The Best of Robert Silverberg: Stories of Six Decades is a landmark volume that offers exactly what its title promises: the finest short work of one of the finest writers ever to grace the field of science fiction. Updated and expanded from 2004’s Phases of the Moon, this mammoth collection contains twenty-six stories and novellas, along with a generous amount of introductory material. The result is the definitive one-volume overview of an extraordinary career.

The earliest story, “The Macauley Circuit,” was published in 1957, the latest, “The Prisoner,” in 2010. In between these narrative bookends are some of the most astonishing fictional creations of the modern era, many of them winners of major awards. Included among these are “Good News from the Vatican,” “Sailing to Byzantium,” “Passengers,” and “Enter a Soldier. Later, Enter Another,” as well as two of the most remarkable novellas you will ever encounter: “Nightwings” and “Born with the Dead.” Supplementing these award-winners are such bona fide classics as “Sundance,” “Schwartz Between the Galaxies,” “Capricorn Games,” and “To See the Invisible Man.” And the list goes on. Intelligent, exhilarating, and endlessly re-readable, The Best of Robert Silverberg: Stories of Six Decades is an irreplaceable volume, one that no one with an interest in modern science fiction—or in serious, ambitious fiction of any sort—can afford to miss.