Book description
In his four-volume series Return to Neveryeon, Hugo and Nebula
award-winner Samuel R. Delany appropriated the conceits of
sword-and-sorcery fantasy to explore his characteristic themes of
language, power, gender, and the nature of civilization. Wesleyan
University Press has reissued the long-unavailable Neveryeonvolumes in
trade paperback.
The eleven stories, novellas, and novels in Return to Neveryeon's four
volumes chronicle a long-ago land on civilization's brink, perhaps in
Asia or Africa, or even on the Mediterranean. Taken slave in childhood,
Gorgik gains his freedom, leads a slave revolt, and becomes a minister
of state, finally abolishing slavery. Ironically, however, he is
sexually aroused by the iron slave collars of servitude. Does this
contaminate his mission -- or intensify it? Presumably elaborated from
an ancient text of unknown geographical origin, the stories are sunk in
translators' and commentators' introductions and appendices, forming a
richly comic frame. "This is fantasy that challenges the
intellect . . . semiotic sword and sorcery, a very high level of
literary gamesmanship. It's as if Umberto Eco had written about Conan
the Barbarian." --USA Today Samuel R. Delany's many prizes
include the Hugo Award, the Nebula Award, and the William Whitehead
Memorial Award for a lifetime's contribution to gay and lesbian
literature. Wesleyan has published both his fiction and nonfiction,
including Atlantis: three tales (1995), Silent Interviews: On Language,
Race, Sex, Science Fiction, and Some Comics (1994), Longer Views:
Extended Essays (1996), and Shorter Views: Queer Thoughts & the
Politics of the Paraliterary. The press has also reissued his classic
science fiction novels Dhalgren (1996), Trouble on Triton (1996,
originally published as Triton), and The Einstein Intersection (1998).
