November 2017-Juniper's Pick-The Einstein Intersection

[Maggie, space cruisin' for a bruisin']

Welcome to Juniper's pick-The Einstein Intersection. I read this book a couple years ago and LOVED it!
Let us know what you think?

[Will]

For a more popular level of Godel's Theorem, see What Is the Name of This Book?

[mark, personal space invader]

I love this book. I hope people discuss this one, I'm curious to read thoughts and reactions to it.

[Dan]

I've just noticed a new function here at GoodReads. Pull up an author by name and there is a "similar authors" button located nearby. When I do this with an author I really like, I typically recognize 8 or 9 of the first 10 most similar authors listed. This is not the case at all for me with Delany.

Goodreads members who liked Samuel R. Delany also liked:

Melissa Scott
M.J. Engh
Alexei Panshin
Michael Bishop
Robert Silverberg
Pat Murphy
Cecelia Holland
Leigh Brackett
Joanna Russ
John Sladek

Amazingly, I have only heard of three of these authors (5, 8, and 9) and am really familiar with the work of only two (5 and 8) both of whom have written books I thoroughly enjoyed. I read somewhere once that Delany was difficult to read or appreciate because his writing was hard to understand. Is this true?

[mark, personal space invader]

It is true for some. As with many New Wave authors, his narratives are not straightforward and his prose can be challenging.

[Dan]

From the description of Delany's writing you provide he starts to sound more like Zelazny (when he writes anything but Amber) than Silverberg or Brackett. I am not a big fan of Zelazny's work for the reason you cite: literary pretension, not to mention obfuscation. I recently read Zelazny's He Who Shapes/The Infinity Box and had to give the Zelazny story a 2. Wilhelm's offering was much better. Too bad she sold out and gave up science fiction, but I digress. I fear Delany's work might be similar to Zelazny's rather than Silverberg's or Brackett's.

Still, I'll start my Delany reading with this work. My library has only Dhalgren (801 pages? really?) and Nebula Awards showcase 2015 : stories, excerpts, and poems : the year's best science fiction and fantasy. So I ordered a copy. Cheers!

[C. John]

Dan wrote: "I've just noticed a new function here at GoodReads. Pull up an author by name and there is a "similar authors" button located nearby. When I do this with an author I really like, I typically recogn..."

As well as the ones Dan mentions Panshin, Bisop, Russ and Sladek are familiar to me. Mind you it was for short stories. Panshin also wrote SF criticism which i am pretty sure I read in one magazine or another.

[Mickey]

It has to be almost 40 years ago when I read “The Einstein Intersection”. The only thing I remember about this short book is that I did not like it that much. I have the book, I am debating with myself if I want to read this book again in the hopes of achieving a new insight.

As for Dan’s list of authors, I have reads books from three of the authors: Melissa Scott (3 Books), Robert Silverberg (1 book) and Alexei Panshin (1 book).

From Alexei Panshin: Rite of Passage is one of my favorite books. This book is a rare science fiction book that has a Moral of the Story embedded in it.

[C. John]

Now that I think of it, Panxhin made his name with a book that was a critical appraisal of Hainlein's work. It was the first such work devoted to a single Sci-Fi author I believe.

[mark, personal space invader]

JuniperGreen ~*Knowlegde Is Sexy*~ wrote: "Maggie, I just saw that the discussion thread doesn't show up when you click on 'view activity' on the group home page. Maybe that can be changed? ..."

fixed, I think

[Dan]

C. John wrote: "Now that I think of it, Panxhin made his name with a book that was a critical appraisal of Hainlein's work. It was the first such work devoted to a single Sci-Fi author I believe."

Panshin's Heinlein in Dimension caught my eye too, but the two reviews of it are scathing. And if anyone would be easy to get right in terms of his philosophy, I would think it would be Heinlein.

[mark, personal space invader]

JuniperGreen ~*Knowlegde Is Sexy*~ wrote: "For me, they hinted at a young, pretentious author very full of himself. But Delany was just in his mid-twenties when he wrote this book, so I'm willing to cut him some slack...."

Same.

I love your point about the machete. that didn't sink in with me when I first read the book.

[Dan]

The 1968 Hugo Award nominees:

Lord of Light by Roger Zelazny [Doubleday, 1967]
The Einstein Intersection by Samuel R. Delany [Ace, 1967]
Chthon by Piers Anthony [Ballantine, 1967]
The Butterfly Kid by Chester Anderson [Pyramid, 1967]
Thorns by Robert Silverberg [Ballantine, 1967]

The winner was the Zelazny entree. (Who in the world is Chester Anderson? Sounds like an obscure US president.)

[C. John]

Dan wrote: "The 1968 Hugo Award nominees:

Lord of Light by Roger Zelazny [Doubleday, 1967]
The Einstein Intersection by Samuel R. Delany [Ace, 1967]
Chthon by Piers Anthony [Ballantine, 1967]
The Butterfly Ki..."

Here is the Wikipedia entry on Mr. Anderson. I may have been reading the occasional issue of Crawdaddy when he was editing it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chester...

[Dan]

Interesting. Chester Anderson wrote only two science fiction novels during his entire life according to ISFDB (http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?681), and for one of those he had a co-writer. Nevertheless, they're exceptionally well received even if virtually unread.

[C. John]

I suspect that when his books first came out they were read, but given his lack of longevity he has receeded into the background.

[Dan]

This cover is intriguing:

[Dan]

JuniperGreen ~*Knowlegde Is Sexy*~ wrote: "Delany won the Nebula that year."

I love vintage covers too. They really sell the story. The premise of Ten Years to Doomsday sounds quite interesting too. An alien invasion is coming and you have ten years to train a medieval society how to defend itself from space age weapons or they get run over.

I am looking forward to reading the Nebula winning The Einstein Intersection when my copy of the book arrives. I hope the one I ordered has a cover that looks like this:



Did this scene actually take place in the novel?

[Phil]

Finished!

I like that everyone else is surprised at Chester Anderson, while I'm taken aback that Piers Anthony ever wrote anything good. I grew up in the '80s paperback boom, and all I can remember are his Xanth novels.

Style-wise, I would put Delany closer to Gene Wolfe and M. John Harrison than Zelazny. Zelazny usually used myth to cover up the real story, whereas the other writers used an illusory "real" story to cover up the myth.

I need some time to collect my thoughts, but I really want to discuss the ending and see if anyone made more sense out of it than I did.

[Phil]

Here's my review:
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

Here are my questions:
1. What exactly is an androgyne?
2. Why does Lobey freak out when he meets an androgyne?
3. What does Kid Death represent? Why does he want to kill off the differents?
4. What's with blurring the line between life and death?
5. Why does Lobey stab Green-Eye?
6. If their bodies are really just awkward cages that don't even fit them sexually, then isn't Kid Death doing them a favor? When he releases them, don't they just float off the way the humans did generations before?

I think I need to go reread the end. I got the impression from the Sword and Laser thread that Lobey chose not to go back after Friza. I don't remember it that way, so I'll go have a look.

[Phil]

The ending as I understand it, starting from p. 127-

*The illusion of Friza turns out to be the Dove. She says Green Eye can bring Friza back for real. Why? Did Green Eye kill Friza? Why would he do that?
*PHAEDRA tells Lobey he's in the wrong maze, needs to look outside the mirror, reminds him that he'd incorporeal
*Lobey plays a song to Green Eye. Nothing happens. Lobey stabs Green Eye in the leg.
*Now we're on a beach.(?) Lobey "freezes" Kid Death with music while Spider whips Kid Death to death. Why?
*Lobey can bring back Green Eye who can bring back Friza, but he chooses not to. He needs to figure out the difference between reality and illusion. Lobey plans to travel to other solar systems through astral projection or something.

So I guess he did have a chance to go after Friza and move on. If that was the result of the quest, then I don't get why he had to kill Kid Death after all. It's not like Orpheus had to kill Hades.

[Phil]

JuniperGreen ~✩Knowlegde Is Sexy✩~ wrote: "The whole book struck me a remarkably heteronormative. "

Well, about that. Here's the wikipedia description of Delany's personal life:

Delany and poet Marilyn Hacker met on their first day together in high school in September 1956, and were married five years later in August 1961, due to her pregnancy (which later miscarried). Their marriage (which alternatively encompassed periods of cohabitation and separation, experiments in polyamory, and extramarital affairs with men and women conducted by both parties) endured for fourteen years; in 1974, they had a daughter, Iva Hacker-Delany, who spent a decade working in theater in New York City and graduated from medical school.[12][13] Delany and Hacker permanently separated in 1975 and divorced in 1980.

Delany has identified as gay since adolescence,[14] though his complicated marriage with Hacker (who was aware of Delany's orientation and has identified as a lesbian since their divorce) has led some authors to classify him as bisexual.[15]

(If he's your favorite SF writer, then I assume you already knew that.)

Also, in the introduction, Neil Gaiman suggests interpreting the book as a gay romance between Kid Death and Lobey.

I don't agree with Gaiman, but I do think there's a gay subtext to the book. There is a mismatch between bodies, roles, and the people who inhabit them. Perhaps heterosexuality is part of the illusion that Lobey has to look past.

[Phil]

JuniperGreen ~✩Knowlegde Is Sexy✩~ wrote: "I don't quite understand what you are getting at with 4."

The barrier between life and death is unusually permeable in this book. Why did Delany do that? Is he calling attention to the fictional nature of the narrative? Is he evoking other life/death/life narratives from throughout human history?