9 ms·

Samuel R. Delany Reimagined Sci-Fi, Sex, and the City

89 points by benbreen 3y ago

olvy0 3y ago
Very strange to see this now. I'm reading through Dhalgren currently. Bought it in a second-hand bookshop 15 years ago and never started reading it, and just 3 weeks ago picked it up from my shelf on a whim. Been reading it during my commutes to/from work. A few random thoughts. Wow, I didn't know Nova is about to be an Amazon series scripted by Gaiman. That's very impressive. I listened to it as an audiobook 8 years ago and really liked it. I hope they wouldn't ruin it completely, but I feel the novel has enough good parts that even a maimed and partial interpretation would be good. I'm not yet finished with Dhalgren, but I'm very near the end. Reading the last part has been a slog. I'm very impressed with the language and the descriptions and the philosophy and the self-referential nature of the book, and the Delany keeps me reading even when the plot is quite thin and nothing really interesting happens. But on the whole the actual reading experience is boring, especially towards the end. It kind of reminds me of someone who has just veered/discovered a lifestyle which they previously thought was extreme (and/or outside societal norms, or rather the societal norms they were raised with), was shocked, culturally and personally, and wants to share his shock with the rest of the world, maybe as a sort of a coping mechanism. Like some born-again religious tend to be very extreme and devout and proselytize religion. So does Delany, or at least his authorial voice, tend to go on and on about gay sex, homoeroticism, sexual fantasies and deviancies, abnormal behavior, etc. Also, self-referential plots, unreliable narrators. This gets tiring after a while. Dhalgren's language has a strange effect on my mind. After a session of reading parts of it, my brain stays for a while in this strange inner loop where everything I see is described in the same floral, poetic language as the book, where little details in the world around me are important. It goes away after I talk for a while with people or answer emails, as if my mind is reset back to "normal" discourse. I read Triton back when I was 20. I feel it had a huge influence on me, but I can't point out exactly how. Like if I'd never read it, would my life be different somehow? I don't know. I did pick my username in my very first post to an online message board, back in the mid-90's, from Triton. So there's that. I think it's a shame that Delany hasn't written more science fiction, or fantasy, although after reading this article I understand why. I personally find some of his views and writing to be repulsive. It should be fairly obvious which ones. I would never read Hogg or anything in that vain. Although personally I didn't find Dhalgren repulsive fwiw. I think. I'm still glad his works were written and are available. I think that as a society we need them, even if they are repulsive for me personally. And him, of course. "Black Harlem speech and white Park Avenue speech are very different things" – from the article. Yes, that's very present in Dhalgren. The language veers between highly literate, erudite English, and street-level language. And even inside those two there are different variations of regional accents, cultural accents... This is something that also speaks to me, personally. When I was growing up, I read a lot, and had a stutter. One of the reasons for it (in addition to some social anxiety) was the cognitive dissonance between my friends' and family spoken language, and the vocabulary and idioms of the written word. At times about every second sentence I wanted to utter would be censored immediately by a part of my brain, as being inappropriate and too literary for the person I was talking to. Later in life, I met enough people from different walks of life, listened to them, and I was able to imitate them and their speech enough to be able to move back and forth rather effortlessly between different styles of speech. Strangely enough, I see a similar pattern in my younger son. He has just started reading a lot of books, after some years of refusing to read much, and his spoken language has suddenly ballooned, has become a lot more erudite and refined. He doesn't seem to have the same problem as me though, he is still able to use the same language level near his friends. None of them read much, if at all.
Djle 3y ago
This is an excellent article on a writer that more people need to know about.
- addaon 3y ago
  Agreed. By far the most influential writer in my life.
  - bluepod4 3y ago
    Can you elaborate on this?
  - germinalphrase 3y ago
    What would you recommend as a first read?
    - daverol 3y ago
      BABEL-17
    - addaon 3y ago
      "Time Considered as a Helix of Semi-Precious Stones." Short story, bootleg scan available online; I have no qualms telling people to start with that since they'll want to buy the rest of the collection soon enough. It's my favorite of his stories in a lot of ways. The characters are fun, every word (or at least every sentence) is essential to building the world, it has a very strong sense of place that's so common in his work.
    - squidsoup 3y ago
      Dhalgren is his masterpiece really, but it's not what you would describe as typical science fiction.
      - addaon 3y ago
        I would /not/ suggest starting with Dhalgren. You will enjoy it more if you learn how to read Delany from his other works. Work through his super-accessible shorts, then Stars in my Pocket for an intro to theme and style, then Triton for an intro to disagreeable protagonists in his work. Then back to Babel-17 / Nova for use of language, and then -- if you enjoyed all of those -- on to Dhalgren for the first attempt.
FrustratedMonky 3y ago
any link to non-paywall?
- ughitsaaron 3y ago
  https://archive.li/B8YY2 https://archive.li/B8YY2
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
ilamont 3y ago
Great article. I had seen pictures of his writing den, but this really opens up his day to day routine in a way that I hadn't envisioned. This is depressing: The only complication involved a pension that Delany thought he’d earned from the university; it didn’t exist. Makes me wonder about his other business relationships and if there was a mismatch between what he expected vs. what was delivered. The fine print of employment and publishing contracts is often very restrictive and/or requires additional steps to unlock certain rights or benefits. For anyone who hasn't read Delany, Nova is a solid starting point. Forget the "space opera" label, it's just a great story with interesting characters and vision of humanity's far future.
- logicprog 3y ago
  Nova is simply incredible.
- jadamson 3y ago
  I'd suggest starting with Conversations with Samuel R. Delany (2009): > It may seem paradoxical from my statement that generally speaking I think sexual relations between children and adults are likely to go wrong and that most of them are likely to be, start off as, or quickly become, abusive, that I also support a group like NAMBLA—which I do. But that’s because I feel one of the largest factors in the abuse is fostered by the secrecy itself and lack of social policing of the relationships.
qlm 3y ago
A good example of the importance of the Oxford comma.
- knodi123 3y ago
  That is such a Samantha thing to say.
- rsynnott 3y ago
  Got to admit that when I first glanced at the title I briefly thought it was about an _extremely ill-conceived_ genre-shift TV reboot.
xrd 3y ago
My ten year old son loves sci-fi. And, it sounds like many of Delany's stories deal with adult-ish subject matter (of a sexual nature). I know he has a complicated history as a gay man in America, and I'm interested in knowing if there are good stories for young adults? My son can handle complicated things, but as his dad I want to be cautious as well.
- paraboli 3y ago
  Nova
- kbingman 3y ago
  I read Dhalgren at 14 and I would definitely not recommend that. I'd avoid the Nevèrÿon books as well, while they are among my favourites, their themes are very adult. Babel-17 and Nova are probably both good places for him to start. They are both pretty interesting stories.
- kabdib 3y ago
  The short stories in Driftglass were pretty good, and relatively tame. Read them at 13 or 14. The sex in Tales of Neveryon is basically off-screen, with heavy allusions.
- SamoyedFurFluff 3y ago
  Have you considered sending him some of Nnedi Okorafors Binti series? You might also think Iron Widow by xiran jay zhao (giant mechs vs aliens), anything by marie lu, aurora rising by amie kaufman & jay kristoff, invictus by ryan graudin
- infoseek12 3y ago
  It would be a bit like recommending he read Finnegan’s Wake. I don’t think he’d get very much out of it without a lot of context and he is unlikely to find it an enjoyable experience. I think Delany can fairly be described as an acquired taste. I’d strongly recommend you look into Lois McMaster Bujold’s work. Her books have some complex themes and he’s likely to enjoy them a lot more.
quesera 3y ago
I've only read Dhalgren, which I have extremely mixed feelings on. The hazy liminal atmosphere and writing was impressive and moving. The people were generally shallow or neutral, but the main character was very difficult to appreciate and was borderline repulsive (not the sex, but the person and sometimes the vivid descriptions of his putrescence). I was interrupted about 50 pages from the end (of like 800 total), and never bothered to finish it. ... Any recommendations on another book from Delany?
- zabzonk 3y ago
  "Triton" (but this has another somewhat repulsive protagonist) and "Stars in my pocket like grains of sand"
- logicprog 3y ago
  I've said this elsewhere in the thread, but I really deeply enjoyed Nova. It's got a really unique, special feel to it I can't explain.
- stevenwoo 3y ago
  Dhalgren is a very difficult and very long read. It might benefit from a hypertext or ebook form because it is so self referential and the main character is such an unreliable narrator, sometimes I would read one section, then have to refer back to make sure I was at the right place in the book because this happened before or this text was already used somewhere else or some other character said something different about the same experience. The sex scenes were very repetitive after about the quarter mark to me, but those seem to reflect a lot of his personal experience. I thought Babel-17 was more approachable, shorter and smaller in scope.
skmurphy 3y ago
If you are looking for good books by Delany Jewel Hinged Jaw is literary criticism and advice for writers https://www.amazon.com/Jewel-Hinged-Jaw-Language-Science-Fiction/dp/081956883X https://www.amazon.com/Jewel-Hinged-Jaw-Language-Science-Fic... His three most pure "science fiction" novels are Babel-17, Trouble on Triton (originally published as Triton), and Nova. They are all very imaginative but grounded in scientific extrapolation. His Neveryona series of stories and books are set in a medieval frame but are really about modern life. I found them interesting and thought-provoking. He wrote a short autobiographical piece about some time he spent in a commune called "Heavenly Breakfast" that I found insightful. He has a number of very good shorts science fiction stories from the 60's and 70's that are very good as well. Two in particular I enjoyed: "Time Considered as a Helix of Semi-Precious Stones" "We, in Some Strange Power’s Employ, Move on a Rigorous Line" are collected in "Driftglass"
- cgh 3y ago
  I notice you skipped “Dhalgren”. Probably for the best.
  - skmurphy 3y ago
    I have read many of his books, including Dhalgren, which is a complex and dense book that does not make for easy reading. I recommended the ones that were more "hard science fiction" that were full of interesting ideas. The protagonist in Triton is not really a hero but Delany's world building is very thought provoking.
    - jrochkind1 3y ago
      I love Dhalgren so much. but also in non-fiction, _Times Square Red, Times Square Blue_, on public sex and sociality, is pretty amazing. He has a few other memoirs too, that are really insightful looks into ways of living I would not ordinarily have a view on.
      - sdenton4 3y ago
bluepod4 3y ago
I remember the first time someone said a “joke” to me that was similar to Isaac Asimov’s. I remember the second, third, fourth, and fifth times too. On to the sixth!
bluepod4 3y ago
Since I haven’t seen it recommended yet, his essay collection “About Writing” was an interesting read.
karaterobot 3y ago
The existence of this piece had me worried that he'd passed away. It's always nice when people get to be appreciated before they die.
raylad 3y ago
I love all of Delany's earlier SF writing, but felt that after getting praise and recognition for it, he decided he should be a more "serious" writer and started writing things like Dhalgren, which to me was basically unreadable and more about calling attention to the writing than telling a story.
- howard941 3y ago
  I'm in the minority here I think. I thought Dhalgren was vivid and although some parts were difficult, especially around the bits where the story splits down the middle of pages, the challenge was rewarding. Those bits I ascribed to The Kid's somewhat tenuous mental state. Dhalgren is the only Delany work I can specifically recall scenes from some twenty+ years after reading it.
linsomniac 3y ago
I recently listened to the Stuff You Should Know episode on Afrofuturism, and the mentioned Samuel R Delany as revolutionizing sci-fi. Sounds like I need to add him to my reading list. Great episode: https://www.iheart.com/podcast/105-stuff-you-should-know-26940277/episode/how-afrofuturism-works-117864559/ https://www.iheart.com/podcast/105-stuff-you-should-know-269...
swayvil 3y ago
I recommend HOGG. There's nothing else like it.
- migf 3y ago
  I read the Wikipedia plot summary and have been putting it off.
ubermonkey 3y ago
His 1988 memoir THE MOTION OF LIGHT IN WATER is pretty great; it's mostly about his experiences being young, gay, and black in the late 1950s/early 1960s.

89 points by benbreen 3y ago

Very strange to see this now. I'm reading through Dhalgren currently. Bought it in a second-hand bookshop 15 years ago and never started reading it, and just 3 weeks ago picked it up from my shelf on a whim. Been reading it during my commutes to/from work. A few random thoughts. Wow, I didn't know Nova is about to be an Amazon series scripted by Gaiman. That's very impressive. I listened to it as an audiobook 8 years ago and really liked it. I hope they wouldn't ruin it completely, but I feel the novel has enough good parts that even a maimed and partial interpretation would be good. I'm not yet finished with Dhalgren, but I'm very near the end. Reading the last part has been a slog. I'm very impressed with the language and the descriptions and the philosophy and the self-referential nature of the book, and the Delany keeps me reading even when the plot is quite thin and nothing really interesting happens. But on the whole the actual reading experience is boring, especially towards the end. It kind of reminds me of someone who has just veered/discovered a lifestyle which they previously thought was extreme (and/or outside societal norms, or rather the societal norms they were raised with), was shocked, culturally and personally, and wants to share his shock with the rest of the world, maybe as a sort of a coping mechanism. Like some born-again religious tend to be very extreme and devout and proselytize religion. So does Delany, or at least his authorial voice, tend to go on and on about gay sex, homoeroticism, sexual fantasies and deviancies, abnormal behavior, etc. Also, self-referential plots, unreliable narrators. This gets tiring after a while. Dhalgren's language has a strange effect on my mind. After a session of reading parts of it, my brain stays for a while in this strange inner loop where everything I see is described in the same floral, poetic language as the book, where little details in the world around me are important. It goes away after I talk for a while with people or answer emails, as if my mind is reset back to "normal" discourse. I read Triton back when I was 20. I feel it had a huge influence on me, but I can't point out exactly how. Like if I'd never read it, would my life be different somehow? I don't know. I did pick my username in my very first post to an online message board, back in the mid-90's, from Triton. So there's that. I think it's a shame that Delany hasn't written more science fiction, or fantasy, although after reading this article I understand why. I personally find some of his views and writing to be repulsive. It should be fairly obvious which ones. I would never read Hogg or anything in that vain. Although personally I didn't find Dhalgren repulsive fwiw. I think. I'm still glad his works were written and are available. I think that as a society we need them, even if they are repulsive for me personally. And him, of course. "Black Harlem speech and white Park Avenue speech are very different things" – from the article. Yes, that's very present in Dhalgren. The language veers between highly literate, erudite English, and street-level language. And even inside those two there are different variations of regional accents, cultural accents... This is something that also speaks to me, personally. When I was growing up, I read a lot, and had a stutter. One of the reasons for it (in addition to some social anxiety) was the cognitive dissonance between my friends' and family spoken language, and the vocabulary and idioms of the written word. At times about every second sentence I wanted to utter would be censored immediately by a part of my brain, as being inappropriate and too literary for the person I was talking to. Later in life, I met enough people from different walks of life, listened to them, and I was able to imitate them and their speech enough to be able to move back and forth rather effortlessly between different styles of speech. Strangely enough, I see a similar pattern in my younger son. He has just started reading a lot of books, after some years of refusing to read much, and his spoken language has suddenly ballooned, has become a lot more erudite and refined. He doesn't seem to have the same problem as me though, he is still able to use the same language level near his friends. None of them read much, if at all.

Djle 3y ago

This is an excellent article on a writer that more people need to know about.

addaon 3y ago
Agreed. By far the most influential writer in my life.
- bluepod4 3y ago
  Can you elaborate on this?
- germinalphrase 3y ago
  What would you recommend as a first read?
  - daverol 3y ago
    BABEL-17
  - addaon 3y ago
    "Time Considered as a Helix of Semi-Precious Stones." Short story, bootleg scan available online; I have no qualms telling people to start with that since they'll want to buy the rest of the collection soon enough. It's my favorite of his stories in a lot of ways. The characters are fun, every word (or at least every sentence) is essential to building the world, it has a very strong sense of place that's so common in his work.
  - squidsoup 3y ago
    Dhalgren is his masterpiece really, but it's not what you would describe as typical science fiction.
    - addaon 3y ago
      I would /not/ suggest starting with Dhalgren. You will enjoy it more if you learn how to read Delany from his other works. Work through his super-accessible shorts, then Stars in my Pocket for an intro to theme and style, then Triton for an intro to disagreeable protagonists in his work. Then back to Babel-17 / Nova for use of language, and then -- if you enjoyed all of those -- on to Dhalgren for the first attempt.

FrustratedMonky 3y ago

any link to non-paywall?

ughitsaaron 3y ago
https://archive.li/B8YY2 https://archive.li/B8YY2
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

ilamont 3y ago

Great article. I had seen pictures of his writing den, but this really opens up his day to day routine in a way that I hadn't envisioned. This is depressing: The only complication involved a pension that Delany thought he’d earned from the university; it didn’t exist. Makes me wonder about his other business relationships and if there was a mismatch between what he expected vs. what was delivered. The fine print of employment and publishing contracts is often very restrictive and/or requires additional steps to unlock certain rights or benefits. For anyone who hasn't read Delany, Nova is a solid starting point. Forget the "space opera" label, it's just a great story with interesting characters and vision of humanity's far future.

logicprog 3y ago
Nova is simply incredible.
jadamson 3y ago
I'd suggest starting with Conversations with Samuel R. Delany (2009): > It may seem paradoxical from my statement that generally speaking I think sexual relations between children and adults are likely to go wrong and that most of them are likely to be, start off as, or quickly become, abusive, that I also support a group like NAMBLA—which I do. But that’s because I feel one of the largest factors in the abuse is fostered by the secrecy itself and lack of social policing of the relationships.

qlm 3y ago

A good example of the importance of the Oxford comma.

knodi123 3y ago
That is such a Samantha thing to say.
rsynnott 3y ago
Got to admit that when I first glanced at the title I briefly thought it was about an _extremely ill-conceived_ genre-shift TV reboot.

xrd 3y ago

My ten year old son loves sci-fi. And, it sounds like many of Delany's stories deal with adult-ish subject matter (of a sexual nature). I know he has a complicated history as a gay man in America, and I'm interested in knowing if there are good stories for young adults? My son can handle complicated things, but as his dad I want to be cautious as well.

paraboli 3y ago
Nova
kbingman 3y ago
I read Dhalgren at 14 and I would definitely not recommend that. I'd avoid the Nevèrÿon books as well, while they are among my favourites, their themes are very adult. Babel-17 and Nova are probably both good places for him to start. They are both pretty interesting stories.
kabdib 3y ago
The short stories in Driftglass were pretty good, and relatively tame. Read them at 13 or 14. The sex in Tales of Neveryon is basically off-screen, with heavy allusions.
SamoyedFurFluff 3y ago
Have you considered sending him some of Nnedi Okorafors Binti series? You might also think Iron Widow by xiran jay zhao (giant mechs vs aliens), anything by marie lu, aurora rising by amie kaufman & jay kristoff, invictus by ryan graudin
infoseek12 3y ago
It would be a bit like recommending he read Finnegan’s Wake. I don’t think he’d get very much out of it without a lot of context and he is unlikely to find it an enjoyable experience. I think Delany can fairly be described as an acquired taste. I’d strongly recommend you look into Lois McMaster Bujold’s work. Her books have some complex themes and he’s likely to enjoy them a lot more.

quesera 3y ago

I've only read Dhalgren, which I have extremely mixed feelings on. The hazy liminal atmosphere and writing was impressive and moving. The people were generally shallow or neutral, but the main character was very difficult to appreciate and was borderline repulsive (not the sex, but the person and sometimes the vivid descriptions of his putrescence). I was interrupted about 50 pages from the end (of like 800 total), and never bothered to finish it. ... Any recommendations on another book from Delany?

zabzonk 3y ago
"Triton" (but this has another somewhat repulsive protagonist) and "Stars in my pocket like grains of sand"
logicprog 3y ago
I've said this elsewhere in the thread, but I really deeply enjoyed Nova. It's got a really unique, special feel to it I can't explain.
stevenwoo 3y ago
Dhalgren is a very difficult and very long read. It might benefit from a hypertext or ebook form because it is so self referential and the main character is such an unreliable narrator, sometimes I would read one section, then have to refer back to make sure I was at the right place in the book because this happened before or this text was already used somewhere else or some other character said something different about the same experience. The sex scenes were very repetitive after about the quarter mark to me, but those seem to reflect a lot of his personal experience. I thought Babel-17 was more approachable, shorter and smaller in scope.

skmurphy 3y ago

If you are looking for good books by Delany Jewel Hinged Jaw is literary criticism and advice for writers https://www.amazon.com/Jewel-Hinged-Jaw-Language-Science-Fiction/dp/081956883X https://www.amazon.com/Jewel-Hinged-Jaw-Language-Science-Fic... His three most pure "science fiction" novels are Babel-17, Trouble on Triton (originally published as Triton), and Nova. They are all very imaginative but grounded in scientific extrapolation. His Neveryona series of stories and books are set in a medieval frame but are really about modern life. I found them interesting and thought-provoking. He wrote a short autobiographical piece about some time he spent in a commune called "Heavenly Breakfast" that I found insightful. He has a number of very good shorts science fiction stories from the 60's and 70's that are very good as well. Two in particular I enjoyed: "Time Considered as a Helix of Semi-Precious Stones" "We, in Some Strange Power’s Employ, Move on a Rigorous Line" are collected in "Driftglass"

cgh 3y ago
I notice you skipped “Dhalgren”. Probably for the best.
- skmurphy 3y ago
  I have read many of his books, including Dhalgren, which is a complex and dense book that does not make for easy reading. I recommended the ones that were more "hard science fiction" that were full of interesting ideas. The protagonist in Triton is not really a hero but Delany's world building is very thought provoking.
  - jrochkind1 3y ago
    I love Dhalgren so much. but also in non-fiction, _Times Square Red, Times Square Blue_, on public sex and sociality, is pretty amazing. He has a few other memoirs too, that are really insightful looks into ways of living I would not ordinarily have a view on.
    - sdenton4 3y ago

bluepod4 3y ago

I remember the first time someone said a “joke” to me that was similar to Isaac Asimov’s. I remember the second, third, fourth, and fifth times too. On to the sixth!

bluepod4 3y ago

Since I haven’t seen it recommended yet, his essay collection “About Writing” was an interesting read.

karaterobot 3y ago

The existence of this piece had me worried that he'd passed away. It's always nice when people get to be appreciated before they die.

raylad 3y ago

I love all of Delany's earlier SF writing, but felt that after getting praise and recognition for it, he decided he should be a more "serious" writer and started writing things like Dhalgren, which to me was basically unreadable and more about calling attention to the writing than telling a story.

howard941 3y ago
I'm in the minority here I think. I thought Dhalgren was vivid and although some parts were difficult, especially around the bits where the story splits down the middle of pages, the challenge was rewarding. Those bits I ascribed to The Kid's somewhat tenuous mental state. Dhalgren is the only Delany work I can specifically recall scenes from some twenty+ years after reading it.

linsomniac 3y ago

I recently listened to the Stuff You Should Know episode on Afrofuturism, and the mentioned Samuel R Delany as revolutionizing sci-fi. Sounds like I need to add him to my reading list. Great episode: https://www.iheart.com/podcast/105-stuff-you-should-know-26940277/episode/how-afrofuturism-works-117864559/ https://www.iheart.com/podcast/105-stuff-you-should-know-269...

swayvil 3y ago

I recommend HOGG. There's nothing else like it.

migf 3y ago
I read the Wikipedia plot summary and have been putting it off.

ubermonkey 3y ago

His 1988 memoir THE MOTION OF LIGHT IN WATER is pretty great; it's mostly about his experiences being young, gay, and black in the late 1950s/early 1960s.