Customer Reviews

Driftglass

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I've read this book four or five times over the years, and continue to marvel at Delany's awesome stylistic resources. Several of the stories are very moving, all are interesting, and all are exceptionally well-written. The stories cover the conflict between old and new (in the future), personal loss, the nature of freedom within the limits of the universe, and one odd, self-reflective narrative. Well worth seeking out for beauty in narrating and narrative.

A collection of ten stories with settings ranging from foreign worlds to a tiny fishing village in Greece. Delany, as always, writes lyrically and with a great graciousness and clarity. If there was a fault it would be that I was inclined to find some of these a little bit slight. For people who keep track of these things, the stories included are:

The Star Pit
Dog in a Fisherman's Net (* my favorite!)
Corona
Aye, And Gomorrah
Driftglass
We, In Some Strange Power's Employ, Move On A Rigorous Line
Cage of Brass
High Weir
Time Considered As A Helix of Semi-Precious Stones
Night and the Loves of Joe Dicostanzo

The themes had a few touches that felt late '60's/early '70's - occasional odd references in clothing or race that seem out-moded now. But - the collection is sharp and well connected. It is great to watch Delany's mind playing with various themes; things that caught his attention worked out over a series of stories. I found myself watching for these moments. One such: the nature of hologram for storage - or more specifically - a fractional remainder of an original hologram. Delany teases this out in HIGH WEIR and in TIME AS A HELIX with very different characters & purposes. Some of the tales are a little fuzzy themselves - almost like a slice of something not fullly formed or finished - which is how the book closes with JOE DICOSTANZO. I think CORONA held my attention most - and it is one of the tales that smacks of the '60's. Great basic collection.

Delany's sci-fi remains atop my all-time list, a top shared by Gibson and Bester. This collection contains my personal favorite Delany, the novella that is a mid-bending journey to The Star Pit.

Wonderful range of subjects and settings, all handled with his trademark poetry-in-prose, and not a wasted word. Some themes recur, including telepathy, which also figured heavily in the contemporaneous, and wonderful, novel Babel-17. Telepathy is an affliction, but also an instrument of friendship and humanity in Corona. The drug-addicted projecting telepath in The Star Pit adds another layer. The difference, the apart-ness of being an artist and communicating via a different wavelength overlaps with this fascination with telepathy. That difference is echoed in many ways in these stories - the sex objects of Gomorrah, the "golden" of The Star Pit, those who can journey to wonders beyond the galaxy, but whose travels are made possible by insanity that often renders them sociopaths.

Highly recommended. This is a great place to start reading Delany, in my opinion. How far one goes into his later writings, which venture into memoir, fantasy, criticism, and pornography, is up to the reader. But his sci-fi should be on everyone's must-read list.