortal's understanding as educated by specific dogmas prismed through religious authorities? Or do they reside within and are then discoverable and made contextually ubiquitous without religious intercession? Are their understanding and application dependent upon community standards and personal aggrandizement? These ideas are lightly touched upon by the main protagonists in Silverberg's drama of dialectic, Francisco Pizarro and Socrates, and to a lesser extent from the two subordinate supporting cast members, Richardson and Tanner.

Pizarro and Socrates are AI programs manifesting and interacting in a holodeck. Those programs are based on 22nd century French codings designed for accentuating the tourist experience in France. They are what Silverberg calls 'son et lumiere', a sound and light show whose purpose is to entertain. (For those of us not French speakers, Google translate is nice to access.) When the program did not succeed to French standards it was sold to Americans. Richardson, computer tech geek, made it work; Tanner, his boss, wanted something more marketable than research for its own sake. When Tanner had himself manifested into the holodeck where Pizarro's program was pacing around looking for evidence of heaven, he was
scared into creative thought by Pizarro's aura of dominance and self-confident energy. He came up with the idea of creating an AI Socrates, manifesting him next to Pizarro, and seeing what would happen.

For me, Silverberg's use of the Socratic dialectic as a point of interactive entry was the high point of the story. I could easily believe Socrates was enjoying his questioning of Pizarro to the point of irritated aggression. Here we readers are given, for our consideration, a thought experiment regarding virtue and sin. It was masterfully handled. Uneducated, illiterate Pizarro was shown to be no slouch in the analysis arena. He gave as good as he got, and each character came to a grudging respect of the other.

I stated above I read novels, not stories. At 15,000 words this story was not a brief journey. It had content aplenty. It was purely enjoyable. I will be reading more Silverberg stories.

[Amy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fun story dealing with simulation of two historical Titans.

[Jamie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Hugo award winning novelette that's an interesting thought piece about some of the challenges and ramifications of creating self-aware, self-directed AI, but probably a lot more interesting in it's day (1989) than now.

[Clyde · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of Silverberg's best short stories. Still good on a re-read many years later.

[Edward Woeful · Rating 5 out of 5]

Люди создают систему, которая на основе имеющейся информации способна воссоздавать модели исторических личностей, и, лишь туманно понимая перспективы проекта, смотрят что из этого получится.
Остаётся только поражаться тому, как Роберт Сильверберг ещё в 1989 году предсказал основные этапы и основные сложности создания того, что сейчас называют «большой языковой моделью», того, на основе чего созданы такие системы, как ChatGPT и Gemini.
Диалог конкистадора Франсиско Писарро с Сократом стоит некоторых 12-томных космических опер.

[Kevin · Rating 3 out of 5]

1989 Hugo Winner. Fairly long story by Robert Silverberg which touched on some real issues and applications of machine learning, written pre-1989. I never liked him all that much, though he sold a lot and won a lot. Maybe I underestimated him.

[Sherry · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not my favourite this year. The premise was interesting but beyond that I just didn’t get into it. I’ll have to try some more stories to get a better idea of whether I want to read more from this author or not.