Nightwings

Nightwings is one of Robert Silverberg's breakthrough novels. It was first published in Galaxy magazine as three interconnected novellas; the first, "Nightwings," won the Hugo Award for Best Novella in 1969, and the author later lightly revised and merged them into a three-part novel. The story takes place in the Third Cycle of Earth in the distant future. The humans of the Second Cycle, who once possessed a highly advanced technological civilization, brought disaster upon themselves by abusing powers such as climate engineering; the continents sank, the population plummeted, and civilization declined into a hierarchical society organized by professional guilds: Watchers monitor the heavens for invaders, Flyers are products of genetic engineering who can only fly on wings at night, and there are also guilds of Defenders, Dominators, Rememberers, and others, while the guildless "uglies/shapeshifters" are regarded as inferiors. The protagonist is an aged Watcher who travels with Affreuella, a seventeen-year-old Flyer girl, and Gorman, a physically deformed companion, to the old city of Rome (called "Rom" in the book), where he witnesses the prophesied alien invasion truly arrive. Earth is swiftly conquered, the Watcher's duty loses its meaning, and he drifts to another city, changes his name, and joins the guild of Rememberers, reviewing human history in a guild devoted to the past, and on the road to the holy city of Jorslem seeks redemption and "renewal." Told in the first person in a lyrical, subtly elegiac tone, the book lays out an individual's fate, asking in a dying world about the arrogance of civilization, the memory of history, the meaning of suffering, and the possibility of renewal. It is an important work for understanding the stylistic transformation of Silverberg's middle and later periods.