Samuel Delany

The Neveryon stuff is fucking great. Also, it starts out broken up into novella-like chunks which may aid in digestibility...

haven't read a word of this guy... saw him read from his Times Square nonfic book before a showing of an early '70s gay porn film tonight.

He's kinda bored by gay marriage. "Tolerance, not assimilation" is the key to advancing civilization, he said.

every time this gets revived now i'm worried that he's ill or dead.

what was the film?

also is there another delany thread we alternate with because i swear i remember talking about all the piss-drinking in 'through the valley ...'

ask sam delany a question?

ah yeah

film was The Back Row

I have no idea whether to recommend Delany to you, Morbs -- either the sf or the porn.

I just reread his Times Square book in may.

I recently started reading the tales of neveryon, i'm generally not a fan of short stories but since they're all set in neveryon, i'm interested in how the stories are going to relate to each other and if it's all going to fit together somehow.

saw him speak at the university of chicago for the second time tonight (he's just ending a visiting professorship). it was mostly sort of autobiographical this time; he told a great story about hooking up with a senegalese prince in paris in the mid-60s. i got him to sign my copy of trouble on triton

72nd birthday today

The only one of his novels I have unequivocally enjoyed was Babel-17, of which the ebook is on sale for $1.99 today- as has been noted before, both Shakey and I find his style maddening - but the critical writings I have read from him are grebt.

Good (first half of an) interview: http://www.sfsignal.com/archives/2015/07/interview-samuel-r-delany-three-novels-launched-career-part-1/

He was also interviewed by Gary Wolfe for the Coode Street Podcast — http://jonathanstrahan.podbean.com/e/episode-241-samuel-r-delany/ — but it seemed a bit lightweight and inessential. Getting a bit of press/doing a bit of promotional work for the new Vintage edition of three early novels.

i have a book of interviews with him and it is endlessly fascinating even when he repeats himself over the years.

Terrific how Delany was worked into this piece on Chaturbate

Emily Witt has now built a fine, fine portfolio of pieces on this intersection of sex and the interwebs.

I haven't read the whole thing so I can't judge but some stuff Delany has said about child abuse and nambla probably wouldn't have been received nearly as well if he wasn't considered such a hero and so good writing about race. He's in the comments too.

http://shetterly.blogspot.co.uk/2014/07/a-conversation-with-samuel-r-delany.html

I struggle so much with this - as a person who, when underage, had meaningful relationships with people who were above the age of consent, which, 35 years later, I still don't think of as wrong or hurtful - it's a difficult discussion to have without seeming like a monster. certainly when Delaney says that, at the age of nine, he was entering into consensual sexual relationships with adults...I'm a dad now, two boys: I can't accept that, viscerally I reject that. but at the same time, I got a letter from a Joan Crawford fan a month ago or so: a dude who's doing twenty years in prison. he was in his late twenties having a relationship with a sixteen-year-old boy, and the parents got wind of it, and they threw the book at him. I looked up his case: his victim insisted no victimization had ever taken place, but the southern judge didn't care at all, and put him away. where's the justice in that? I feel like this is Delaney's point broadly put, but the concept of an age of consent feels valuable.

one of the most struggly subjects there is. I have not even the faintest stab at encompassing it.

I haven't read the whole thing so I can't judge but some stuff Delany has said about child abuse and nambla probably wouldn't have been received nearly as well if he wasn't considered such a hero and so good writing about race. He's in the comments too.

http://shetterly.blogspot.co.uk/2014/07/a-conversation-with-samuel-r-delany.html

― Robert Adam Gilmour, Wednesday, September 7, 2016 9:41 PM (one hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

it's a very difficult topic but framing it this way is disingenuous garbage.

delany isn't a race writer. did you mean "because he's black?"

he's not a good writer either tbf

I can't have much of an opinion on something I haven't finished but I doubt most other writers talking about similar things would be treated so well. The interview happened because it was being said too many big figures in the genre were getting a free pass while others were getting a ton of shit for relatively minor things, but nobody really knew a lot about Delany's stance on this stuff. Do you think I'm implying he should be dragged through the dirt for his opinions?

delany isn't a race writer. did you mean "because he's black?"

No, because he wrote some very good articles on racism in the past that have been heavily circulated and praised in the past several years when the topic has been at the forefront of sff discussions.

fair

sorry i had my hackles up

That's okay.

Happy 75th birthday.

I'm always scared to open this thread.

This thread is v repetitive

In Glasgow for several events during the next Arika eisode:

http://arika.org.uk/events/episode-9-other-worlds-already-exist/programme

Just finished Dhalgren, my first trip into Delany. I really liked large chunks of it, but other portions were definitely a slog. Even aside from the tedious descriptions of underage orgies, it did feel like some of the same plot points just kept cycling through without moving the story forward. But many of the characters were terrifically drawn and I enjoyed his world-building, what's a good next step?

I enjoyed Dhalgren alright but somehow that's where I got off the bus, many years ago--several people have told me I should have at least gone on to Stars In My Pocket Like Grains of Sand, and maybe I will, but right now thinking of re-reading his fun, imaginative debutThe Jewels of Aptor, published when he was 19, I think, also should dig up my copy of a chunky drugstore paperback, The Complete Nebula Award-Winning Fiction of Samuel R. Delany. which Amazon describes thusly:Combined edition of two novels and two short stories which won the Nebula Award. Babel - 17 (winner, 1966 Nebula, 1995 James Tiptree, Jr. Award, Classics; nominated, 1967 Hugo Award; 1975 Locus Poll Award, All-Time Best Novel (Place: 36)); A Fabulous, Formless Darkness (original title The Einstein Intersection) (winner, 1967 Nebula Award; nominated, 1968 Hugo Award); Time Considered as a Helix of Semi-Precious Stones (winner, 1969 Nebula Award, 1970 Hugo Award); Aye, and Gomorrah (winner, 1967 Nebula Award; nominated, 1968 Hugo Award) The cheapest (by far) copy they have of this is $24.03, but worth it, if condition is okay. They have a lot more by him.

that sounds like a good 'tracklist' for sure.

You might check out the Neveryon stuff, bronze age fantasy as vehicle for a dive into semiotics. I loved the two of them I read.

Triton is great also.

I enjoyed the Neveryon books on rereading a couple of years ago. Reread The Einstein Intersection last year and understood it better than the first time I read it. Nova, Triton, and Stars in My Pocket are all good.

imo triton and stars in my pocket are the masterworks

Thanks! I think I'm leaning to Stars In My Pocket next, though it may come down to what the library has available.

First living author to get a Dover Thrift Edition. Dark Reflections is kind of an odd choice in his oeuvre to get that treatment, but ok.

https://dorisvsutherland.com/2019/09/23/samuel-r-delany-and-nambla/

Steve Smith
@nightafternight
·
38m
Today I learned that Samuel R. Delany is an operaphile, a Wagnerite, and a former supernumerary at the
@MetOpera
. Thanks,
@Artforum
!
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EdTX6R_WkAAPDe4?format=jpg&name=large

@alexrossmusic
Has written fascinating essays on Wagner and Artaud, Wagner and Willa Cather...

@AbstractTruth
And he's on Twitter now
@SamuelRDelany1
11:34 AM · Jul 19, 2020

@SamuelRDelany1
An experiment in gay pornography and realistic storytelling
https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51EJbeJz9aL.jpg

i'm starting through the valley of the nest of spiders, random thoughts:

1) descriptions and fetishization of human filth, stench, shit, etc, can't bother you
2) there's a fan fiction quality to it tbh but the descriptions of one moment into the next into the next are kind of soothing
3) delany definitely comes from a different era as far as gay libidinal energy is concerned. there's a fetishization of the positively masculine that's always present.
4) his style is burdensome and opaque but weirdly readable. what happens next is what keeps me going. you can glaze over certain bits of sentences and descriptions and it's ok.
5) i'm making it sound bad for some reason but i'm enjoying it. feels a little bit like guilty pleasure reading but that's good for me right now, the last thing i want is dutiful reading.

also enjoyably light-hearted for all the sex with super-hung homeless dudes

some dweeby jokes that aren't really funny but i appreciate

it reminds me of reading porn i would find on newsgroups in my teens. but sneaking in the political/ontological point that existence itself is worth existing for. already a spinoza mention. it's fun for me but i would definitely hesitate to recommend it to someone unless i knew it was "up" their "alley" haha.

oh, i also don't think he's good at being "realistic" if that's what he's trying to do for this novel, this stuff still feels very much in the fantasy lane even though it's not in the fantasy genre if that makes sense.

i think it winds up unambiguously 'science fiction' by the end, doesn't it? or at least a long way into the future; maybe just 'utopian fiction'

that said i never finished it

i find delany's model of 'pornographic' writing pretty interesting even though none of it gets me off; he may have been the first writer to make sex literarily interesting for me in that way? idk how many others have succeeded, maybe it's just him

as i wrote above and also jordan, it's always a relief to open this thread and have it not be an RIP post

yeah.

i said all those things above very prematurely, don't know why i was so opinionated after like 15 pages. anyway now i'm 25 pages in after the convo with bill bottom and i'm loving it. it's also really funny! kind of feels like a massive gift so far tbh.

his sex writing isn't embarrassingly hot but it's salacious and gets at the right details and it's panoramic and just... lively and fascinating. it takes cliches and turns them into more realistic commentary on what a sensuous queer existence could or might look like. actually the scene that bill bottom describes in the park, that one did arouse me a little bit haha.

Was going to add this to a recent ILM thread on rock fiction which I can't find now: Delany's Heavenly Breakfast, which I took as a novel, but wiki sez: Heavenly Breakfast: An Essay on the Winter of Love is a 1979 memoir by author, professor, and critic Samuel R. Delany.[1] It details the time he spent living in a commune in New York City during the winter of 1967-1968,[2] although altering some details.[3]

Heavenly Breakfast was also the name of the rock band that lived in the commune, which consisted of Steve Wiseman, Susan Schweers, Bert Lee (later of the Central Park Sheiks)[4], and Delany.[5]
A fairly comsic rock-jazz-folk-etc. way of life; some good bits about timing the echo from a waterfall or something for flute solos-as-duets---also duh lots of polydolly sexandrugs for heavenly breakfast.
Think I once saw listing of an LP by a group of this name, but dunno if same or maybe took their name from book.
A goodread, as I anciently recall.

a fairly *cosmic*, I meant to say.