Samuel R. Delany

[Moira]

....wait, his author photo here is beardless? Someone should fix that. - Anyway, has anyone here actually read Through the Nest of Spiders? It sounds....completist-breaking, really, altho anyone who loves Delany enough to bash through Mad Man and Hogg might make it.

[Aloha]

I'm in the middle of reading Dhalgren. Really good so far.

[Nate D]

I think Mike has read it? I may at some point once I bash through Hogg and Mad Men.

Dhalgren is so amazing.

[mark]

Dhalgren is overdue for a re-read. i had trouble with it - but loved it nonetheless - many years ago.

since then i've read The Einstein Intersection (loved), Triton (mixed feelings), and Hogg (loathed).

fascinating author. next up for me will probably be Nova.

[Traveller]

Good luck to the completists here who will be reading Hogg..

[David]

I agree, The Motion of Light In Water and Times Square Red/Times Square Blue were both awesome. I loved Trouble On Triton, but not as much as Nova and Dhalgren from that period. I definitely divide his works into the Ace years and the Bantam years in my head. I haven't read Through the Nest Of Spiders yet. I did read Hogg and, yes it was probably my worst Delany reading experience. There is very little of his early work (Triton and earlier) I didn't love. I loved the Neveryon books too.

[David]

Neveryon
1 Tales of Nevèrÿon (1979) [C]
2 Neveryóna or: The Tale of Signs and Cities (1983)
3 Flight from Nevèrÿon (1985) [C]
4 The Bridge of Lost Desire (1987) [C] also appeared as:
Variant Title: Return to Nevèrÿon (1987)
The Tale of Gorgik (1979) [SF]
The Tale of Dragons and Dreamers (1979) [SF]
The Tale of Potters and Dragons (1979) [SF]
The Tale of Small Sarg (1979) [SF]
The Tale of Old Venn (1979) [SF]
Appendix A: Postscript (1985) [SF] also appeared as:
Variant Title: Postscripts (1988)
Appendix B: Closures and Openings (1985) [SF] also appeared as:
Variant Title: Appendix: Closures and Openings (1985)
Appendix A: The Tale of Plagues and Carnivals, or, Some Informal Remarks toward the Modular Calculus, Part Five (1985) [SF] also appeared as:
Variant Title: The Tale of Plagues and Carnivals, or, Some Informal Remarks toward the Modular Calculus, Part Five (1985)
The Mummer's Tale (1985) [SF]
The Tale of Fog and Granite (1985) [SF]
The Tale of Rumor and Desire (1987) [SF]
The Game of Time and Pain (1987) [SF]

The Fall of the Towers
1 Captives of the Flame (1963) also appeared as:
Variant Title: Out of the Dead City (1966)
2 The Towers of Toron (1964)
3 City of a Thousand Suns (1965)
The Fall of the Towers (1970) [O/1-3]

Novels

The Jewels of Aptor (1962)
The Ballad of Beta-2 (1965)
Empire Star (1966)
Babel-17 (1966) [also as by Samuel R. Delaney ]
The Einstein Intersection (1967)
Nova (1968) [also as by Samuel Delany ]
Dhalgren (1975)
Triton (1976) also appeared as:
Variant Title: Trouble on Triton (1996)
Empire (1978) with Howard Chaykin [only as by Samuel R. Delany and Howard V. Chaykin ]
Stars in My Pocket Like Grains of Sand (1984)
They Fly at Çiron (1993)
Nova (1997)
Through the Valley of the Nest of Spiders (2011)
The Splendor and Misery of Bodies, of Cities (unpublished)
Voyage Orestes! (unpublished)

Collections

Driftglass (1971)
Distant Stars (1981)
Driftglass/Starshards (1993)
They Fly at Çiron (1993)
Atlantis: Three Tales (1995)
Aye, and Gomorrah and Other Stories (2003)

Omnibus

The Jewels of Aptor / Second Ending (1962) [O/2N] with James White
Captives of the Flame / The Psionic Menace (1963) [O/2N] with John Brunner [only as by Keith Woodcott and Samuel R. Delany ]
The Towers of Toron / The Lunar Eye (1964) [O/2N] with Robert Moore Williams
Alpha Yes, Terra No! / The Ballad of Beta-2 (1965) [O/2N] with Emil Petaja
The Tree Lord of Imeten / Empire Star (1966) [O/2N] with Tom Purdom
The Ballad of Beta-2 / Empire Star (1973) [O/2N]
Die Ballade von Beta 2 (1985) [O]
The Complete Nebula Award-Winning Fiction (1986) [O]
Babel-17 / Empire Star (2001) [O/2N]

Anthology Series

Nebula Awards
13 Nebula Winners Thirteen (1980)

Quark
1 Quark/1 (1970) with Marilyn Hacker
2 Quark/2 (1971) with Marilyn Hacker
3 Quark/3 (1971) with Marilyn Hacker
4 Quark/4 (1971) with Marilyn Hacker

Anthologies

Tango Charlie and Foxtrot Romeo / The Star Pit (1989) with John Varley
Home Is the Hangman / We, in Some Strange Power's Employ, Move on a Rigorous Line (1990) with Roger Zelazny
The Star Lord / Captives of the Flame (2011) with Boyd Ellanby

Chapterbooks

Atlantis: Model 1924 (1995)
Phallos (2004)

Nonfiction

The Jewel-Hinged Jaw (1977)
The American Shore (1978)
Heavenly Breakfast (1979)
Starboard Wine (1984)
The Motion of Light in Water (1988) only appeared as:
Variant Title: The Motion of Light in Water: Sex and Science Fiction Writing in the East Village, 1957-1965 (1988)
Variant Title: The Motion of Light in Water: East Village Sex and Science Fiction Writing: 1960-1965 (1990)
Variant Title: The Motion of Light in Water: Sex and Science Fiction Writing in the East Village: 1960-1965 (1993)
Wagner/Artaud: A Play of 19th and 20th Century Critical Fictions (1988)
The Straits of Messina (1989)
Silent Interviews: On Language, Race, Sex, Science Fiction, and Some Comics (1994)
Comics (1994)
Longer Views (1996)
Shorter Views: Queer Thoughts & the Politics of the Paraliterary (1999)
Times Square Red, Times Square Blue (1999)
1984: Selected Letters (2000)
About Writing: Seven Essays, Four Letters, & Five Interviews (2006)

Nongenre

The Tides of Lust (1973) also appeared as:
Variant Title: Equinox (1994)
The Mad Man (1994)
Hogg (1995)
Bread & Wine: An Erotic Tale of New York (1999)
Dark Reflections (2007)

Shortfiction

Aye, and Gomorrah . . . (1967) also appeared as:
Variant Title: Aye, and Gomorrah (1967)
The Star Pit (1967) also appeared as:
Variant Title: The Star-Pit (1967)
Driftglass (1967)
Corona (1967)
The Power of the Nail (1968) with Harlan Ellison also appeared as:
Variant Title: Power of the Nail (1968)
Ruins (1968)
Nova (excerpt) (1968)
Lines of Power (1968) also appeared as:
Variant Title: We, in Some Strange Power's Employ, Move on a Rigorous Line (1968)
Cage of Brass (1968)
House A-Fire (1968)
High Weir (1968)
Time Considered as a Helix of Semi-Precious Stones (1968)
The Unicorn Tapestry (1970)
The Dying Castles (1970) with James Sallis and Michael Moorcock [also as by Michael Moorcock ]
Night and the Loves of Joe Dicostanzo (1970)
Dog in a Fisherman's Net (1971)
They Fly at Ciron (1971) with James Sallis
Stars in My Pocket Like Grains of Sand (Excerpt) (1973)
Excerpt from Dhalgren (1974)
Prismatica (1977)
Stars in My Pocket Like Grains of Sand (excerpt) (1980)
Omegahelm (1981)
Neveryóna (abridgement) (1982)
Neveryóna (Preview) - Of Roads, Real Cities (1982)
From Neveryóna: 1. Of Dragons, Mountains, Transhumance, Sequence, abd Sunken Cities, or: The Violence of the Letter (Excerpt) (1983)
Appendix A: The Culhar' Correspondence (1983)
Stars in My Pocket Like Grains of Sand (excerpt) (1984)
Among the Blobs (1988)
Eric, Gwen, and D. H. Lawrence's Esthetic of Unrectified Feeling (1991)
Citre et Trans (1991)
The Desert of Time (1992)
Return to Çiron (1993)
(excerpt) Hogg (1994) [only as by Samuel Delany ]
The Mad Man (excerpt) (1994)
Atlantis: Model 1924 (1995)
From The Splendor and Misery of Bodies, of Cities (1996)
Tapestry (2003)
Phallos (2004)

[Nate D]

That bibliography is certainly intimidating but might stand some editing. For instance, is Nova (1997) different from the 1968 version? And what's with all the Neveryon apocrypha marked [SF]?

[Dharmakirti]

I'm about 1/3 of the way through Dhalgren and I'm liking it quite a bit. So far, my favorite part of the story has to be Kidd working for the Richards family and the death of Bobby.

What's with Kidd wearing only one sandal? Why not just go barefoot? It's got to be really akward walking around with one sandal on.

[David]

Nate D wrote: "That bibliography is certainly intimidating but might stand some editing. For instance, is Nova (1997) different from the 1968 version? And what's with all the Neveryon apocrypha marked [SF]?"
The site I pulled this from is a Speculative Fiction database. Your right, it probably could stand some editing, but there are differences in the 1968 and 1997 editions of Nova. New editions of Delany work tend to have substantial corrections because Delany is profoundly dyslexic. I can't remember the first edition points for Nova, but I think there are several lines completely missing from it. Dhalgren is probably the most notorious of his books for later corrections. There were substantial revisions to the Gregg Press edition even though it was a photostat of the original. They were incorporated into later editions of the Bantam paperback. There were still more revisions to the Wesleyan University Press edition.

And I'm just remembering, the 1997 edition also had an introduction.

[David]

Dharmakirti wrote: "I'm about 1/3 of the way through Dhalgren and I'm liking it quite a bit. So far, my favorite part of the story has to be Kidd working for the Richards family and the death of Bobby.

What's with ..."

My bet is even the most meager of possessions, no matter how ridiculous, become important in this bizarre and out of control environment. The sandal becomes a part of him not to be given up. But there is probably also something symbolic going on here, the fact that The Kidd is incomplete in some way and the world around him is incomplete as it goes to pieces too.

[Bill]

Moira wrote: "....wait, his author photo here is beardless? Someone should fix that. - Anyway, has anyone here actually read Through the Nest of Spiders? It sounds....completist-breaking, really, altho anyone wh..."

I have read Through the Valley of the Nest of Spiders and loved it, am still letting it marinate to figure out what to say. It is much more than literary porn. I'm trying to figure out how it relates to his corpus of fiction. I have not been too impressed by blog reviewers, last time I looked.

I have been on a quest to read all of Delany's fiction in publication order. I've gotten side-tracked by group reads and new releases in series. Besides, I find Delany exhausting and difficult to review. Sometimes I think Chip is pulling my legs ;-) I will wait to read his essays until I finish his fiction. I don't want to be influenced by an author's conception of what he thinks he work is about.

My favorite's thus far have been Dhalgren, of course Einstein Intersection and now Spiders.

[Paul]

I did read The Mad Man! I wonder if anyone has bought that recently think it's the book of the hit TV show Mad Men. They would be swiftly disabused.