One of the touchstone novels that separates the true aficionado of science fiction from the more casual fan or the aficionados of pulp adventures with fantastic tropes.I like pulp adventurers with fantastic tropes, but that's hardly the sum of either science fiction or fantasy.A lot of people report being rather stunned by this book, as they didn't think science fiction was this broad or this well written. This is one of the books I turn to when pretentious literary snobs challenge my taste in b...

This is the first book I've managed to sit down and read straight through in quite a while, so I have to acknowledge here the quality of it first: it is one of those books that reminds you that speculative fiction of all stripes can be just as reflective on the human condition as any navel-gazing literary fiction. The characters are for the most part not very likeable -- there's something despicable in all of them, and especially in the narrator, Selig. But there are some amazing bits too: Selig...

DYING INSIDE is a great character study from an outstanding author, Robert Silverberg.

After reading a couple of only average Silverberg novels, it's great to have my faith in the author's ability reaffirmed by reading another of his greats.Like The Book of Skulls this is almost only incidentally SF, that is more character driven than anything else. Yes, it is about someone who is a telepath, one of the classic tropes of the genre, but it is never really rationalised or understood. But that wasn't really the point, rather it was about how someone coped with being different from ev...

Robert Silverberg is one of science fiction all time greats, there is no doubt about that in my mind. He belongs up there with Asimov, Clarke, Heinlein etc. If you have never heard of him it would be because he is the most criminally underrated sf authors ever. I have said virtually the same thing in my previous review of his book Nightwings, and I will probably be saying the same damn thing again next time I review one of his books simply because it bears repeating.Among long time avid sf reade...

3.75 starsI felt like the telepath, the mind-reader, the voyeur while reading this novel. Silverberg sucked me in to the mind of David Selig so completely that I had to force myself to take a break from the book after hours of voracious reading to come up for air and perspective. It appears to be the autobiography of a telepath, but reads like a confession of mind crimes, social ineptness and stunted maturity. He fears his gift is fading and dying, and he flops impotently against the impinging s...

Dying Inside by Robert Silverberg is the painfully intimate portrait of David Selig, a man who has been blessed (or cursed, as he might say) with the gift of telepathy. He has learned to live with the ability, but now finds that his amazing power is slowly disappearing, leaving him ordinary again. Throughout the novel, Selig is literate, insightful and self-deprecating as he mercilessly dissects his own life. I found him less than likable, but completely fascinating. He leads an almost meaningle...

Strangely enough, I found this one a real treat to read. It might have something to do with the fact that I read A Time of Changes, The World Inside, and it all within the same day, somewhat in spirit of how damn quick Silverberg wrote these great classics. :)And because I read them all back to back, I found that being this familiar with the artist's text made al three books flow like water, common themes kissing intimately and oh so sexually. Like connection. Basic human connection. The first n...

Works of science fiction, more so than in other literature genres, can succeed through the ideas presented instead of the way in which those ideas are presented. Many of the classic writers of the genre, including Asimov, Clarke, and Heinlein, became classic because of their ideas, even though they weren't impressive prose stylists. Thus, because of the relevance of ideas in the genre, the premise of a science fiction book can be of inflated importance. Sometimes a great premise alone can make f...

Dying Inside is likely the most powerful SF tale of a telepath losing his powers that has ever been written, and is required reading for anyone wanting a taste of the best of New-Wave SF from the early 1970s (much better than Daniel Keyes' Flowers of Algernon, in my opionion). It is also extremely personal and autobiographical, since Silverberg’s prodigious output of the late 1960s was starting to slow down. Regardless of how far we should read into protagonist David Selig’s brilliant, lonely, f...

Sometimes it's difficult to separate form from content. This is a well written book that explores a good concept - the downside of being able to read the minds of others - thoroughly. It's soft sf, content to explore the psychological and social ramifications of the gift/curse without providing explanation of how David Selig came into possession of it. In short, right up my alley. So why the lukewarm rating? For starters, I found the book fairly dated. I have read my share of timeless SF, but th...

Dying Inside is a sterling example of 70s New Wave science fiction. it is about a telepath whose powers are fading. dude is a miserable, depressive asshole who whines endlessly about his life. the end.wait a sec, maybe that sounds like a bad read to you? well my friend, let me tell you... throw that impression away! this is a marvelous book from beginning to end. it is thought-provoking, often delightful, often hard-edged, completely enjoyable. Silverberg is such a masterful writer and many time...

I’ve passed up silverberg books in used bookstores for years because I’d never heard of him, now I wonder why. I’m not sure I’d consider this sci-fi, it seems to be about a guy having a mid life crisis, realizing he’s wasted so much time and squandered a gift, feeling disconnected and lost. He’s got some good prose and throws in lots of literary quotes. It’s not Bradbury but we’ll done.There’s some racial stuff in it that wouldn’t go over well in today’s world but doesn’t come from a hateful min...

A Goodreads friend recently asked if Silverberg lacked the matinee firepower of Heinlein or Asimov because he had no masterwork, no centerpiece to which critics could point, no one work that served as an identity. Silverberg, Grandmaster though he is, lacks a Stranger in a Strange Land or Foundation or Dune.I submit here, to the court of science fiction literature, that Dying Inside is such a work.Dying Inside is Silverberg’s 1972 science fiction / fantasy classic about telepathy and so much mor...

"The sensory shutdown is not always a willed event, naturally. It happens to us whether we like it or not. If we don't climb into the box ourselves, we'll get shoved in anyway. That's what I mean about entropy inevitably nailing us all in the long run. No matter how vital, how vigorous, how world-devouring we are, the inputs dwindle as time goes by. Sight, hearing, touch, smell-everything goes, as good old Will S. said, and we end up sans teeth, sans eyes, sans tastes, sans everything. Or, as th...

4.5 to 5.0 stars. Robert Silverberg is one of those writers that has never disappointed me and Dying Inside is no exception. This is often considered Silverberg's best novel and, while not my personal favorite of his, it is easy to see why. The story is told in the first person by a telepath, David Selig, who is slowly losing his ability to read minds. David, despite his ability to read minds, is almost completely isolated from the rest of society and is unable to form any close attachments. He

I finished Dying Inside this morning and I'm still not sure what to say about it. Perhaps I should start by saying that I don't believe this is science fiction at all. I kept looking for the science part and it just wasn't there. I believe that it would have been classified as general fiction if it hadn't been written by a famous science fiction author.I have to say that I have met few fictional characters that are more pathetic than David Selig. He's not pathetic because he's losing his telepat...

This is soft SF novel, which was nominated for Hugo, Nebula and Locus Awards. I read as a part of Buddy reads in Hugo & Nebula Awards: Best Novels The story is about David Selig, a telepath living in the 70s in New York. He is a pathetic character, self-eating for the fact that he has the gift for telepathy, so he is like a peeping tom and for the fact that his gift is waning. The story is written as an internal monologue with breaking of the fourth wall, - the protagonist often uses word you, r...

I found this book intensely disappointing. I'm usually very impressed with Silverberg's work, but here he seemed to be channelling the same vein of zeitgeist that gave us Portnoy's Complaint and other laments of the middle-aged white/Jewish guy whose dick doesn't rise as quickly in his forties as it did in his teens. The premise is excellent: a guy who's been a telepath all his life, mostly secretly, finds that his powers are fading and has to cope with the loss of his superpower and the prospec...

In his forward to "The Stars, My Destination," author Neil Gaiman says that one of things that dates the fastest in literature is science-fiction. That statement applies to "Dying Inside" which is clearly a novel of its time period, but still works today because the novel focuses on a character and not the technology involved. David Selig is a man born with the strange ability to read people's thoughts. While many of us would think it's a blessing, David finds it a bit of a curse. David quickly