SOURCE: “Four Voices in Robert Silverberg's Dying Inside,” in Critical Encounters II: Writers and Themes in Science Fiction, edited by Tom Staicar, Frederick Ungar, 1982, pp. 90-103.

In the following essay, Alterman analyzes the philosophical implications of and narrative strategies informing the multiple points of view used in Dying Inside.

The power of language is astonishing. By judiciously selecting the right mix of words and stringing them together just so, a writer can create the whole universe within the mind of a reader. If, among the improbabilities the writer chooses, there are huge orbital space stations spinning against the blackness of interstellar space, or giant amoebae casually snacking on leg of starlet, well, then, we recognize the improbable reality created as science fiction. On the other hand, when the improbabilities are few—the landscape well known, the situations and characters drawn from everyday life—then they constitute mere fiction...