Silverberg completed this novel in nine weeks, which was a slow pace for him during his younger years. He claims that he typically wrote a novel in three or four weeks at the time, and his 1967 book Thorns was actually finished in ten days (and was nominated for both a Hugo and a Nebula). Dying Inside marked a turning point for Silverberg, and the pace of work that seemed slow to the novelist at the time set the tone for his future projects. “Never again, after writing Dying Inside,” he admits, “did I write a full-length novel in as little as nine weeks. But it was an abnormal skill in the first place.”
Strangely enough—or perhaps not—the protagonist of Dying Inside, David Selig, is also on the brink of losing an abnormal power. Selig is a telepath. He can read minds, sometimes grasping just a few words at forefront of an acquaintance’s consciousness, at other moments probing deep into their souls. He finds the experience exhilarating, yet this skill has ironically crippled his social interactions, setting him apart from the rest of humanity.
In mid-life, Selig starts to lose his special talent. At first, the process is so slow that he hardly notices it. But in time, the decline becomes unmistakable. His mind-reading is often blocked, and brief periods of recovery cannot hide the overall trend. Silverberg draws out the implications in a series of memorable interludes, and we see how Selig’s plight impacts his friendships, his family ties, his romantic interests, his livelihood and day-to-day experiences. Much of the allure of this story stems from the author’s penetrating grasp of what such superhuman power really does to its beneficiary, and how its loss might impact the lifelong mind-reader.
The result is a novel that is more psychologically charged than your typical sci-fi story. You might think that the subject of telepathy itself would inspire this richness of inner detail, but the history of the genre shows that this is far from the case. Even an often-praised novel such as Alfred Bester’s The Demolished Man (1953)—usually cited as the preeminent fictional account of mind-reading—comes across as hollow and contrived by comparison to Dying Inside. Silverberg, in sharp contrast to Bester (who developed his skills writing radio and TV scripts), is aiming for a more consciously literary effect.
Article comments
1 - David Scholes
I'm intrigued by Siverberg's approach of offtimesletting the title come before the story. Perhaps only the truly great writers can succeed with this approach?
One does wonder what may have been achieved at the time had the book been packaged and marketed with more panache. Perhaps by some of todays marketing experts.
I've recently been published myself in the US. Just a modest collection of short science fiction and one or two alternate history stories.
The book is on Amazon and many of the major sites and the link to my author page.
Cheers