Christine Wheelwright
Well-Known Member
I am currently on a mission to read (or in some cases, reread) the great novels of Robert Silverberg. By ‘great’ I of course mean those written in that short but productive period between the late 60’s and early 70’s (Lord Valentine’s Castle? You can keep it!).
I originally came across Silverberg’s work at a young age and recognized its excellence, while perhaps being too immature to draw the full benefit from the stories. But I find that I remember his books quite well, which I certainly can’t say of most of what I was exposed to back then (I was a prolific reader in my younger years, before dropping off significantly as an adult).
My more recent interest in Silverberg was kindled by chance, when I discovered a dusty second hand bookshop in St Catharines, Ontario and they had, well, everything! At least forty Silverberg paperbacks - some duplicated, many dog-eared - all from that golden era. Some of them I had already read, and many I had not. And so this past year I have already been through Downward to The Earth, Dying Inside, A Time of Changes, The Book of Skulls and many others. All are excellent, and quite different. Being in the mood to do a review, I now choose the novel I have most recently finished, although any Silverberg work of that era is a great starting point for discussion. Anyway, Nightwings, you are up!
Before getting on to the details of this particular story, it is worth noting that in the year of its publication (1969), it was accompanied by as many as six other classic Silverberg novels including The Man in The Maze, Up The Line and Downward to The Earth. This was an incredibly productive period in which he was apparently capable of writing quality novels in a span of just a few weeks.
Nightwings is definitively a work of science fiction, although it feels somewhat like a fantasy novel, especially in the early pages. One of the characters is a flying girl with wings, and the world Silverberg builds has a dreamy, colourful but somewhat blurry feel to it. The main character - a man whose occupation is to watch for alien invaders - uses equipment that puts me in mind of steampunk (a much later genre), as do the ‘thinking caps’ and other devices described throughout the story. But although there exists advanced technology and a future Earth as a setting, this is certainly not hard science fiction. The ‘science’ is a means to an end for Silverberg, not a thing of interest in its own right. The emphasis is always on the human, or societal impacts: how would man behave if he had such power at his disposal? How would a society evolve against a background of these technological advances (or regressions)?
Nightwings is at heart a tale of redemption (it even says so on the book’s jacket). A redemption for the main character, but perhaps more interestingly a potential redemption for humanity. Indeed the novel ends optimistically on this note.
The world described at the opening of Nightwings is not objectively attractive. An oppressive class system has evolved whereby individuals are organized into guilds according to their occupations. I found elements of fascism present in this structure (I wonder if this was intentional?) particularly with the harsh treatment of the ‘guildless’ (unemployed) and other groups (such as ‘changelings’) who could perhaps be paralleled with the disabled or other minorities, if you seek an equivalent in our modern world. Nightwings is set in a world in which hardship and suffering clearly exist for many, while an elite class (the Guild of Dominators) rules in comfort.
When the alien invasion arrives, about halfway through the book, it is strangely anticlimactic; taking place over a single night (a couple of pages). A relatively small number of erstwhile rulers fare poorly, even losing their lives, and our narrator gives up his now-pointless job. But for the majority of the population - particularly the underprivileged - little changes. This put me in mind of my high school English teacher who once pointed out that, in war, those who have most to lose are often expected to risk the least. He was talking about WWI though, not Nightwings.
The defeated humans ask themselves why their God (the ‘Will’, considered a somewhat interventionist deity) allowed them to be taken so easily and the uncomfortable answer, it would seem, is that humanity did not deserve to prevail. At the novel’s end, a movement begins (the Guild of ‘Redeemers’) not to fight the invaders, but to restore humanity’s lost compassion, a first step towards worthiness, a first step towards freedom.
Nightwings is a superb work of literary science fiction. Highly recommended by this reader.
