The Long Fiction of Samuel R. Delany
Samuel R. Delany is one of today’s most fascinating and lyrical living writers. He published in all genres although mostly in science fiction and fantasy, as well as writing several texts of literary criticism, directed one film and developed several comic books. At 83 he still speaks occasionally in public, especially to young writers. Delany was a ground-breaking black writer at a time when few black authors were published, and also a pioneer of queer writing in an era before there was any recognition for that at all. He was married to poet Marilyn Hacker from 1961 to 1980, with whom he has had a lifelong collaboration. Delany’s writings are complex and nonlinear, which makes reading them a fascinating enterprise. Delany identifies as gay.
Delany’s themes have been summarized as “jewels, reflection, and refraction.” Following a break in writing between 1968 and 1973, Delany started writing explicitly sexual content, which some have called pornographic (including Delany himself). His books question gender, sexual orientation and racial differences as well as normativity in general, to the extent that Delany is considered to have been an early “queer theorist” in his own right.
Although I sometimes cite Le Guin, Herbert, Stapledon and Asimov as early influences, Delany is probably my greatest source of resonance, and this is one of the reasons I have taken on the task of animating this group. Furthermore, his writings are both timely in the most urgent sense, as they are timeless in the universal sense.
We won’t read all of Delany, it would just be too big a job. This is why our study will focus on his long-form fiction, already a big challenge. Since likely not all participants will be familiar with his work, we will begin by examining several of the shorter award-winning novels from his early career, especially Babel-17 and The Einstein Intersection as well as some of my personal favourites, The Ballad of Beta-2 and Empire Star. This will give us a grounding in the themes and style of Delany’s writings before tackling more complex works such as Dhalgren. From there we will drop back to read The Fall of the Towers trilogy and then move into the Neveryona fantasy novels. This will take us to the midpoint from which we will begin to tackled his more sexually explicit writings (although several of the earlier novels also contain such passages) such as Hogg and Phallos. We will finish up with more recent works such as Through the Nest of Spiders, Shoat Rumblin and This Short Day of Frost and Sun.
The reading group will be mostly focused on discussion of his different volumes, but with our long tradition at Cosmos of engaging with the work of diverse authors orally, we will also read sections aloud and comment on rhythms and the poetical dimensions of Delany’s writings.
Registration
Complementary Reading and Additional Media
Delany, Samuel R. (long form fiction)
- The Jewels of Aptor, 1962
- Captives of the Flame, 1963 (The Fall of The Towers, vol 1)
- The Towers of Toron, 1964 (The Fall of The Towers, vol 2)
- City of a Thousand Suns, 1965 (The Fall of The Towers, vol 3)
- The Ballad of Beta-2, 1965
- Empire Star, 1966
- Babel 17, 1966
- The Einstein Intersection, 1967
- Nova, 1968
- The Tides of Lust, 1973
- Dhalgren, 1975
- Triton, 1976
- Empire, 1978
- Tales of Neveryon, 1979
- Neveryona, 1983
- Stars in My Pocket Like Grains of Sand, 1984
- Flight From Neveryon, 1985
- The Bridge of Lost Desire, 1987 (Also known as as Return to Neveryon)
- They Fly at Çiron, 1993
- The Mad Men, 1994
- Hogg, 1995
- Phallos, 2004
- Dark Reflections, 2007
- Through the Valley of the Nest of Spiders, 2012
- The Atheist in the Attic, 2018
- Shoat Rumblin: His Sensation and Ideas, 2020
- Big Joe, 2021
- This Short Day of Frost and Sun, 2022
Other relevant works:
Short fiction
- “Salt”, 1960, Dynamo
- “The Star Pit”, 1967, Worlds of Tomorrow (nominated for a Hugo)
- “Corona”, 1967, Magazine of Science Fiction and Fantasy
- “Aye and Gomorrah…”, 1967, in Dangerous Visions, edited by Harlan Ellison (won a Nebula, nominated for a Hugo)
- “Driftglass”, 1967, If (nominated for a Nebula)
- “We, in Some Strange Power’s Employ, Move on a Rigorous Line”, 1968, Magazine of Science Fiction and Fantasy (nominated for both Hugo and Nebula) (under title “Lines of Power”)
- “Cage of Brass”, 1968, If
- “High Weir”, 1968, If
- “Time Considered as a Helix of Semi-Precious Stones”, 1968, in New Worlds, edited by Michael Moorcock and James Sallis (won both Hugo and Nebula)
- “Tapestry”, 1970, New American Review (under title “The Unicorn Tapestry”)
- “Night and the Loves of Joe Dicostanzo”, 1970, Alchemy and Academe, edited by Anne McCaffrey
- “Dog in a Fisherman’s Net”, 1971, in Quark/3, edited by Marilyn Hacker and Samuel R. Delany
- “Prismatica”, 1977, Magazine of Science Fiction and Fantasy (nominated for a Hugo)
- “Omegahelm”, 1981, Distant Stars
- “Ruins”, 1981, Distant Stars
- “Among the Blobs”, 1988, Mississippi Review 47/48
- “The Desert of Time”, 1992, Omni
- “Citre et Trans”, 1993, Driftglass/Starshards
- “Erik, Gwen, and D.H. Lawrence’s Esthetic of Unrectified Feeling”, 1993, Driftglass/Starshards
- “Atlantis: Model 1924”, 1995, Atlantis: Three Tales
- “The Spendor and Misery of Bodies, of Cities”, 1996, Review of Contemporary Fiction
- “In The Valley of the Nest of Spiders”, 2007, Black Clock
- “The Hermit of Houston”, 2017, Magazine of Science Fiction and Fantasy
- “To the Fordham”, 2019, Boston Review
- “The Wyrm”, 2022, The Baffler
- “First Trip to Brewster”, 2022, Astra Magazine
Criticism
- The Jewel-hinged Jaw: Notes on the Language of Science Fiction(Dragon Press, 1977; Wesleyan University Press revised edition 2009, with an introduction by Matthew Cheney)
- The American Shore: Meditations on a Tale of Science Fiction (Dragon Press, 1978; Wesleyan University Press 2014, with an introduction by Matthew Cheney)
- Starboard Wine: More Notes on the Language of Science Fiction(Dragon Press, 1984; Wesleyan University Press, 2012, with an introduction by Matthew Cheney)
- The Straits of Messina, 1989
- Silent Interviews: On Language, Race, Sex, Science Fiction, and Some Comics, 1995
- Longer Views, 1996
- Shorter Views, 1999
- About Writing, 2005
- Conversations with Samuel R. Delany, 2009, edited by Carl Freedman, University of Mississippi Press.
- Occasional Views, Volume 1: “More About Writing” and Other Essays, 2015, Wesleyan University Press.
- Occasional Views, Volume 2: “The Gamble” and Other Essays, 2021, Wesleyan University Press.
Memoirs
- Heavenly Breakfast: An Essay on the Winter of Love, 1979, Constellation Press.
- The Motion of Light in Water: Sex and Science Fiction Writing in the East Village, 1988, Open Road Media Scifi and Fantasy
- Times Square Red, Times Square Blue, 1999, NYU Press
- Bread and Wine: An Erotic Tale of New York, 1999, Fantagraphics Underground Press (graphic novel)
- 1984: Selected Letters, 2000, Voyant Pub.
- In Search of Silence: The Journals of Samuel R. Delany. Volume 1, 1957-1969, 2017, Wesleyan University Press.
- Letters from Amherst: Five Narrative Letters, 2019, Wesleyan University Press.