"Neighbor"
by Robert Silverberg
Form: Short story
Year: 1964
ID: 784
Publication history:
- 1964: Galaxy August 1964, Magazine
- 1970: The Cube Root of Uncertainty, Macmillan Hard cover book
- 1971: The Cube Root of Uncertainty, Signet Mass market paperback, 239 pp.
- 1974: Sundance and Other Science Fiction Stories, Thomas Nelson Hard cover book
- 1975: Sundance and Other Science Fiction Stories, Abelard-Shuman Hard cover book
- 1976: Sundance and Other Science Fiction Stories, Corgi Mass market paperback, ISBN 0-552-10140-0, 174 pp.
- 1982: World of a Thousand Colors,
- 1983: World of a Thousand Colors, Priam Trade paperback, 329 pp.
- 1984: World of a Thousand Colors, Bantam Mass market paperback, ISBN 0-553-24059-5, 331 pp.
- 1997: Ringing the Changes (The Collected Stories of Robert Silverberg Volume 5), HarperCollins UK Trade paperback, ISBN 0-586-21373-2, 359 pp.
- 2001: Great SF Stories 26: 1964, NESFA Press Mass market paperback
- 2002: Le Chemin de la nuit: Nouvelles au fil du temps, tome 1, 1953-1970, Flammarion Trade paperback, ISBN 2080682350, 727 pp., in French as Voisins
Other resources:
[None on record]
Comments:
On a distant frontier planet only sparsely inhabited, there's a quiet feud between to families on adjoining estates. Both mansions bristle with missiles, cannons, and other high-tech weapons, just waiting for an excuse to be used. Then one day, the phone rings...
Could this be some sort of metaphor for something on our own Earth? One can only speculate.