Samuel R. Delany
Paperback | Pages: 260 pages Rating: 3.89 | 1221 Users | 102 Reviews
Present Books During Tales of Nevèrÿon (Return to Nevèrÿon #1)
| Original Title: | Tales of Nevèrÿon |
| ISBN: | 081956270X (ISBN13: 9780819562708) |
| Edition Language: | English URL https://www.hfsbooks.com/books/tales-of-neveryon-delany/ |
| Series: | Return to Nevèrÿon #1 |
| Characters: | Gorgik |
| Literary Awards: | Locus Award Nominee for Best Fantasy Novel (1980), Prometheus Award Nominee (1982), National Book Award Finalist for Science Fiction (Paperback) (1980) |
Interpretation Conducive To Books Tales of Nevèrÿon (Return to Nevèrÿon #1)
In his four-volume series Return to Nevèrÿon, Hugo and Nebula award-winner Samuel R. Delany appropriated the conceits of sword-and-sorcery fantasy to explore his characteristic themes of language, power, gender, and the nature of civilization. Wesleyan University Press has reissued the long-unavailable Nevèrÿon volumes in trade paperback.The eleven stories, novellas, and novels in Return to Nevèrÿon's four volumes chronicle a long-ago land on civilization's brink, perhaps in Asia or Africa, or even on the Mediterranean. Taken slave in childhood, Gorgik gains his freedom, leads a slave revolt, and becomes a minister of state, finally abolishing slavery. Ironically, however, he is sexually aroused by the iron slave collars of servitude. Does this contaminate his mission - or intensify it? Presumably elaborated from an ancient text of unknown geographical origin, the stories are sunk in translators' and commentators' introductions and appendices, forming a richly comic frame.
Mention Of Books Tales of Nevèrÿon (Return to Nevèrÿon #1)
| Title | : | Tales of Nevèrÿon (Return to Nevèrÿon #1) |
| Author | : | Samuel R. Delany |
| Book Format | : | Paperback |
| Book Edition | : | First Edition |
| Pages | : | Pages: 260 pages |
| Published | : | November 29th 1993 by Wesleyan University Press (first published September 1979) |
| Categories | : | Fantasy. Fiction. Science Fiction. Short Stories |
Rating Of Books Tales of Nevèrÿon (Return to Nevèrÿon #1)
Ratings: 3.89 From 1221 Users | 102 ReviewsEvaluation Of Books Tales of Nevèrÿon (Return to Nevèrÿon #1)
More a meditation on our current world and it economies and gender politics than "simple" sword and sorcery. Deft and cutting. Delany has an academic style to his prose that appeals to me, though I could see others not finding it so delicious.
This is a substantial work. It consists of five stories of varying lengths, a preface, and an appendix. The preface and the appendix profess to be authored by a K. Leslie Steiner and a S.L. Kermit respectively, but it is fairly clear that these people are characters in the metafictional work, as is Delany himself. The appendix is titled "Some Informal Remarks Towards the Modular Calculus, Part Three," indicating its place as the third entry in another series of Delany's which starts with Trouble
I have a love/hate relationship with Delany. He is utterly unappreciated by African-American critics, mainly because he rarely chooses to discuss race explicitly, but his explorations of power and desire are vivid, creative, and insightful. Although I can't seem to digest any of his "cyberpunk" writings, this sword-and-sorcery series Return to Neveryon is my kind of fantasy read. The masters are dark-skinned and the slaves are white (heh) and as the people of Neveryon discover the value of
There's a recurring thread in various Delany stories wherein being provincial (geographically, or socio-economically) may limit one's scope of experience, but should never be confused with intelligence. The experience will come. And so this idea may play into the very form he selected for Neveryon: the genre-provincialism of the barbarian adventure story does not, here, suggest anything simple or intellectually un-developed. In fact, Neveryon is Delany's brink-of-civilization testing ground for
Delaney's sword and sandal collection builds a compelling world laden with commentary on gender, sexuality, and civilization itself. As the characters weave together across stories, we see the vicissitudes of a strange and terrible land from the perspective of outsiders, insiders, and the ignored. I can't wait to read the next entry in the series.
3.5/5 But the problem begins with trying to reduce them to all the same measure of coin in the first place: skilled time, unskilled time, the talk of a clever woman, nature's gifts of fish and fruit, the invention of a craftsman, the strength of a laboring womanone simply cannot measure weight, coldness, the passage of time, and the brightness of fire all on the same scale. This one was a debacle to rate. Eventually, I gave up the holistic scale and settled on the Delany scale, indicating a
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