 | |
| Author | Robert Silverberg |
|---|---|
| Cover artist | Gary Freeman |
| Language | English |
| Genre | Science fiction |
| Publisher | Asimov's Science Fiction |
Publication date | 1986 |
| Publication place | United States |
Gilgamesh in the Outback is ascience fiction novella by American writerRobert Silverberg, a sequel to his historical novelGilgamesh the King[1] as well as a story in theshared universe seriesHeroes in Hell. It won theHugo Award for Best Novella in 1987 and was also nominated for theNebula Award for Best Novella in 1986.[2][3] Originally published inAsimov's Science Fiction,[4][5][6] it was then printed inRebels in Hell[7] before being incorporated into Silverberg's novelTo the Land of the Living. Real-life writersRobert E. Howard andH. P. Lovecraft feature as characters in the novella.
Robert Silverberg wrote that he was "drawn into" writing a story for the "Heroes in Hell" project. While he remembered that the central concept of the series was "never clearly explained" to him, he noted the similarity of "Heroes in Hell" toPhilip José Farmer'sRiverworld works, and decided "to run my own variant on what Farmer had done a couple of decades earlier." After writing "Gilgamesh in the Outback", he decided that, since the story "was all so much fun," to write two sequels, "The Fascination of the Abomination" and "Gilgamesh in Uruk".[8] In writing those stories, as Silverberg recalled, he "never read many of the other 'Heroes in Hell' stories", and had "no idea" of how consistent his work was with that of his "putative collaborators"; instead, he had "gone his own way ... with only the most tangential links to what others had invented."[8]
Silverberg compiled the three stories asTo the Land of the Living, revising the stories to remove any references to other writers' contributions to "Heroes in Hell" to avoid copyright issues.[8]To the Land of the Living was published in the British market in 1989 and reprinted in an American edition in 1990.
| Characters |
|  | |||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Adaptations |
| ||||||||||||
| Other | |||||||||||||
 | This article about ascience fictionshort story (or stories) published in the 1980s is astub. You can help Wikipedia byexpanding it. |
