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Books : Science Fiction & Fantasy : Authors, A-Z : D : Delany, Samuel R.
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In 1967, Samuel R. Delany was young, gay, black and possibly the hippest person on the planet. He was to write more perfect books than Babel-17, but it is perhaps the most delightful, clever and sensual of his works. Its set pieces--an extended wander through space-dock bars as poetess and code-breaker Rydra Wong assembles a crew for desperate adventures; a high society dinner that turns into mayhem; Rydra's subversion/seduction of the sinister Butcher, who cannot say, or think, I, me or mine--are glorious in their arrogant sense that no-one has ever been this smart before. Rydra is one of those protagonists whom the author loves because he identifies with her, whom we love because we are overwhelmed by his infatuation. And the plot? Invaders from another part of human space are using as code a language which cannot be broken, and Rydra must save the day. As a meditation on language and thought, this is as sharp as its decor. Most important, though, is the complex, polymorphous sexiness of the whole thing--its sense of surgical chimerahood, life after death, and clone assassins as just unbearably hot and really really cool. --Roz Kaveney
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The very talented Samuel R. Delany was only 20 when his first SF novel The Jewels of Aptor appeared in 1962--or rather, two-thirds of it appeared from a US publisher which cut the text savagely. Here's the full version of a story crammed with poetry, colour and action.Delany's stylish narrative serves up a mass of familiar science-fantasy props with a flair that makes them seem fresh. Long after nuclear holocaust, the rebuilding has got as far as wooden sailing ships. Mysterious fragments of old technology remain. Deadly radioactive zones spawn mutants and monsters with odd talents. "Good" and "evil" religions clash, even though the litanies of bright goddess Argo and dark god Hamaare are very nearly the same. Serving Argo, our heroes sail from civilized Leptar to the loathed, feared island of Aptor to seek the last of Hama's three mind-amplifying Jewels, weapons ultimately too dreadful to use.
Despite some youthful clumsiness, the flash and dazzle of the storytelling established Delany as a writer to watch. He goes beyond the usual homilies about misuse of power to examine distortion of religious feeling, and how a genuinely transcendent insight (as experienced by the worst villain here) can twist into evil. The living incarnation of Hama is not as expected, while devout Argo-worshippers may also be monstrous shapeshifters: "The nature of the Goddess is change ..."
The Jewels of Aptor is thoughtful, exciting, occasionally comic, and promises remarkable things to follow. Delany has amply fulfilled that promise. --David Langford
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