Book Lists

New Releases by Samuel R. Delany

Samuel R. Delany is the author of The Edge of Language (2026), Last and First Tales (2026), Bread and Wine (2025), Big Joe (2025), Captives of the Flame (2023).

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The Edge of Language

release date: Oct 20, 2026
The Edge of Language
Acclaimed author''s account of the 1970s and the process behind his masterpieces of science fiction and literary criticism This long-awaited second volume of The Journals of Samuel R. Delany offers a window into the 1970s, a pivotal decade in Delany''s career, when he produced some of his most daring and influential work. The journals trace the evolution of Dhalgren, the ambitious, experimental novel that polarized readers yet became his most commercially successful book, as well as the long-suppressed Hogg, a brutal exploration of transgression. They show Delany''s subsequent work on Trouble on Triton and the groundbreaking Tales of Nevèrÿon, which wove philosophy, sexuality, and myth into sword-and-sorcery narratives. They also capture his early development of Stars in My Pocket Like Grains of Sand, as well as the critical insights that would reshape science fiction studies in The Jewel-Hinged Jaw, The American Shore, and Starboard Wine. Intellectually vibrant and deeply personal, these writings illuminate Delany''s life as a black gay writer navigating identity, desire, and community amid the cultural transformations of the era. Editor and Delany scholar Kenneth R. James has included a generous sampling of story outlines, fragments of fiction and criticism, and letter drafts alongside the personal entries, and has also supplied biographical synopses and endnotes, all of which enrich and clarify the personal narrative.

Last and First Tales

release date: Sep 22, 2026

Bread and Wine

release date: Sep 02, 2025
Bread and Wine
This story of life in New York City begins with a chance meeting between the bearded black professor, Samuel R Delany and a homeless Brooklyn Irishman selling books from a blanket on 72nd st, and tells how their lives intersect and change forever. A beautifully drawn graphic novel about the beginning of a moving and lasting gay relationship, with all the complexities, fumblings and excitement of two people coming together. These men discover sexual joy, and explode stereotypes while exploring the possibilities for compassion and acceptance - based on true events.

Big Joe

release date: Apr 15, 2025
Big Joe
An uproarious and scandalous Southern picaresque by the master Samuel R. Delany. A chance encounter with two older fellows at the movie theater has the young vagabond Ligie on his way to Lot-8, a trailer park down the road with an unconventional local reputation. There, Ligie meets Big Joe and his extended Lot-8-family: a loose-knit community of freaks all sectioned together by the landlord at the outskirts of town. Weaving together colorful characters and outright carnal debauchery, Big Joe is a radical pastoral of community, desire, and the strangeness of knowing one another.

Captives of the Flame

release date: Sep 18, 2023
Captives of the Flame
In "Captives of the Flame," Samuel R. Delany delves into the complexities of human relationships and identity, set against a richly imagined backdrop of an interstellar society. The narrative unfolds in Delany''s signature prose style, which seamlessly blends lyrical elegance with speculative inquiry, challenging conventional themes of love, power, and societal constructs. This novel not only reflects the author''s groundbreaking approach to science fiction but also engages with philosophical undertones, inviting readers to contemplate the nature of freedom and captivity, both literal and metaphorical. Samuel R. Delany, a towering figure in speculative fiction, has often drawn from his own experiences as a Black LGBTQ+ man to explore themes of marginalization and cultural intersection. His extensive body of work, ranging from novels to literary criticism, showcases his unique voice and intellect, establishing him as a notable critic of societal norms. Delany''s keen awareness of the intricate dynamics within relationships and his innovative world-building techniques shine brightly in this novel, showcasing his literary evolution and depth. "Captives of the Flame" is not merely a tale of adventure but a profound inquiry into the human condition. I highly recommend this book to readers interested in exploring multifaceted narratives that challenge perceptions of identity and belonging while delving into the philosophical depths of freedom and societal constraints. In this enriched edition, we have carefully created added value for your reading experience: - A succinct Introduction situates the work''s timeless appeal and themes. - The Synopsis outlines the central plot, highlighting key developments without spoiling critical twists. - A detailed Historical Context immerses you in the era''s events and influences that shaped the writing. - A thorough Analysis dissects symbols, motifs, and character arcs to unearth underlying meanings. - Reflection questions prompt you to engage personally with the work''s messages, connecting them to modern life. - Hand‐picked Memorable Quotes shine a spotlight on moments of literary brilliance. - Interactive footnotes clarify unusual references, historical allusions, and archaic phrases for an effortless, more informed read.

Occasional Views, Volume 2

release date: Dec 07, 2021
Occasional Views, Volume 2
Samuel R. Delany is an acclaimed writer of literary theory, queer literature, and fiction. His works have fundamentally altered the terrain of science fiction (SF) through their formally consummate and materially grounded explorations of difference. This anthology of essays, talks, and interviews addresses topics such as sex and sexuality, race, power, literature and genre, as well as Herman Melville, John Ashbery, Willa Cather, Junot Diaz, and others. The second of two volumes, this book gathers more than twenty-five pieces on films, poetry, and science fiction. This diverse collection displays the power of a towering literary intelligence. It is a rich trove of essays, as well as a map to the mind of one of the great writers of our time.

Of Solids and Surds

release date: Sep 14, 2021
Of Solids and Surds
In the fourth volume in the Why I Write series, the iconic Samuel Delany remembers fifty years of writing and shaping the world of speculative fiction “Delany’s prismatic output is among the most significant, immense and innovative in American letters.”—Jordy Rosenberg, New York Times "He dispenses wisdom about craft—including the demanding revision process his dyslexia requires—but most moving are the moments when he sheds light on connections he has made with other readers and writers. . . . Delany’s fans are in for a treat."—Publishers Weekly, Starred Review Language is the way humans deal with past, present, and future possibilities, as well as the subset called the probable. This is where Samuel Delany finds his justification for the writing life. Since the 1960s, occurrences such as Sputnik, school desegregation, and the advent of AIDS have given Delany, as a gay man, as a black man, access to certain truths and facts he could write about, and the language—sometimes fiction, sometimes nonfiction—in which to present them. “We write,” Delany believes, “at the intersection of your experience and mine in a way, I hope, that allows recognition.”

Occasional Views Volume 1

release date: Feb 01, 2021
Occasional Views Volume 1
"Gathers the writings of award-winning author Samuel R. Delany on a wide array of topics related to writing, science fiction, race, sexuality, literature, and literary theory"--

Dark Reflections

release date: Dec 19, 2019
Dark Reflections
This Stonewall Book Award-winning novel traces the life and unrealized dreams of a gay African American poet. A meditation on isolation and sexual repression, it also explores the frustrations intrinsic to artistic life.

American Science Fiction: Four Classic Novels 1968-1969 (LOA #322)

release date: Nov 05, 2019
American Science Fiction: Four Classic Novels 1968-1969 (LOA #322)
Celebrate classic novels of the New Wave era of sci-fi with this second collectable science fiction anthology from Library of America. Presenting 4 underrated science fiction classics from a tumultuous time in American history—including works by iconic Black author Samuel R. Delany and feminist Joanna Russ. In R. A. Lafferty’s utterly idiosyncratic and uncategorizable Past Master (1968), Renaissance philosopher Thomas More is summoned to Golden Astrobe in the year 2535: Can he save the planet’s troubled utopia from its soulless technological perfection and ensure the survival of the faith? Joanna Russ introduces one of SF’s first and most engaging female adventurers in her taut and edgy debut novel Picnic on Paradise (1968): the tough, sardonic, unforgettable Alyx, an ancient Phoenician mercenary teleported into the future to serve as guide and bodyguard for a band of stranded space tourists. The first African American writer to make a name for himself in the genre, Samuel R. Delany was hailed as “the best science-fiction writer in the world” on the basis of Nova (1968), a white-hot, fast-paced, protocyberpunk interstellar adventure featuring a misfit crew on a high-stakes quest. Stumbling on a mysterious ancient text among his father’s belongings, the son of a master woodcarver uncovers the key to revolutionary change in Jack Vance’s Emphyrio (1969), a marvel of craftsmanship and visionary world-building set on remote, feudal, theocratic Halma.

Times Square Red, Times Square Blue 20th Anniversary Edition

release date: Apr 30, 2019
Times Square Red, Times Square Blue 20th Anniversary Edition
Twentieth anniversary edition of a landmark book that cataloged a vibrant but disappearing neighborhood in New York City In the two decades that preceded the original publication of Times Square Red, Times Square Blue, Forty-second Street, then the most infamous street in America, was being remade into a sanitized tourist haven. In the forced disappearance of porn theaters, peep shows, and street hustlers to make room for a Disney store, a children’s theater, and large, neon-lit cafes, Samuel R. Delany saw a disappearance, not only of the old Times Square, but of the complex social relationships that developed there. Samuel R. Delany bore witness to the dismantling of the institutions that promoted points of contact between people of different classes and races in a public space, and in this hybrid text, argues for the necessity of public restrooms and tree-filled parks to a city''s physical and psychological landscape. This twentieth anniversary edition includes a new foreword by Robert Reid-Pharr that traces the importance and continued resonances of Samuel R. Delany’s groundbreaking Times Square Red, Times Square Blue.

Voyage, Orestes!

release date: Jan 01, 2019
Voyage, Orestes!
Introduction / by Kenneth R. James -- Voyage, Orestes! -- Prologue -- Part One. : I. The Road -- II. The Bridge -- III. The City -- Part Two. : I. In Praise of Limestone.

Silent Interviews

release date: Aug 14, 2018
Silent Interviews
Collected interviews featuring the Nebula Award–winning author and his thoughts on topics like literary criticism, comic books, race, and sexuality. For nearly three decades, Samuel R. Delany''s science fiction has transported millions of readers to the fringes of time, technology, and outer space. Now Delany surveys the realms of his own experience as a writer, critic, theorist, and gay Black man in this collection of written interviews, a type of guided essay. Because the written interview avoids the "mutual presence positioned at the semantic core" of traditional interview, Delany explains, "a kind of cut remains between the participants—a fissure in which the truths there may be more malleable, less rigid." Within that fissure Delany pursues the breadth and depth of his ideas on language and theory, the politics of literary composition, the experience of marginality, and the philosophical, commercial, and personal contexts of writing today. Gathered from sources as diverse as Diacritics and The Comics Journal, these interviews reveal the broad range of Delany''s thought and interests. "Delany has a unique place in late twentieth century letters. A lifelong inhabitant of the margins, both social and literary, he has used his marginalized status as a lens to focus his astute observations of American literature and society. From these interviews his voice emerges, provocative, precise, and engaging." —Kathleen Spencer, University of Nebraska "Samuel R. Delany never shies away from contestable positions or provocative opinions. In his fiction, Delany can write like quicksilver, and in lectures or panel discussions, he is easily SF''s most articulate spokesperson in academia. . . . There is much here that is not covered in Delany''s critical or autobiographical writings, and much that anyone seriously interested in SF—or many of Delany''s other favorite topics—ought to consider." — Locus "Delany is fascinating whether discussing SF, comics, or his experiences as a Black American, and this collection . . . is as entertaining as it is informative." — Science Fiction Chronicle "Yevgeny Zamyatin? Stanislaw Lem? Forget it! Delany is both, with a lot of Borges and Bruno Schultz thrown in." — Village Voice

Atheist in the Attic

release date: Apr 01, 2018
Atheist in the Attic
The title novella, “The Atheist in the Attic,” appearing here in book form for the first time, is a suspenseful and vivid historical narrative, recreating the top-secret meeting between the mathematical genius Leibniz and the philosopher Spinoza caught between the horrors of the cannibalistic Dutch Rampjaar and the brilliant “big bang” of the Enlightenment. Plus: equal parts history, confession, complaint, gossip, and personal triumph, Delany’s “Racism and Science Fiction” combines scholarly research and personal experience in the unique true story of the first major African American author in the genre. And featuring: a bibliography, an author biography, and our candid, uncompromising, and customary Outspoken Interview.

The Fall of the Towers

release date: Feb 01, 2018
The Fall of the Towers
From back cover Sphere paperback 1977: The Empire of Toromon was the last hope and refuge of mankind Sealed off from the charred radioactive wastelands by the radiation barrier, the Empire survived to face new adversaries deadlier even than the Great Fire. The Lord of the Flames, a force of evil devoid of physical substance. The berserk computer which guided the Empire's military complex. And an alien intelligence which crossed the abyss of space in search of new worlds to conquer.

The Novels of Samuel R. Delany Volume One

release date: Oct 03, 2017
The Novels of Samuel R. Delany Volume One
Three groundbreaking novels from the multiple Hugo and Nebula Award–winning Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Famer and SFWA Grand Master. Babel-17: Rydra Wong is the most popular poet in the five settled galaxies, capturing the mood of mankind after two decades of war. Now, a new weapon has been unleashed against humanity. Random attacks strike without warning, tied together by broadcast strings of sound. In that gibberish, Rydra recognizes a coherent language. To save her people, she must master this strange tongue, but the more she learns, the more she is tempted to join the other side, in this Nebula Award–winning novel. Nova: The year is 3172. Two political families—the Earth-based galactic conglomerate Draco and the Pleiades Federation of the Von Ray Clan—vie for ultimate power. Both want to control the market for Illyrion, the element that makes interstellar travel possible. When a star implodes, tons of the priceless fuel is discovered floating in the wreckage. Now, in a race to claim it, Lorq Von Ray leads a crew of ragtag misfits into the heart of a dangerous nova . . . Stars in My Pocket Like Grains of Sand: Subjected to the Radical Anxiety Termination procedure, Korga is transformed into a dim-witted slave. Now known as Rat, Korga serves many masters—until the Cultural Fugue, a critical mass of shared knowledge, destroys his homeworld. Marq Dyeth is an "industrial diplomat," who travels between worlds solving problems that come with the spread of "General Information." Brought together by the organization known as the Web, Rat and Marq find themselves manipulated by an entity determined to control the flow of information.

The Jewels of Aptor

release date: Jul 11, 2017
The Jewels of Aptor
It is a post-atomic future and civilization has regressed to a Middle Age like world. Geo a young student and poet, takes a job on a boat with a strange passenger, a priestess of the goddess Argo. They are heading toward a land of mutants and high radiation, Aptor, to recapture her daughter who has been kidnapped by the forces of the dark god Hama.

The Collages of Helen Adam

release date: Jan 01, 2017
The Collages of Helen Adam
Literary Nonfiction. Poetry. Califonia Interest. Art. Featuring forty stand-alone collages, the last state of the collage poem "In Harpy Land," Adam''s photos from the 1964 Buzz Gallery poet''s show, as well as two occasional collage suites (for Robert Duncan and Robert Hershon), as well as new essays by James Maynard, Alison Fraser, Samuel R. Delany, Lewis Ellingham, and Kristin Prevallet.

In Search of Silence

release date: Dec 01, 2016
In Search of Silence
The renowned novelist and critic''s private journals, spanning from his years as a high school student in the Bronx to early adult life in San Francisco. For fifty years Samuel Delany has cultivated a special relationship with language in works of fiction, criticism, and memoir that have garnered critical praise and legions of fans. The present volume—the first in a series—reveals a new dimension of his genius. In Search of Silence presents over a decade''s worth of Delany''s private journals, commencing in 1957 when he was still a student at the Bronx High School of Science, and ending in 1969 when he was living in San Francisco and on the verge of reconceiving the novel that would become Dhalgren. In these pages, Delany muses on the writing of the stories that will establish him as a science fiction wunderkind, the early years of his marriage to the poet Marilyn Hacker, performances as a singer-songwriter during the heyday of the American folk revival, travels in Europe, experiences in a New York City commune, and much more—and crosses paths with artists working in many genres, including poets such as Robert Frost, W. H. Auden, and Marie Ponsot, and science fiction writers such as Arthur C. Clarke, Michael Moorcock, Roger Zelazny, and Joanna Russ. Delany scholar Kenneth R. James presents the journal entries alongside generous samplings of story outlines, poetry, fragments of novels and essays that have never seen publication, and more; James also provides biographical synopses and an extensive set of endnotes to supply contextual information and connect journal material to Delany''s published work. "This is a tremendously significant and vital addition to the oeuvre of Samuel Delany; it clarifies questions not only of the writer''s process, but also his development—to see, in his juvenilia, traces that take full form in his novels—is literally breathtaking." —Matthew Cheney, author of Blood: Stories "Traversing Delany''s youth, we see a precocious mind grappling with his own talent he lives on two registers, participating in the world and also observing it, living simultaneously as a kid in NYC and, ''a writer of genius.''" —Robert Minto, New Republic "Mesmerizing . . . a true portrait of an artist as a young Black man . . . already visible in these pages are the wit, sensitivity, penetration, playfulness and the incandescent intelligence that will characterize Delany and his extraordinary work." —Junot Díaz, author of The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao

Letters from Amherst

release date: Nov 03, 2015
Letters from Amherst
Entertaining and informative letters written from 1984 to 1991 by the award-winning author and critic. Five substantial letters written from 1989 to 1991 bring readers into conversation with Hugo and Nebula Award–winning author Samuel Delany. With engaging prose, Delany shares details about his work, his relationships, and the thoughts he had while living in Amherst and teaching as a professor at the UMASS campus just outside of town, in contrast to the more chaotic life of New York City. Along with commentary on his own work and the work of other writers, he ponders the state of America, discusses friends who are facing AIDS and other ailments, and comments on the politics of working in academia. Two of the letters, which tell the story of his meeting his life partner Dennis, became the basis of his 1995 graphic novel, Bread & Wine. Another letter describes the funeral of his uncle Hubert T. Delany, former judge and well-known civil rights activist, and leads to reflections on his family''s life in 1950s Harlem. Another details a visit from science fiction writer and critic Judith Merril, and in another he gives a portrait of his one-time student Octavia E. Butler, who by then has become his colleague. In addition, an appendix shares ten letters Delany sent to his daughter while she attended summer camp between 1984 and 1988. These letters describe Delany''s daily life, including visitors to his upper-west-side apartment, his travels for work and pleasure, lectures attended, movies viewed, and exhibits seen. " Letters from Amherst is significant and important. Delany provides unseen glimpses into his important familial lineages, personal friendship and partnership, his assessment of universities and their politics, and just a general joy in anything that has to do with intellectual culture." —L.H. Stallings, author of Funk the Erotic: Transaesthetics and Black Sexual Cultures " Letters from Amherst gives readers insight into the personal and professional life and aesthetic assessments of the author, Samuel R. Delany, one of the most important literary figures of our time." —Nisi Shawl, author of the Nebula Award Finalist novel Everfair, and the James Tiptree Jr. Award–winning story collection Filter House

Occasional Views

release date: Sep 08, 2015
Occasional Views
Essays, lectures, and interviews from the iconic, award-winning author and critic. Samuel R. Delany is an acclaimed writer of literary theory, queer literature, and fiction. His "prismatic output is among the most significant, immense and innovative in American letters," wrote novelist Jordy Rosenberg in the New York Times in 2019. This anthology of essays, lectures, and interviews addresses topics such as 9/11, race, the garden of Eden, the interplay of life and writing, and notes on other writers such as Theodore Sturgeon, Hart Crane, Ursula K. Le Guin, Hölderlin, and an introduction to?and a conversation with—Octavia E. Butler. The first of two volumes, this book gathers more than thirty pieces on films, poetry, and science fiction. These sharp, focused writings by a bestselling Black and gay author are filled with keen insights and observations on culture, language, and life. "An incredibly generous entry point to Samuel R. Delany''s pioneering insights about the intersections of genre, race, sexuality, Science Fiction and what it means to live through and amongst those categories. As he states, "What we need is not so much radical writers as we need radical readers!" This collection helps us satisfy that deeply necessary and timely cultural need." —Louis Chude-Sokei, author of Floating In A Most Peculiar Way: A Memoir "By turns gutsy and erudite, challenging and gracious, Delany''s Occasional Views gives illuminating glances of his mind''s life journey. How lucky we are to have these proofs of the resonant truths he has discovered along the way!" —Nisi Shawl, author of Everfair "Delany has such an intoxicating, prodigious, conversational mind, and More About Writing and Other Essays is a delicious journey into his brilliance. Whether he is unveiling how he navigates the terrain of being a science fiction writer; or introspective reflections on race, class, sexuality; or trusting his listeners as he gives wide ranging, honest answers in his interviews, responding with exacting humor to his critics, remembering Clarion teaching experiences, regretting missed sexual encounters with favorite writers, creating space for the complexity of holding love and questions in the same breath—we see how thoroughly he thinks about everything, and how vibrant and multitudinous the web of connections is in his memory and imagination. Reading Delany will make you a better writer. (I was particularly enthralled to read the dialogue with, and later introduction of, Octavia E. Butler right as she''s finishing The Parable of the Talents!)." —Adrienne Maree Brown, co-editor of Octavia''s Brood

A, B, C: Three Short Novels

release date: Jul 07, 2015
A, B, C: Three Short Novels
A, B, C: Three Short Novels contains the first three novels of Samuel R. Delany’s long and illustrious career. The Jewels of Aptor is a science-fantasy story about a seafaring quest that sets out to find powerful magic jewels on a mystical, forbidden island where unimaginable danger lies. The Ballad of Beta-2 is about a future academic searching for the true story behind an interstellar voyage, a journey over multiple generations that ended in tragedy. They Fly at Çiron is a fantasy about the clash between a marauding army and a peaceful village at the foot of a mountain from which a race of winged people oversees both sides. Presenting these three novels in this omnibus volume for the first time, along with a new foreword and afterword by the author, A, B, C showcases Delany’s masterful storytelling ability and deep devotion to his craft.

The American Shore

release date: Aug 01, 2014
The American Shore
A keystone text in literary theory and science fiction The American Shore: Meditations on a Tale of Science Fiction by Thomas M. Disch—"Angouleme" was first published in 1978 to the intense interest of science fiction readers and the growing community of SF scholars. Recalling Nabokov''s commentary on Pushkin''s Eugene Onegin, Roland Barthes'' commentary on Balzac''s Sarazine, and Grabinier''s reading of The Heart of Hamlet, this book-length essay helped prove the genre worthy of serious investigation. The American Shore is the third in a series of influential critical works by Samuel R. Delany, beginning with The Jewel-Hinged Jaw and Starboard Wine, first published in the late seventies and reissued over the last five years by Wesleyan University Press, which helped win Delany a Pilgrim Award for Science Fiction Scholarship from the Science Fiction Research Association of America. This edition includes the author''s corrected text as well as a new introduction by Delany scholar Matthew Cheney.

Stars in My Pocket Like Grains of Sand

release date: Jan 07, 2014
Stars in My Pocket Like Grains of Sand
In this far-future classic, sexual attraction is a science, gender is a whole new construct, and information is both precious and perilous . . . With a burst of radiation to the brain, an angry young man is transformed into a dim-witted slave—suitable only for the most brutal work. But the tragedy of Rat Korga is the prologue to the story of Marq Dyeth, an “industrial diplomat,” who travels from world to world in this exciting, sprawling future, solving problems that come with the spread of “General Information.” The greatest fear in this future is Cultural Fugue, a critical mass of shared knowledge that can destroy life over the surface of an entire world in hours. In this dizzyingly original novel, information is perilous, but without it a human is only a rat in a cage. Campbell Award winner Jo Walton described this science fiction landmark as being “like pop rocks for the brain. . . . Things sparkle and explode all over, and it’s not entirely comfortable but it is quite wonderful.” This classic read predicted the Internet and is packed with themes that still resonate today. This ebook features an illustrated biography of Samuel R. Delany including rare images from his early career.

The Motion of Light in Water

release date: Jan 07, 2014
The Motion of Light in Water
This Hugo Award–winning memoir is “a very moving, intensely fascinating literary autobiography from an extraordinary writer” (William Gibson, Nebula and Hugo Award–winning author of Neuromancer). With the poet Marilyn Hacker, Delany moves into a tenement on a dead-end street that the landlord reserves for interracial couples. Between playing folk music in the evenings at the same Greenwich Village coffee shop as Bob Dylan and preparing shrimp curry for W. H. Auden and Chester Khalman, who have accepted an invitation that night for dinner, Delany takes a stab at writing science fiction. This young prodigy would complete and sell five novels before he turned twenty-two! (And then have a nervous breakdown . . .) This beautifully written memoir is a testament to a neighborhood where experimentation was a way of life. This ebook features an illustrated biography of Samuel R. Delany including rare images from his early career.

Dhalgren

release date: Jan 07, 2014
Dhalgren
Nebula Award Finalist: Reality unravels in a Midwestern town in this sci-fi epic by the acclaimed author of Babel-17. Includes a foreword by William Gibson. A young half–Native American known as the Kid has hitchhiked from Mexico to the midwestern city Bellona—only something is wrong there . . . In Bellona, the shattered city, a nameless cataclysm has left reality unhinged. Into this desperate metropolis steps the Kid, his fist wrapped in razor-sharp knives, to write, to love, to wound. So begins Dhalgren, Samuel R. Delany’s masterwork, which in 1975 opened a new door for what science fiction could mean. A labyrinth of a novel, it raises questions about race, sexuality, identity, and art, but gives no easy answers, in a city that reshapes itself with each step you take . . . This ebook features an illustrated biography of Samuel R. Delany including rare images from his early career.

Tales of Nevèrÿon

release date: Jan 07, 2014
Tales of Nevèrÿon
Hugo and Nebula Award–winning author Samuel R. Delany’s epic fantasy—the first in a series—explores power, gender, and the nature of civilization. A boy of the bustling, colorful docks of port Kolhari, during a political coup, fifteen-year-old Gorgik, once his parents are killed, is taken a slave and transported to the government obsidian mines at the foot of the Faltha mountains. When, in the savagely primitive land of Nevèrÿon, finally he wins his freedom, Gorgik is ready to lead a rebellion against the rulers of this barely civilized land. His is the through-story that, now in the background, now in the foreground, connects these first five stories, in Tales of Nevèrÿon—and, indeed, all the eleven stories, novellas, and novels that comprise Delany’s epic fantasy series, Return to Nevèrÿon, where we can watch civilization first develop money, writing, labor, and that grounding of all civilizations since: capital itself. In these sagas of barbarism, new knowledge, and sex, you’ll find far more than in most sword-and-sorcery. They are an epic feat of language, an ironic analysis of the foundations of civilization, and a reminder that no weapon is more powerful than a well-honed legend. This “eminently readable and gorgeously entertaining” (The Washington Post Book World) novel reads “as if Umberto Eco had written about Conan the Barbarian” (USA Today). This ebook features an illustrated biography of Samuel R. Delany including rare images from his early career.

Flight from Nevèrÿon

release date: Jan 07, 2014
Flight from Nevèrÿon
Two novellas and a full-length novel set in the land at the limit of history: “The tales of Nevèrÿon are postmodern sword-and-sorcery” (The Washington Post Book World). In The Tale of Plagues and Carnivals, a disease has come to Nevèrÿon. Men, rich and poor, have been stricken with it—but far fewer women. More and more die, and no one recovers. The illness seems to have first come from the Bridge of Lost Desire, a hangout for prostitutes male and female, but its spread through the city has been terrifying. And it will change Nevèrÿon forever, both its sexual and its political landscape. Written in 1984, The Tale of Plagues and Carnivals is an astute fictionalization of New York City in the first two years of the AIDS crisis. Interwoven with the ancient story are Samuel R. Delany’s modern accounts of what went on in the meanest streets of Gotham during that time. This wholly original novel (the first novel about AIDS from a major American publisher) is presented along with two other stories about mummers, prostitutes, and street people in the fantastic land of Nevèrÿon and its capital, port Kolhari—an ancient city that becomes more and more modern with each story. This ebook features an illustrated biography of Samuel R. Delany including rare images from his early career.

Neveryóna

release date: Jan 07, 2014
Neveryóna
The Hugo and Nebula Award–winning author of Tales of Nevèrÿon “continues to surprise and delight” with this thought-provoking epic fantasy (The New York Times). One of the few in Nevèrÿon who can read and write, pryn has saddled a wild dragon and taken off from a mountain ledge. Self-described as an adventurer, warrior, and thief, in her journey pryn will meet plotting merchants, sinister aristocrats, half-mad villagers, and a storyteller who claims to have invented writing itself. The land of Nevèrÿon is mired in a civil war over slavery, and pryn will also find herself—for a while—fighting alongside Gorgik the Liberator, from whom she will learn the cunning she needs as she journeys further and further south in search of a sunken city; for at history’s dawn, some dangers even dragons cannot protect you from. The second volume in Samuel R. Delany’s Return to Nevèrÿon cycle, Neveryóna is the longer of its two full-length novels. (The other is The Tale of Plagues and Carnivals.) An intriguing meditation on the power of language, the rise of cities, and the dawn of myth, markets, and money, it is a truly wonder-filled adventure. This ebook features an illustrated biography of Samuel R. Delany including rare images from his early career.

City of a Thousand Suns

release date: Jul 25, 2013
City of a Thousand Suns
The war was over. The great computer which had arranged and directed the complex military operations of that future nation was to be dismantled. But the computer had become expert in the science of self-defence...and it resisted. The government buildings were blasted. Rockets rained on the great city, and the Empire of Toromon, the first great hope of humanity after the millennia of radiation wreckage, faced disaster at the hands of a super-scientific monster of its own creation. But, unknown even to Toromon''s desperate leaders, was the fact that behind the berserk computer lurked the unearthly mind of a real enemy - a foe from the most distant realm of space, intent on making the Earth the first victim of galactic conquest.
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