Customer Reviews

Tales of Neveryon

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If you're a big reader of fantasy, you might notice that sometimes the writers try to use their fantasy stories to make some sort of philosophical point, maybe try to comment on male/female relationships, or something equally weighty. More often than not, these come off as heavy-handed and clumsy, oversimplifying their point hideously to make sure everyone "gets it" and then hammering the same point home over the course of several books to the point of tediousness. Those type of books annoy the heck out of me. So it's nice to see someone actually doing it right with this book. Delany's fantasy world isn't strictly fantasy, per se (it has elements but is more like the world right when writing was first invented) but it's certainly not our world. So he creates this detailed world, shows it to us and then proceeds over the course of the stories in this book to make comments on our world and use the characters and situations to explore similar situations in the "real world". All of this is done without him standing up and screaming "Look! I'm being didactic!" and most of the time unless you're looking for the specific commentary, you won't even notice, that's how subtle it tends to be. Even better, Delany tends to just make his point and move, without laboring over the same idea in story after story. His ideas are different, too, than what you'd normally find in fantasy, it's not the usual "men and women don't understand each other" he looks into things like currency, the origins of feminism and the sexual nature of slavery. And even without the intellectual angle to these tales, they're entertaining in their own right, Delany's characters and settings are enormously exciting, and while there's not an overarching plot to the stories, characters do carry over from tale to tale and develop over time. And for all his examinations, Delany never forgets the most important thing about a story . . . keeping it interesting. His world is rendered with enough detail to fill several books and fortunately there were three other Neveryon books after this one. But those who think fantasy can't ever be smart should start here and see what else can be done with the genre. As fun as it is, it can't always boil down to "good versus evil."

I read "Tales of Neveryon" on the airplane. I hate flying, I get nauseous, yet reading this book turned it into a delight. I don't remember another time when I savored the words so much (Storm Constantine comes close in "Wraeththu"). I usually like action & plot, scifi, space opera, and epic fantasy, and I don't like stories, so this was a surprise. I don't know how, or what it is about it, but it was simply pleasurable to read. Here's a random paragraph:

"What a glorious and useless thing to know, she thought, yet recognizing that every joy she ever felt before had mere been some fragment of the pattern sensed dim and distant, which now, in plurality, was too great for laughter - it hardly allowed for breath, much less awe! What she had sensed, she realized as the words she could not hold away any longer finally moved in, was that the world in which images occurred was opaque, complete, and closed, though what gave it its weight and meaning was that this was not true of the space of examples, samples, symbols, models, expressions, reasons, representations and the rest - yet that everything and anything could be an image of everything and anything - the true of the false, the imaginary of the real, the useful of the useless, the helpful of the hurtful - was what gave such strength to the particular types of images that went by all those other names; that it was the organized coherence of them all which made distinguishing them possible."

The sentences are long, the paragraphs can go on for several pages, but the language just flows...

Also, make sure to read the Appendix, it's a crucial part of the book. It talks about discovering ancient tablet and deciphering the language, uncovering the story that inspired the collection of these tales. (Edit: This completely passed me by at first, but the Appedix is also written by Delany and also entirely fiction.)

This book is what made me a Delany fan. I wasn't crazy about "Babel-17" or "Nova," it's amazing how different his writing styles are. I'm yet to make another attempt to conquer "Dhalgren." But I loved "The Einstein Intersection" - it has the same musical, magical, haunting quality to it as "Tales of Neveryon."

Just writing this review and quoting the book left me a little breathless, made me want to read it again, and get the rest of Neveryon books!

...is what its author has called it, and that it is. The first novella in this book, Tale of Gurgik, I took as a quirky, Fantasy revision on coming-of-age stories like Dickens and Stendhal. Gurgik, an aristocrat, becomes a slave for six years and then stumbles back into bourgeois civilization. This story treats his acclimatization to the strange cultures of freedom and wealth.

Tale of Old Venn is a sort of fantasy-novel introduction to literary criticism, played out in metaphors between an old woman and her disciple and friend. This story was my favorite; it introduces Delany's theories on the transition from currency to credit.

The Tale of Small Sarg is an elegant and heartwarming portrayal of SM. (Sam Gamgee and Frodo will never look the same again!) I can't remember the names of the other stories and don't have the book on me at the moment (I've been lending it to everyone I know), so I'll defer to someone else for the rest.

These synopses are to the actual stories roughly what velveeta is to gruyere, of course, a gross oversimplification. Delany's outlandish metaphors (those little rubber balls!) and surprisingly lucid forays into parts philosophic transform what could've been a preachy exercise in po-mo orthodoxies into an absolutely magical experience that must be read to be believed.

The reader of this book will benefit from a bit of background in poststructuralism, but it's not necessary; in fact the story about Venn made more sense of Derrida than Derrida does himself. Delany would make a great addition to an introductory course on postcolonialism and semiotics. In fact, I wish I'd read this before I'd ever tried to tackle those people...

"Tales from Neveryon" examines many facets of human existence, from gender roles to marriage (the slight hint of S&M mentioned by a previous reviewer) to the way the devlopment of the concept of money has changed us. When you read this book you get a chance to step outside of human culture. For the first time you see, objectively, the forces at work within society and within us. You see the way the past shapes the present, and the way your preconceptions shape the way you perceive the world.

This is an incredible book, well worth the time taken to read and understand its many complexities.

Samuel Delany's Tales of Neveryon is a book which accomplishes something few ever have: it takes all of the basic elements of cliched sword & sorcery fantasy stories and weaves them into a suggestive, thought-provoking, allusive, and even haunting series of tales.

None of these stories follows any sort of traditional plot structure -- some of them have only the barest hint of plot at all. And yet they are deeply compelling, for Delany has infused so many of the situations with intellectual substructures, simultaneously evoking a carefully-imagined fantasy world, well-developed characters, and profound philosophical speculations (and aggravations) touching on everything from economics to literary theory to political and social science. None of it is heavy-handed, though, and certainly not dogmatic -- if not for some slyly suggestive epigraphs at the beginning of each tale, the deeper implications of many of the stories would be easy to miss. The tales build on each other, and by the second half of the book, if you can juggle all of the echoes in your mind, the process of accumulation makes the experience of reading all the richer.

By the end, the book feels a bit incomplete, because it has raised so many questions and introduced so many journeys that the reader is likely to hit the last page and think, "Where's the rest?" The rest is in the other books in the Neveryon series, and so though Tales of Neveryon is not complete in itself, there is a certain pleasure in knowing that the marvelous experience of reading this first book does not have to end.

Samuel Delany's four-book fantasy series, "Tales of Nevèrÿon," is hugely under-read and under-appreciated. Delany primarily writes science fiction. He's won both of science fiction's highest American honors, the Hugo award and the Nebula award, the latter twice in the 1960s. But the Nevèrÿon books stand on their own as excellent fantasy. (Somewhat confusingly, "Tales of Nevèrÿon" seems to be a name for the four-book series but also the title of the first of the four books. I refer to the series as "the Nevèrÿon books.")

In general, Delany's fiction is somewhat experimental and academic, (which is in and of itself remarkable, even inspiring---as is Delany's own authorial and academic success---given that he is highly dyslexic). The Nevèrÿon books may not be prohibitively difficult for young adults; but, they certainly weren't written to be easily approachable by an audience *primarily* of young adults. They are certainly not pot-boiler or formulaic fantasy. In addition to the presence of dragons and barbarian warrior-heroes, which are relatively common fantasy tropes, there are features of the decidedly unromantic Nevèrÿon world and cultures that are highly original creations by Mr. Delany, and the tales themselves are in a naturalistic style at times so gritty you're surprised there isn't a fine layer of dust upon the page. Most of Delany's characters are earthy survivors who interact with their varying cultural, social, economic, and physical environments in a matter-of-fact way interrupted--in the case of some characters anyway--with contemplation, even a sort of philosophizing. There is poignancy throughout, and it's subtle and masterful. The reader can't help but wish the characters well, even if some of them wear the harshness of their lives like old leather garbs, or are simple in their desires and ambitions. The characters of the tales range widely: active and passive, young and old, healthy and ill, famous and obscure, male and female, free and slave.

A collection of interrelated stories set in a mythical empire beyond time. Gorgik, a slave becomes a leader of armies; Small Sarg, a barbarian prince becomes a slave to set others free; swordmistress Raven lives in a land where the women rule; and Norema, daughter of fisherwoman attains freedom.

These are fascinating stories, very well written, in fact beautifully written. The various characters weave in and out of the different stories. Gorgik and Small Sarg are particularly interesting, as their relationship develops from Master and Slave, through physical intimacy to a voluntary master/slave relationship necessary for the intimacy to function.

However while very pleasurable to read, I found it difficult to engage with the characters, the narrative seemed to put them at a distance, leading me not to care too much about their destinies; and for me that is an essential part of the reading experience. So this is really a book which I can happily pick up and read a few pages, but not one which compels me to keep reading.

RETURN TO NEVERYON is the first collection of Samuel R. Delaney's Neveryon short stories, set in an unspecified land in the misty past which has just come into civilization. The first four tales in this volume are more or less independent, and the fifth ties them all together.

Delaney uses the setting of a half-barbaric, half-civilized time to question and explore the institutions of modern man. Sexuality (often alternative), slavery, money (i.e. greed) and power are investigated with the result that civilization might not be the quantum leap away from barbarism that one would think. Delaney's characters, who are truly modern people, nonetheless are driven by the same primal urges that civilization is supposed to have supressed. Money is shown as a source of destruction of love between people, and matriarchy is unmasked as just as violent and cruel as pure patriarchy.

Delaney's ideas are remarkable and original, and his characters and setting are truly captivating. The one fault, however, lies in his writing. Delaney tends to drone for pages on certain themes which make him sound dry and academic, and which occasionally draw away from his superb scenery.

TALES OF NEVERYON is an okay read, and the concepts it presents are interesting, but the ho-hum writing style might destroy it for many readers.

A collection of interrelated stories set in a mythical empire beyond time. Gorgik, a slave becomes a leader of armies; Small Sarg, a barbarian prince becomes a slave to set others free; swordmistress Raven lives in a land where the women rule; and Norema, daughter of fisherwoman attains freedom.

These are fascinating stories, very well written, in fact beautifully written. The various characters weave in and out of the different stories. Gorgik and Small Sarg are particularly interesting, as their relationship develops from Master and Slave, through physical intimacy to a voluntary master/slave relationship necessary for the intimacy to function.

However while very pleasurable to read, I found it difficult to engage with the characters, the narrative seemed to put them at a distance, leading me not to care too much about their destinies; and for me that is an essential part of the reading experience. So this is really a book which I can happily pick up and read a few pages, but not one which compels me to keep reading.

Before anyone indulges in the luxury of on-line criticism, one should at least know (and respect) the correct spelling of the authors name. Samuel R. Delany (like the literal French for "of the New York", abbreviated), by his own admission, wrote Tales of Neveryon partly in repsonse to his own consumption of the Conan stories by Robert E. Howard, and Fritz Liebers (occasionally in collaboration with L. Sprague deCamp) Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser fantasy/fiction swords/sorcery stories. The French critics epigraphs which open the stories display SRDs depth of knowledge of literary criticism, although those critics and analysts of literature and society may no longer be popular. SRD also demonstrates his knowledge of archeology, ethnology, mathematics, physics, astronomy, and seamanship to a degree in all of the four (actually five, including Triton) books that are explicity about Neveryon, which itself is an intriguing "pun" or translation of a supposedly factual (it is, sadly, not) lost text or codex from repositories in Istanbul, Turkey (from which, only in 1906, the original proof by Archimedes for the volume and the area of the sphere were found in palimpsest form).

SRD indulges in the use of arcane terminology, as well, not in a bombastic way, but in a manner that will make you curious to research the meaning of the word. The tales, overall, are delightful, fascinating, and relevant to modern times in more ways than any individual could express. One leads into the other in a logical fashion, except perhaps the last book, alternatively titled "The Bridge of Lost Desire" or "Return to Neveryon", and all four (excluding Triton, which I have not as yet read) make a cohesive and interlocked whole experience and pleasurable, thoughtful reading.