Sun 2 Dec 2018
SF Stories I’m Reading: ROBERT SILVERBERG “Double Dare.”
Posted by Steve under Science Fiction & Fantasy , Stories I'm Reading[7] Comments
ROBERT SILVERBERG “Double Dare.” Short story. Galaxy Science Fiction, November 1956. Reprinted in The Fifth Galaxy Reader (1961). Collected in The Cube Root of Uncertainty (1970), among others.
While published before I discovered science fiction magazines at the local newsstand, which would have been a couple of years later, this is the kind of SF story I enjoyed immensely when I did, and which I don’t come across all that frequently any more.
Which is to say a “nuts and bolts” kind of SF story, in which either a Terran scientist or a pair of engineers from Earth — as in “Double Dare” — are given a problem to be solved, and whatever their motivation, they go ahead and do it.
In this case, the stakes are raised about as high as they can go, starting with a bet in bar about which of two races, Earth’s or the alien Domerangi, is the better at solving technological problems. To settle the question, a team of two experts from Earth are sent to the Domerangi home planet, where they are presented with three engineering or physics problems to solve, with two of the Domerangi doing the same back on Earth.
The first two tasks are easy, but the third is a tough one: to build a perpetual motion machine. Given the right incentive — and on a personal level it is to be able to go back home again — the two from Earth … but telling more would spoil the point of the story. Suffice to say that everything works out in very fine fashion, and with a added twist to the tale as well.
Stories such as this one are built on cheery optimism, I grant you, but they’re also a lot of fun to read.
December 2nd, 2018 at 11:37 pm
Two of my favorites! I love GALAXY SF and still have the original issues that I bought during the fifties, sixties, and seventies. I am constantly reading and rereading stories from my set.
Robert Silverberg I think has claim to being one of the very best SF writers. He started out with many mediocre stories in the fifties but by the mid-sixties and through the mid-seventies, his work for GALAXY especially was consistently first rate.
December 3rd, 2018 at 12:00 am
“Double Dare” was written toward the beginning of his career and doesn’t contain a lot of characterization, but it somehow caught my fancy when I read it yesterday. As I said, I try to keep up with the SF magazines still going today, but only a few of the stories are fun to read. This one was.
I agree that he really came into own in the early 60s. I think I could spend the rest of life reading all of his novels and short fiction, plus all of the anthologies he’s put together over the years.
And then start all over again.
December 3rd, 2018 at 9:15 am
You wrote CERTAINTY in the header but the cover clearly shows it is UNCERTAINTY.
I’m a huge fan of Silverberg’s short stories and novellas and have read the 9 volumes of his Collected Edition, but this one doesn’t sound all that familiar. I will look for the collection.
December 3rd, 2018 at 9:16 am
Also, the best parts for me of the collections are Silverberg’s introductions to the stories, discussion of how and when and why they were written, etc.
December 3rd, 2018 at 10:17 am
I’ve fixed the error, Jeff. Thanks for pointing it out. I’d never have caught it on my own. I can’t blame spellfixer for this one. It was my error all the way.
Also, I don’t know why, but “Double Dare” hasn’t been included in any of the recent Silverberg collections. It’s been reprinted a few times, but the most recent one is Invaders from Earth and To Worlds Beyond, Ace, 1980.
Here’s a link to Silverberg’s bibliography on ISFDb. It’s a long one!
http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?45934
December 3rd, 2018 at 10:15 am
I agree with Jeff about the excellent nine volume Collected Edition of the stories of Robert Silverberg. I have them all and the detailed introductions to the stories by Silverberg are of great interest.
December 3rd, 2018 at 3:42 pm
It’s very much a Campbellian problem story, which is ironic from a writer who would so stretch and enrich the genre. Being Silverberg he just naturally did it well.
He wrote quite a few juveniles in this era as well.