Delaney, Aye, and Gomorrah

[sub_divided]

Let's look at the stories in this volume one by one:

The Star Pit Some kind of meditation on how, as your universe expands, your ambitions expand with it? ...Universes in the story range in size from a pocket-sized ecosphere that's carried around as a good luck charm, to a room-sized biodome, to New York City, to Planet Earth, to the Milky Way Galaxy, to all of explored space. At each level, people and organisms feel trapped, even though logically, no one person is going to be able to see a whole city much less a whole planet, etc. The only people free to go anywhere are these crazy people with like, unbalanced hormonal systems. The characters in this story are really strong, actually.

Delaney-ism Watch:
-Black person POV
-New York City
-Surprise Gender
-Grubby fingernails
-Grubbiness Hidden by Illusion: explicitly due to hallucinagenic drugs
-Telepathy
-Probably more that I'm not thinking of right now. This longer short story hits on a lot of favorites.

Corona This story is about Sky Rocker, from the Jetsons. =D

Aye, and Gomorrah Sabina called this a story about the Gundam Wing pilots. XD It's about a bunch of beautiful, young, androgynous, violent space fighter pilots on R&R planetside, who pop around from place to place looking for fights and drinks.

I feel quite sorry for the people in the story who have a fetish for these guys, since it mixes up a yearning for space, with a yearning for young adolescents, with a yearning for androgyny, with a yearning for people who will never be able to love you back. Actually, you could divide that into two categories: beautiful young androgynous people, and things you can never have. Actually, the more think about it, the more the conflation makes sense XD.

We, In Some Strange Power's Employ This is about a future where the spiritual successors to the Hell's Angels have become backcountry-dwelling hicks holding out against electrification. Delaney is pretty up front about the flying motorcycles ("brooms") being basically phallic symbols, haha.

In this version of a nearly-ideal future, free energy exists and so people have spread out as much as they can, creating one giant worldwide subarb and emptying out all the cities. Like Corona, this story is weirdly American 1960s.

Cage of Brass Wherein Delaney is able to avoid having to describe anything by setting the entire story in the dark.

Heir Weir About the rest of the scientific discovery team looking askance at the team member with ADD. I feel for Rimkin, man.

And now the library is closing, so I'll finish up by saying there are eight more stories in this collection, including one about Vondramach and Gilda (published 10 years before Stars in My Pocket).

Generally, value is created by bringing disparate things together and comparing them. Or using contrast: between a not-too-bright older white ex-con worker and a brilliant suicidal six year old black telepath, for instance. Or between homogenizing engineers and resistant flying motorcycle enthusiasts. Or structurally, like when a concrete story about a guy looking for sex in NYC restrooms is intercut with an abstract story about space blobs.

And then there's the work on race, gender, and sexuality, which is pretty much in line with a lot of online activism. Sabina said it was like Samuel Delaney was on livejournal (well, he was pretty active in sci fi fandom).

And... post! More to come tomorrow maybe. I have a new temporary job where I move heavy textbooks from boxes to bookshelves all day, so if it seems like I've been scarce lately, that's why.

Comments

[troisroyaumes]

Suspect it's because a lot of online activism (at least in LJ/DW circles) have read Samuel Delany. ^^

I am intrigued by the title story! I should see if my library carries this collection.

[sub_divided]

It's my favorite story in the collection! I pulled out a theme but it's not one of those stories that is obviously organized around a theme, it's more character-driven.

And you are probably right, XD.

[petronia]

I dunno if that's chicken or egg, mind you - with Delany you're safe from random!fail**, and that's pretty relaxing.

** Apart from random!science!fail, which happens all the time.