Nightwings (novella)
A Hugo-winning novella set in a decadent, guild-based future.
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"Nightwings" is a science fiction novella by American writer Robert Silverberg, first published in Galaxy Science Fiction magazine in September 1968. It won the Hugo Award for Best Novella in 1969 and was nominated for the Nebula Award for Best Novella in 1968, later winning the Prix Apollo Award in 1976. The novella is the first in a trilogy, followed by "Perris Way" (1968) and "To Jorslem" (1969), which were later collected into a single fixup novel also titled Nightwings.
Background
The story is set in a decadent, caste-based future where humanity is divided into guilds, each with specific roles. Some guild members appear genetically engineered, such as the Fliers, who can fly, and the Watchers, who watch distant stars. The main character is a Watcher tasked with monitoring the skies for alien invasion using sophisticated equipment, alongside a young Flier girl and a Changeling (who belongs to no guild). They visit the old city of Roum (suspected to be Rome) and become entangled in events involving a possible invasion.
Other great cities mentioned include Jorslem (Jerusalem), Stambool (Istanbul), Marsay (Marseille), Donsk (Gdańsk), Nayrub (Nairobi), Dijon, Palerm (Palermo), and Perris (Paris), though each has only a few thousand inhabitants. According to Silverberg's introductions, the changes required to combine the three novellas into a fixup novel were relatively minor.
More in Novels by Robert Silverberg
Sources
Compiled from Wikipedia and the sources listed below. Text from Wikipedia is available under CC BY-SA 4.0; this entry is adapted from it.
- Wikipedia: Nightwings (novella) (CC BY-SA 4.0).
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