"Enter a Soldier. Later: Enter Another"
by Robert Silverberg
Form: Novella
Year: 1989
ID: 277
Publication history:
- 1989: Asimov's June 1989, Magazine
- 1989: Time Gate, Baen Mass market paperback, ISBN 0-671-69850-8, 277 pp.
- 1990: Purjehdus Bysanttiin, Oy Mass market paperback, in Finnish as Tulkoon sotilas - ja myhemmin: viel toinen
- 1990: The Year's Best Science Fiction, Seventh Annual Collection, St Martins Trade paperback
- 1990: Best New Science Fiction 4, Robinson Mass market paperback
- 1992: Secret Sharers (The Collected Stories of Robert Silverberg Volume 1), Bantam Trade paperback, ISBN 0-553-37068-5, 546 pp.
- 1992: Secret Sharers (The Collected Stories of Robert Silverberg Volume 1), Bantam Hard cover book, 546 pp.
- 1993: The Secret Sharer (The Collected Stories of Robert Silverberg Volume 2), Grafton Trade paperback, ISBN 0-586-21370-8, 395 pp.
- 1994: Le Nez de Cloptre, Denol Hard cover book, ISBN 2207241912, 314 pp., in French as Entre un soldat, puis un autre
- 1994: The New Hugo Winners, Volume 3, Baen Mass market paperback
- 2000: Fictionwise, Fictionwise Online
- 2000: Le Nez de Cloptre, Denol Mass market paperback, ISBN 2-207-25001-6, 320 pp., in French as Entre un soldat, puis un autre
- 2001: Le Nez de Cloptre, Gallimard Mass market paperback, ISBN 2070420760, 343 pp., in French as Entre un soldat, puis un autre
- 2004: Phases of the Moon, iBooks Trade paperback, ISBN 0743498011, 623 pp.
Other resources:
[None on record]
Comments:
Nominated for Nebula Award for best novelette, 1989. Winner of Hugo Award for best novella, 1990. Possible winner of an award for most punctuation in a story title.
Computer wizards of the 22nd century recreate famous historical personages in their machines and stage virtual meetings between them. Interestingly, Silverberg chose Francisco Pizarro and Socrates for this story instead of more well-known figures. Not that they're unknowns, they're just not obviously dramatic the way Hitler or Napoleon might have been. A very good story, deserving of its accolades. Aside from the computers used to create the AIs, no advanced technology is evident in the story. There is no time travel involved. Simulation is used to defeat the passage of time, in a way.
The scenario is revisited by other authors (Robert Sheckley, Poul Anderson, Gregory Benford and Pat Murphy) in Time Gate and in Time Gate 2 by Benford and Sheckley again with the addition of Christopher Stasheff, Matthew J. Costello, Anne McCaffrey and Karen Haber. Not a bad set of contributors, though Silverberg has remarked how difficult it was to get the others to really follow with the basic idea he came up with.