sommers@topaz.RUTGERS.EDU (Mamaliz @ The Soup Kitchen) (08/19/85)
In article <3331@topaz.RUTGERS.EDU> dm@BBN-VAX.ARPA writes: >I think you'll like Delaney if you like to watch words be put together >in interesting ways. >Delaney's books are the kind that you read to be reading, where the >act of reading itself is a pleasure, yet where nothing much really >happens, and you may not really like the people to whom it's >happening, anyway... > At last. As I think I have mentioned before that Chip Delaney is my favorite science fiction author (if you leave out that Neveryon trash). Dhalgren is the book I have read the most times in my life, it never fails to fascinate me. I find that much happens, but it happens at the pace of life, how much really happens to you in one week? >Dahlgren, Nova, and Triton all have this in common, as does ``Stars in >my pocket like grains of sand.'' Babel-17 is also well written, but >is rather conventional (it has a plot and hackneyed stuff like that) >(interesting, all the same, and I suspect it's most likely his most >approachable book). I thought ``The Einstein Intersection'' read like >the first novel it was (nonetheless, not a bad bit of writing for a >17-year-old kid). > Nova is excellent, a retelling of the Grail. Triton's major redeeming quality is that the author could sit and write a book and finish it about such a selfish a*hole. Babel-17 is just a story. The Ballad of Beta-2 (which at least one time was in a double with Empire Star) is one of the more interesting views of a generation ship (and owes much to Heinlein I think) No odd sex in either of those two novellas(ettes). I enjoyed Empire Star and Einstein quite a lot, seeing the seeds of Dhalgren in them. His first novels are also interesting, one is a trilogy whose name escapes me (has something to do with Towers -- my books are all packed AGAIN) and the other is a sort of fantastic adventure, with leanings toward Tanith Lee. I have not read it in years. >Not to be missed are Delaney's short-story collections: >``Drift-glass'' is the name of one, I can't remember the title of the >other (``Empire Star'' perhaps?). Most of his short-stories are >pretty conventional, with plot and interesting characters, and not so >much Bizarre Sex, yet they retain his wonderful prose. Good Reads in >all senses of the words. Try his stories before you give up on him >completely. > Especially try Driftglass. I have never seen anybody put it down once they picked it up. > >Someone sparked all this by asking if anything ever happened in >Dahlgren. Well, yes. Lots of things happen. About three or four >hundred things happen on every page. Weren't you paying attention? >Just about every single word in Dahlgren is an event in itself. >Unfortunately, most of the words don't seem to be describing anything. >I'm glad you brought it up, though, because since then lots of people >have mentioned what they saw in the book, and now I'm eager to re-read >it with these new ideas. > >Why do you care that Dahlgren never explains where it's going when the >mere act of getting there has more in it than you can possibly absorb? > > And aren't you smart and imaginative enough to get there yourself? It goes, my god it goes. -- liz sommers My "best address" will soon be changing to topaz!mama!liz but I can still be reached at: uucp: ...{seismo, ut-sally,ihnp4!packard}!topaz!sommers arpa: sommers@rutgers