Author Info: Robert Silverberg (Patreon)

Robert Silverberg is an American author and editor, best known for writing science fiction. He is a multiple winner of both Hugo and Nebula Awards, a member of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame, and a Grand Master of SF. He has attended every Hugo Awards ceremony since the inaugural event in 1953

This was one of those odd jobs that come a professional writer’s way every now and then. A magazine called Beyond was getting started, published out of Los Angeles, and intended, I think, for distribution entirely on college campuses. They wanted to publish a science-fiction story by a well-known writer in each issue. Harlan Ellison put its editor, Judith Sims, in touch with me in September of 1981; a good price was being offered and I was then in the midst of the rush of creative activity that in recent months had produced the Majipoor Chronicles short stories and four or five others; after doing “The Conglomeroid Cocktail Party” for Playboy I sat right down and wrote “The Trouble With Sempoanga” for this new magazine. At this late date it may seem to have been inspired by the AIDS epidemic, but in fact AIDS had not yet surfaced as a major problem in 1981 and if there was any kind of real-world inspiration for this little story, it was the epidemic of genital herpes that then was a big topic of conversation in the United States.

At any rate, I wrote the story and Beyond published it in its second issue (I think the magazine lasted four issues altogether) and that was that. I haven’t given that ephemeral magazine a thought for decades. Even Google seems to know nothing about it and I’m not sure where my file copy is. (I had to ask Harlan for some of the details I’ve noted here.) But I did get a nice nasty story out of the project.