#Samuel R Delany

[thehauntedrocket]

Vintage Paperback - Babel-17 by Samuel R. Delany

Ace (1980)

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[briannysey]

I’ve been so excited to get to this point in my lit of the Harlem Renaissance class!!!

It’s hard to quantify the impact Delany’s work has had on my life. The only piece of his Ive truly read so far is “Aye and Gommorah” which I red in December 2021, weeks before realizing my true gender identity. “Aye…” is a very queer story, and I read it while preparing a submission for the inaugural Delany Fellowship (which I wasnt even longlisted for. Which was more than fair, my work wasnt ready). But that’s when I first seriously encountered Delany’s work.

Delany’s history as a gay writer coming from Harlem and shaking up the Science Fiction world was really important to me. I’d read contemporary queer works (all my followers know how much I love Dickinson’s The Masquerade) but I was less familiar with our history in Science Fiction and family. Delany’s work inspired me to learn more about the history of queer fiction, which prompted my research into vampires that got me the scholarships and awards that moved me fron my beloved community college to my current private 4-year institution.

It was my failure to land that fellowship but my discovery of our history that prompted me to actually go back to school. And Delany’s work being part of the coursework for this specific class is what prompted me to take it and read all the incredible (and incredibly timely) work Ive read this semester.

Anyways Im excited to dig and read more deeply on Delany’s work! Im grateful for the opportunity, and for the material and emotional impact his work has had on me. I also just have? Idk a renewed appreciation of literature because of his works.

[earhartsease]

we've just been reading one of our favourite sci-fi novels again, Babel-17 by Samuel R Delany, and we want to share and celebrate the positive impact it had on us, a closet trans teenager in the 70s, to read this passage, casually thrown into the story - the local culture is divided into Customs and Transport people, and think of them as apollonian vs dionysian, middle class vs working class - and this Customs officer had a brush with proper fun a while back and is now going to get himself a little dragon behind a cage door implanted into his right shoulder, which once you've assimilated it you can make it come out of its cage and roar and spit sparks (we'll spare you the perhaps three minutes of surgery it takes to do this);

‘You know,’ the Customs Officer was saying, ‘I’ve had quite a battle with myself; I’ve wanted to do it ever since I first came down here – hell, ever since I first went to the movies and saw pictures. But anything really bizarre just wouldn’t go at the office. Then I said to myself, it could be something simple, covered up when I was wearing clothes. Here we are.’

The Officer pushed open the door of Plastiplasm Plus (‘Addendums, Superscripts, and Footnotes to the Beautiful Body’). ‘You know I always meant to ask someone who was an authority; do you think there’s anything psychologically off about wanting something like this?’

‘Not at all.’

A young lady with blue eyes, lips, hair and wings said, ‘You can go right in. Unless you want to check our catalogue first.’

‘Oh, I know exactly what I want,’ the Customs Officer assured her. ‘This way?’

‘That’s right.’

‘Actually,’ Dr T’mwarba went on, ‘it’s psychologically important to feel in control of your body, that you can change it, shape it. Going on a six month diet or a successful muscle building program can give quite a sense of satisfaction. So can a new nose, chin, or set of scales and feathers.’

this was such a relief for read, even before we acknowledged a strong need to change our body - and then in another of his books Triton, the main character (he's frankly kind of an arsehole), about four fifths through the book suddenly pops into a clinic and comes out like an hour later as a woman (and happier but still kind of an arsehole because realism), and half of that hour is just making sure of exactly what kind of tranformation she's after

anyway the point for us was that his books normalised the idea of sex, gender, sexuality, relationship, and body modification diversity, and we will always be incredibly grateful

and it warms our old heart to see how normal transition and furrydom and therian etc stuff is now among younger people - make of yourselves whatever you need or want to be, it's okay to be this

[urban-lad]

"𝙶𝚛𝚎𝚗𝚍𝚊𝚕 𝚐𝚛𝚎𝚗𝚍𝚊𝚕𝚐𝚛𝚎𝚗𝚍𝚊𝚕𝚐𝚛𝚎𝚗𝚍𝚊𝚕𝚐𝚛𝚎𝚗𝚍𝚊𝚕𝚐𝚛𝚎𝚗 . . ." 𝚜𝚝𝚒𝚕𝚕 𝚛𝚊𝚗 𝚝𝚑𝚛𝚘𝚞𝚐𝚑 𝚖𝚢 𝚑𝚎𝚊𝚍. 𝚂𝚞𝚍𝚍𝚎𝚗𝚕𝚢 𝙸 𝚛𝚎𝚊𝚕𝚒𝚣𝚎𝚍 𝙸 𝚑𝚊𝚍𝚗'𝚝 𝚋𝚎𝚎𝚗 𝚕𝚒𝚜𝚝𝚎𝚗𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚌𝚊𝚛𝚎𝚏𝚞𝚕𝚕𝚢 𝚎𝚗𝚘𝚞𝚐𝚑; 𝙸'𝚍 𝚜𝚝𝚞𝚌𝚔 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚋𝚛𝚊𝚔𝚎 𝚒𝚗 𝚊𝚝 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚠𝚛𝚘𝚗𝚐 𝚙𝚕𝚊𝚌𝚎. 𝚃𝚑𝚎 𝚊𝚌𝚝𝚞𝚊𝚕 𝚠𝚘𝚛𝚍 𝙸'𝚍 𝚑𝚎𝚊𝚛𝚍 𝚊𝚝 𝚘𝚛𝚐𝚊𝚜𝚖 𝚊𝚗𝚍 𝚝𝚑𝚊𝚝 - 𝚏𝚘𝚛 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚕𝚊𝚜𝚝 𝚏𝚎𝚠 𝚖𝚒𝚗𝚞𝚝𝚎𝚜 - 𝚑𝚊𝚍 𝚋𝚎𝚎𝚗 𝚛𝚎𝚙𝚎𝚊𝚝𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚒𝚗 𝚖𝚢 𝚑𝚎𝚊𝚍 𝚠𝚊𝚜 ". . . 𝙳𝚑𝚊𝚕𝚐𝚛𝚎𝚗 . . ." 𝙸 𝚠𝚒𝚙𝚎𝚍 𝚖𝚢𝚜𝚎𝚕𝚏 𝚠𝚒𝚝𝚑 𝚙𝚊𝚛𝚝 𝚘𝚏 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚜𝚎𝚌𝚘𝚗𝚍 𝚙𝚊𝚐𝚎 𝚘𝚏 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝙱𝚎𝚕𝚕𝚘𝚗𝚊 𝚃𝚒𝚖𝚎𝚜, 𝙹𝚊𝚗𝚞𝚊𝚛𝚢 𝟸𝟸, 𝟷𝟽𝟽𝟼.

- Samuel R. Delany from ᴅʜᴀʟɢʀᴇɴ (1975). --Artwork by Dean Ellis.

[waywordsstudio]

3 Word Review: “Babel-17” by Samuel R. Delany -

Fascinating sf yarn from a master world-builder on how our language might be manipulated against us.

[mondoweirdojunkie]

[haveyoureadthisqueerbook]

[quasi-normalcy]

[librarycards]

If not for climate change, I could roughly predict what kind of racism I will face for the rest of my life, because I have faced the same kind of racism for my entire life so far. What destabilizes that future survivance is precisely the climate. Current models predict that global warming will result in a global refugee crisis. That crisis has already started. Russia has invaded the Ukraine for oil. South Asians are being shot in the Mediterranean trying to get to Europe. It is easier to write about a future you can make up to the last detail than it is to write about a present you can’t describe. How do you imagine being in the world when the world is unimaginable?

Here is the whole Samuel Delany quote: “Science fiction is not ‘about the future.’ Science fiction is in dialogue with the present . We SF [sic] writers often say that science fiction prepares people to think about the real future — but that’s because it relates to the real present in the particular way it does; and that relation is neither one of prediction nor one of prophecy. It is one of dialogic, contestatory, agonistic creativity. In science fiction the future is only a writerly convention that allows the SF writer to indulge in a significant distortion of the present that sets up a rich and complex dialogue with the reader’s here and now.”

In other words, climate fiction set in the future presents us with possibilities we might use to know and contest the present reality. And yet, I confess my interest lies in the possibility of alienating readers from Delany’s dialogue, in making the experience of distortion the experience itself. I’m talking about climate fiction where what is possible is already distorted by racism and sexism and other structural inequalities, so distorted that only a present breakdown of reality might help prepare us to survive what it is currently impossible to story.

Matthew Salesses, The Possibilities of Climate Fiction. [emphasis added]

[judgeitbyitscover]

Tales of Nevèrÿon by Samuel R. Delany

Cover art by Louis S. Glanzman

Bantam Books, September 1979

Tales of Nevèryon

A barbarous alien empire ruled by primal brutality, intrigue and fear. A world of bizarre paradoxes, powerful mysteries and sexual abandon...

The world of Gorgik -- thick-hewn mine slave whose prowess defies the mighty. Lady Myrgot -- who takes him as a plaything de Neveryon's imperial court. Small Sarg Gorgik's princely lover. Norema -- the island girl clad in shimmering secrets. And her companion Raven -- masked woman warrior.

[j-ayne]

Trying to make my day off a calm one because I've been stressed recently. Put together a couple of bags of books to take to the local book swap. Loving Samuel R. Delany.

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[2dcloud]

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