Delany, Samuel R

Entry updated 9 December 2024. Tagged: Author, Critic.

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(1942- ) US critic and author, one of the most influential and most discussed within the genre; he has taught at several universities from 1975, and was professor of Comparative Literature at the University of Massachusetts Amherst 1988-1999, of English at SUNY Buffalo 1999-2000, and of English and Creative Writing at Temple University in Philadelphia since 2001. He has a somewhat mixed cultural background: he is Black, born and raised in Harlem, New York, and therefore familiar with the Black ghetto; but having won scholarships without which the cost would have been prohibitive, Delany was educated at the Dalton School and later the prestigious Bronx High School of Science (although he left college after only one term). This double background is evident in all his writing.

He became famous as one of the youthful prodigies of sf, though it was only recently that substantial portions of his first novel were published asVoyage, Orestes!: [A Surviving Novel Fragment] (written 1960-1963;2019). His first published sf was also a novel, released when he was 20:The Jewels of Aptor (1962 dos; restored1968; rev1971); the later versions restore the one-third of the text originally excised byAce Books. This was followed by the trilogyThe Fall of the Towers:Captives of the Flame (1963 dos; rev vtOut of the Dead City1968),The Towers of Toron (1964 dos; rev1968) andCity of a Thousand Suns (1965; rev1969), all assembled asThe Fall of the Towers (omni of rev texts1970). Another early novel wasThe Ballad of Beta-2 (1965 dos; text corrected1977).

The early novels had certain similarities, and some of the themes initiated in them have recurred regularly in Delany's work. The plot structure is almost invariably that of a quest, or some form ofFantastic Voyage. Physically and psychologically damaged participants are common. An economical use of colourful detail, often initially surprising but logical when considered, is used to flesh out the social background of the stories. There is an interest inMythology, taking the form of metaphorical allusion to existing myths or of an investigation of the way new myths are formed; this is central toThe Ballad of Beta-2, in which a student anthropologist (seeAnthropology) investigates the facts behind a folk song garnered from a primitive Earth culture which has gone voyaging in a fleet ofGeneration Starships. This novel also shows an interest in problems ofCommunications andLinguistics which was to become central to Delany's work.The Fall of the Towers, too, is full of colourful cultural speculation, although its melodramatic story of war, mutations, mad computers and a malign cosmic intelligence is moderately conventional. The original three volumes ofThe Fall of the Towers were set in the samePost-Holocaust Earth asThe Jewels of Aptor; however, the linking references were removed in the revised edition.

Delany published two more novels in 1966:Empire Star (1966 dos; text corrected1977) andBabel-17 (1966; rev1969). Both, especially the latter, which won aNebula, reveal a notable advance in sophistication.Babel-17, whose chapters carry epigraphs from the work of the poet MarilynHacker – Delany's wife from 1961 to 1980 – is about language, and has a poet heroine. In a future galactic society described in sophisticatedSpace-Opera terms, radio broadcasts in a seemingly indecipherableAlien language are received; they are thought to be connected with sabotage and alien invasion. Much of the novel is to do with cracking the language (seeLinguistics), a task whose successful conclusion so deforms/transforms the protagonist that she is no longer human. Delany espouses here the Whorfian hypothesis that ourPerception of reality is partly formed by our languages; the invention of different societies in this novel, more intense and imaginative than his previous work, is mostly rendered in terms of thought- and speech-patterns.

In 1967 he began publishing short stories also. He was generally seen as being in the forefront of theNew Wave, emphasizing cultural speculation, the soft sciences, psychology and mythology over technology andHard SF. The short story "Aye, and Gomorrah ..." (inDangerous Visions, anth1967, ed HarlanEllison) won a Nebula, and the novelette "Time Considered as a Helix of Semi-Precious Stones" (December 1968New Worlds) won bothHugo and Nebula. These two, withBabel-17 andThe Einstein Intersection (1967; 1 chapter restored1968), which also won aNebula, can be found in hisThe Complete Nebula Award-Winning Fiction (omni1986), though a fuller assembling of his short fiction can be found inDriftglass: Ten Tales of Speculative Fiction (coll1971; exp vtDriftglass/Starshards1993; further exp vt"Aye, and Gomorrah" And Other Stories2003); the second expansion incorporates all three additional short stories fromDistant Stars (coll1981), which also includes the longerEmpire Star; this final version of the title,"Aye, and Gomorrah" And Other Stories, contains all Delany's best short work.

It can be argued thatThe Einstein Intersection is his most satisfying work, along with the next novel,Nova (1968; text corrected1969) and the novellaThe Star Pit (February 1967Worlds of Tomorrow;1988 chap dos), which also appeared inDriftglass.The Einstein Intersection is remarkably compressed and densely patterned with allusive imagery. Earth has lost its humans (how is never made clear) and their corporeal form has been taken on by a race ofAliens who, in an attempt to make coherent sense of the human artefacts among which they live, take on human traditions, too. Avatars of Ringo Starr,Billy the Kid andChrist appear; the hero, a Black musician who plays tunes on his murderous machete, is Orpheus and Theseus. The book is atour de force, though a cryptic one, since the bafflement of the protagonists trying to make sense of their transformed lives tends to transfer to the reader. Delany's own diaries provide part of the text of the novel.Nova is the Prometheus story and the Grail story combined in an ebulliently inventive space opera/quest; the fire from the heavens, the glowing heart of the Grail, is found only at the heart of an exploding nova (seeElements). Passages of high rhetoric are mingled (as they often are, too, in the work of Delany's contemporary RogerZelazny) with relaxed slang and thieves' argot. The book features a characteristic Delany protagonist, the criminal/outcast/musician/artist whose literary genealogy goes back through Jean Genet (1910-1986) all the way to François Villon (1431-1485). It led AlgisBudrys to call him "the best science-fiction writer in the world" (January 1969Galaxy). The variety of cultures in these and other novels by Delany has the effect of making morality and ethics seem relative, pluralistic. Divers forms of bizarre human behaviour, many of which would have been seen as antisocial in US society of the time, emerge as natural in the circumstances created.The Star Pit, too, is a highly structured work; its central image is that of ant-colony/cage/trap/micro-ecology, and escape is seen to be intimately linked with emotional mutilation, even psychosis.

Delany's next novel – not sf, though with elements of the fantastic – was the pornographicThe Tides of Lust (1973; vtEquinox1994); the title was not his.The Mad Man (1994) andHogg (1995) continue in the same vein. It is likely to shock most readers in its evocation of extreme sado-masochism in imagery which is sometimes poetic and often disgusting – and so intended – perhaps as a Baudelairean ritual of passage. It was, indeed, in the mid-1970s that it became generally known that Delany was bisexual. Certainly, all his later work is deeply concerned with the cultural mechanisms – actual, theoretical and sometimes labyrinthine – of eroticism and love. Much light is thrown on the relationship between Delany's own sexuality and the sf he wrote in the 1960s by his much later book,The Motion of Light in Water: Sex and Science Fiction Writing in the East Village 1957-65 (1988; exp vtThe Motion of Light in Water: East Village Sex and Science Fiction Writing: 1960-65; with The Column at the Market's Edge1990). This book, frank and priapic to the verge of the scabrous, won a Hugo for Best Nonfiction.

Delany's next two novels wereDhalgren (1975; rev1977; rev2001 [for full details see Checklist]) andTriton (1976; vtTrouble on Triton: An Ambiguous Heterotopia1996). After a six-year gap in which Delany had published little or no sf,Dhalgren was controversial. It is very long, and his critics see it as perilously self-indulgent and flabby, lacking the old economy of effect. It became a bestseller, however, and other critics saw it as his most successfully ambitious work to date. An anonymous youth, the Kid, comes to the violent, nihilistCity orZone of Bellona, where order has fled and there are two moons in the sky, though the rest of theNear-Future USA is apparently normal. He becomes an artist, couples and fights, and writes a book that might beDhalgren before leaving the city. The opening sentence completes the unfinished final sentence and an enigmatic circle. It is a consciouslyModernist book, primarily about the possibilities and difficulties of a youth culture, and partly about being a writer.Triton is more traditionally structured, but is in some ways more sophisticated. It presents a series of future societies differentiated mainly along sexual lines; the male protagonist, who begins by displaying a rather insensitive, traditional machismo, ultimately chooses to become a woman (seeTransgender SF), but remains alienated. Triton (a moon of Neptune) is an "ambiguous heterotopia" with a bewildering variety of available lifestyles. The book poses interesting questions about sexuality, and also about freedom of choice. A stage version, sequelling rather than directly adapting the book's events, isBellona, Destroyer of Cities (2010).

Since then Delany has published two singletons of sf interest.Stars in My Pocket Like Grains of Sand (1984) is the first volume of a projected diptych, an exotic piece set in a galactic civilization. A complex narrative again asks questions about the arbitrary and parochial nature of our ethical expectations, using various forms of enjoyed degradation to make the point. It is probably Delany's most important work of the 1980s. Its continuation, whose announced title is «The Splendour and Misery of Bodies, of Cities», remains unwritten.Through the Valley of the Nest of Spiders (2012) is an exceedingly ambitious traversal and recapitulation of his work over the previous decades, couched as the life stories of a group of gay men over the first three decades of the twenty-first century.

During the same period, he published theNevèrÿon series, which masquerades asSword-and-Sorcery fantasy:Tales of Nevèrÿon (coll of linked stories1979; rev1988);Neveryóna: Or, The Tale of Signs and Cities: Some Informal Remarks Toward the Modular Calculus, Part Four (1983; rev1989);Flight from Nevèrÿon (coll of linked stories1985; rev1989) andThe Bridge of Lost Desire (coll of linked stories1987; rev vtReturn to Nevèrÿon1989). TheNevèrÿon books resembleStars in My Pocket in their strategy of culture-building, and play both with and against the readers' expectations. They are, in fact, sf in the sense that they invent alien societies, though technically they areFantasy, being set in a distant, fantastic, pre-industrial past, and to a degree act as both critique and re-creation of the Mighty-Thewed Barbarian genre. Delany's treatment of the idea of bondage, for example, is infinitely more sophisticated, and somewhat more elusive, than that of, say, JohnNorman in theGor books. Many ideas are explored, from the erotic to the economic, the concept ofSlavery appearing in both these idea-sets, and the slave-collar itself coming to be the prime erotically charged symbol; the later volumes make clear reference to the AIDS epidemic. Though allusive, ambitious, self-reflexive, seriously intended books, they do return in style to something reminiscent of the wittier, more economic, more playful Delany of the 1960s, and are among the more accessible works of his past two decades.

During the six-year hiatus (from about 1969) in his own fiction, Delany began to pay more attention to other people's, while at the same time taking up teaching positions at various universities as cited above. Much of the attendant critical and semiotic writing has been variously collected: early volumes includeThe Jewel-Hinged Jaw: Notes on the Language of Science Fiction (coll1977),The American Shore: Meditations on a Tale of Science Fiction by Thomas M. Disch – Angouleme (1978),Starboard Wine: More Notes on the Language of Science Fiction (coll1984) andThe Straits of Messina (coll1989; rev2012); he was given aPilgrim Award in 1985 for his work in this field. Delany's criticism is often post-structuralist and to a degreePostmodernist, very aware of a contemporary literary context that goes well beyond sf, sometimes very wordy, but important in its persistent attempt to describe sf in terms of the protocols required for reading it. As Delany said in his acceptance speech after receiving the 1985Pilgrim Award for excellence in sf criticism, "We must learn to read science fiction as science fiction." The second of the four books, an analysis of the structure and images of the short story "Angouleme" (inNew Worlds Quarterly, anth1971, ed MichaelMoorcock; later revised for334 [fixup1972]) by Thomas MDisch, is written with a spectacularly microscopic fastidiousness.The Straits of Messina collects mostly pieces by Delany that were originally published as by K Leslie Steiner, a pseudonym he uses when writing about his own work. The first and third books, essays on the language of sf, are perhaps of the most general interest. A fifth critical book,Wagner/Artaud: A Play of 19th and 20th Century Critical Fictions (1988 chap), does not bear directly on sf; though a sixth,Silent Interviews: On Language, Race, Sex, Science Fiction, and Some Comics (coll1994) contained material of genre interest, as doLonger Views (coll1996),Shorter Views: Queer Thoughts & the Politics of the Paraliterary (coll1999) andAbout Writing: Seven Essays, Four Letters & Five Interviews (coll2005).The Atheist in the Attic: Plus "Racism and Science Fiction" and "Discourse in an Older Sense": Outspoken Interview (coll2018), which contains fiction and nonfiction, includes his mature thoughts onRace in SF.

With MarilynHacker, Delany edited a short series of four original anthologies,QUARK/, preferring the term "speculative fiction" to "science fiction", and emphasizing experimental writing [see Checklist below]. The slash and the capitalization are integral to the titleQUARK/.

With hindsight it can be hypothesized that Delany has had different audiences at different points of his career: a very wide, traditional sf readership up to and includingDhalgren, which sold nearly a million copies in the USA alone; and a narrower, perhaps more intellectual, campus-based readership thereafter. There is no doubt that by the 1980s his fiction (and criticism) had become less accessible, and the real debate about his career must be whether or not he gained more than he lost with his adoption of a denser style towards the later 1970s. At this point his fiction also began to include more passages of obviously polemical intent, some of whose thrust, especially in their icons of abasement, did not carry conviction for all readers. But, though admirers of Delany's earlier work tend to be heavily polarized in their views of his later work, he by no means disappeared from popular notice. The first two volumes of theNevèrÿon series sold around a quarter of a million each. Lower sales on subsequent editions may have been partly due to resistance in the publishing and book-distribution worlds to his increasingly and explicitly controversial texts.

Delany was inducted into theScience Fiction Hall of Fame in 2002; in 2009 he received anEaton Award for life achievement; in 2014 the Damon Knight Grand Master Award (seeSFWA Grand Master Award); and in 2022 aWorld Fantasy Award for life achievement. His tale "The Hermit of Houston" (September/October 2017F&SF) won aLocus Award as best novelette. [PN]

Samuel Ray Delany

born New York: 1 April 1942

works

series

The Fall of the Towers

Captives of the Flame (New York: Ace Books,1963) [dos:The Fall of the Towers: pb/JackGaughan]
- Out of the Dead City (London: Sphere Books,1968) [rev vt of the above:The Fall of the Towers: pb/Russell Fitzgerald]
The Towers of Toron (New York: Ace Books,1964) [dos:The Fall of the Towers: pb/EdEmshwiller]
- The Towers of Toron (London: Sphere Books,1968) [rev of the above:The Fall of the Towers: pb/Russell Fitzgerald]
City of a Thousand Suns (New York: Ace Books,1965) [The Fall of the Towers: pb/JackGaughan]
- City of a Thousand Suns (London: Sphere Books,1969) [rev of the above:The Fall of the Towers: pb/Russell Fitzgerald]
  - The Fall of the Towers: A Classic Science Fiction Trilogy (New York: Ace Books,1970) [omni of the revised versions of the above three:The Fall of the Towers: pb/KellyFreas]

Nevèrÿon

Tales of Nevèrÿon (New York: Bantam Books,1979) [coll of linked stories:Nevèrÿon: pb/Pierre Lacombe]
- Tales of Nevèrÿon (London: Grafton,1988) [coll of linked stories: rev of the above:Nevèrÿon: pb/uncredited]
Neveryóna: Or, The Tale of Signs and Cities: Some Informal Remarks Toward the Modular Calculus, Part Four (New York: Bantam Books,1983) [Nevèrÿon: pb/RowenaMorrill]
- Neveryóna: Or, The Tale of Signs and Cities: Some Informal Remarks Toward the Modular Calculus, Part Four (London: Grafton,1989) [rev of above:Nevèrÿon: pb/Pierre Lacombe]
Flight from Nevèrÿon (New York: Bantam Books,1985) [coll of linked stories:Nevèrÿon: pb/RowenaMorrill]
- Flight from Nevèrÿon (London: Grafton,1989) [rev of the above:Nevèrÿon: pb/Pierre Lacombe]
The Bridge of Lost Desire (New York: Arbor House,1987) [Nevèrÿon: hb/Ned Dameron]
- Return to Nevèrÿon (London: Grafton,1989) [vt of the above:Nevèrÿon: pb/Pierre Lacombe]

individual titles

The Jewels of Aptor (New York: Ace Books,1962) [dos: pb/JackGaughan]
- The Jewels of Aptor (New York: Ace Books,1968) [exp of the above: pb/JeffJones]
  - The Jewels of Aptor (London: Sphere Books,1971) [further revisions: pb/uncredited]
The Ballad of Beta-2 (New York: Ace Books,1965) [chap: dos: pb/JackGaughan]
- The Ballad of Beta-2 (New York: Ace Books,1977) [rev of the above: pb/]
Empire Star (New York: Ace Books,1966) [dos: pb/JackGaughan]
- The Ballad of Beta-2 (New York: Ace Books,1975) [omni of the above two: pb/Davis Meltzer]
  - The Ballad of Beta-2; And, Empire Star (London: Sphere Books,1977) [omni: vt of the above: pb/uncredited]
Babel-17 (New York: Ace Books,1966) [pb/JeromePodwil]
- Babel-17 (London: Sphere Books,1969) [rev of the above: pb/BillBotten]
The Einstein Intersection (New York: Ace Books,1967) [pb/JackGaughan]
- The Einstein Intersection (London: Victor Gollancz,1968) [rev: one chapter restored: hb/nonpictorial]
Nova (Garden City, New York: Doubleday and Company,1968) [hb/Russell Fitzgerald]
- Nova (Garden City, New York: Doubleday and Company,1969) [rev of the above: hb/Russell Fitzgerald]
The Tides of Lust (New York: Lancer Books,1973) [pb/]
- Equinox (New York: Masquerade/Rhinoceros,1994) [rev vt of the above: pb/Kurt Griffith]
Dhalgren (New York: Bantam Books,1975) [pb/DeanEllis]
- Dhalgren (New York: Bantam Books,1977) [rev: this sixth printing corrects various errors: pb/DeanEllis]
  - Dhalgren (Boston, Massachusetts: Gregg Press,2001) [rev: with further corrections: hb/nonpictorial]
Triton (New York: Bantam Books,1976) [pb/Mitchell Hooks]
- Trouble on Triton: An Ambiguous Heterotopia (Hanover, New Hampshire: Wesleyan University Press,1996) [vt of the above: introduction by KathyAcker: hb/photographic/JPL Lab]
Empire: A Visual Novel (New York: Berkley Windhover,1978) with Howard VChaykin [graph: hb/Howard VChaykin]
Stars in My Pocket Like Grains of Sand (New York: Bantam Books,1984) [hb/LuisRoyo]
They Fly at Çiron (Seattle, Washington: Incunabula,1993) [fixup: text based on "They Fly at Çiron" with JamesSallis, first appeared June 1971F&SF: all new material by Delany: hb/Olav Martin Kvern]
- A.B.C.: Three Short Novels (New York: Random House Vintage,2015) [omni of the above withThe Jewels of Aptor andThe Ballad of Beta-2: pb/]
The Mad Man (New York: Masquerade Books/Richard Kasak,1994) [hb/Mia Wolff]
Hogg (Tallahassee, Florida: Black Ice Books,1995) [hb/Dave LaFleur]
Bread and Wine: An Erotic Tale of New York (New York: Juno Books/Powerhouse Books,1999) [graph: illus/pb/Mia Wolff]
Dark Reflections (New York: Carroll and Graf,2007) [pb/Brenden Hitt]
Through the Valley of the Nest of Spiders (New York: Magnus Books,2012) [pb/Linda Kosarin]
Voyage, Orestes!: [A Surviving Novel Fragment] (Whitmore Lake, Michigan: Bamberger Books,2019) [written 1960-1963: pb/]

collections and stories

Driftglass: Ten Tales of Speculative Fiction (Garden City, New York: Nelson Doubleday,1971) [coll: hb/David Wilcox]
- Driftglass/Starshards (London: Grafton,1993) [exp of the above: pb/JohnHarris]
  - "Aye, and Gomorrah" And Other Stories (New York: Vintage Books,2003) [further exp: incorporating the three stories assembled inDistant Stars (see below) but notEmpire Star: pb/Yukimasa Hirota]
Distant Stars (New York: Bantam Books,1981) [coll: pb/MichaelWhelan]
The Complete Nebula Award-Winning Fiction (New York: Bantam Books,1986) [coll: pb/Aaron Epstein]
The Star Pit (New York: Tor,1988) [chap: dos: pb/TonyRoberts]
We, in Some Strange Power's Employ, Move on a Rigorous Line (New York: Tor,1990) [chap: dos: first appeared May 1968F&SF as "Lines of Power": pb/WayneBarlowe]
Atlantis: Three Tales (Seattle, Washington: Incunabula,1995) [coll: hb/Joseph Stella]
- Atlantis: Three Tales (Hanover, New Hampshire: Wesleyan University Press,1995) [coll: cut version of the above: hb/Joseph Stella]
Bread & Wine: An Erotic Tale of New York (New York: Powerhouse/Juno,1999) with Mia Wolff [graph: pb/Mia Wolff]
from Phallos (Rutherford, New Jersey: Voyant Publishing,2000) [chap: preview of spoof nonfiction appendix fromPhallos below: pb/nonpictorial]
Phallos (Whitmore Lake, Michigan: Bamberger Books,2004) [pb/John Del Gaizo]
- Phallos: Enhanced and Revised Edition (Hanover, New Hampshire: Wesleyan University Press,2013) [rev of the above: appendix material moved to front: pb/]
The Atheist in the Attic: Plus "Racism and Science Fiction" and "Discourse in an Older Sense": Outspoken Interview (Oakland, California: PM Press,2018) [coll: fiction/nonfiction: in the publisher'sOutspoken Authors series: pb/John Yates]

nonfiction

series

The Journals

In Search of Silence: The Journals of Samuel R Delany, Volume 1, 1957-1969 (Middletown, Connecticut: Wesleyan University Press,2017) [coll:The Journals: hb/photograph of a Barbara Hepworth sculpture]

nonfiction: individual titles

The Jewel-Hinged Jaw: Notes on the Language of Science Fiction (Elizabethtown, New York: Dragon Press,1977) [nonfiction: coll: hb/nonpictorial]
- The Jewel-Hinged Jaw: Notes on the Language of Science Fiction (New York: Berkley Windhover,1978) [nonfiction: coll: rev of the above: pb/RichardPowers]
The American Shore: Meditations on a Tale of Science Fiction by Thomas M. Disch – Angouleme (Elizabethtown, New York: Dragon Press,1978) [nonfiction: Thomas MDisch: hb/nonpictorial]
Heavenly Breakfast: An Essay on the Winter of Love (New York: Bantam Books,1979) [nonfiction: pb/uncredited]
Starboard Wine: More Notes on the Language of Science Fiction (Pleasantville, New York: Dragon Press,1984) [nonfiction: coll: hb/nonpictorial]
- Starboard Wine: More Notes on the Language of Science Fiction: Revised Edition (Hanover, New Hampshire: Wesleyan University Press,2012) [nonfiction: coll: rev of the above: pb/]
The Motion of Light in Water: Sex and Science Fiction Writing in the East Village 1957-65 (New York: Arbor House,1988) [nonfiction: hb/ThomasCanty]
- The Motion of Light in Water: East Village Sex and Science Fiction Writing: 1960-65; with The Column at the Market's Edge (London: Grafton Books/Paladin,1990) [nonfiction: exp of the above: pb/Bernard Kay]
  - The Motion of Light in Water: East Village Sex and Science Fiction Writing: 1960-65 (New York: Masquerade/Richard Kasak,1993) [cut version of the above: cuts "The Column at the Market's Edge": pb/Brian Lynch]
Wagner/Artaud: A Play of 19th and 20th Century Critical Fictions (New York: Ansatz Press,1988) [nonfiction: chap: pb/nonpictorial]
The Straits of Messina (Seattle, Washington: Serconia Press,1989) [nonfiction: coll: hb/Jeri Francis]
Silent Interviews: On Language, Race, Sex, Science Fiction, and Some Comics: A Collection of Written Interviews (Hanover, New Hampshire: Wesleyan University Press,1994) [nonfiction: coll: hb/John DelGaizo]
Longer Views (Hanover, New Hampshire: Wesleyan University Press,1996) [nonfiction: coll: hb/]
Times Square Red, Times Square Blue (New York: New York University Press,1999) [nonfiction: coll: hb/]
Shorter Views: Queer Thoughts & the Politics of the Paraliterary (Hanover, New Hampshire: Wesleyan University Press,1999) [nonfiction: coll: hb/]
1984: Selected Letters (Rutherford, New Jersey: Voyant Publishing,2000) [nonfiction: coll: hb/]
About Writing: Seven Essays, Four Letters & Five Interviews (Hanover, New Hampshire: Wesleyan University Press,2005) [nonfiction: coll: hb/]
Letters from Amherst: Five Narrative Letters (Hanover, New Hampshire: Wesleyan University Press,2019) [nonfiction: coll: written between 1989 and 1991: hb/]
Occasional Views: Volume 1: "More About Writing" and Other Essays (Hanover, New Hampshire: Wesleyan University Press,2021) [nonfiction: coll: hb/]
Of Solids and Surds (New Haven, Connecticut: Yale University Press,2021) [nonfiction: in the publisher'sWhy I Write series: hb/photographic]
Occasional Views: Volume 2: "The Gamble" and Other Essays (Hanover, New Hampshire: Wesleyan University Press,2021) [nonfiction: coll: hb/]

works as editor

series

QUARK/

QUARK/1 (New York: Paperback Library,1970) with MarilynHacker [anth:QUARK/: pb/Russell Fitzgerald]
QUARK/2 (New York: Paperback Library,1971) with MarilynHacker [anth:QUARK/: pb/]
QUARK/3 (New York: Paperback Library,1971) with MarilynHacker [anth:QUARK/: pb/Roger Penney]
QUARK/4 (New York: Paperback Library,1971) with MarilynHacker [anth:QUARK/: pb/Martin Last]

individual titles

Nebula Award Winners 13 (New York: Harper and Row,1980) [anth:Nebula Anthologies:Nebula Awards: hb/]
RogerZelazny.The Magic (October 1961-October 1967): Ten Tales (Floyd, Virginia: Positronic Publishing,2018) [coll: edited and introduced by Delany: hb/BobEggleton]

about the author

George EdgarSlusser.The Delany Intersection: Samuel R. Delany Considered as a Writer of Semi-Precious Words (San Bernardino, California: The Borgo Press,1977) [nonfiction: chap: pb/Judy Cloyd]
DouglasBarbour.Worlds Out of Words: The SF Novels of Samuel R. Delany (Hayes, Middlesex: Bran's Head Press,1979) [nonfiction: pb/nonpictorial]
Michael W Peplow and Robert S Bravard.Samuel R. Delany: A Primary and Secondary Bibliography, 1962-1979 (Boston, Massachusetts: G K Hall,1980) [bibliography:Masters of Science Fiction and Fantasy: hb/]
Jane B Weedman.Samuel R. Delany (Mercer Island, Washington: Starmont House,1982) [nonfiction: chap: hb/Stephen E Fabian Sr and StephenFabian]
SethMcEvoy.Samuel R. Delany (New York: Frederick Ungar Publishing Co,1984) [nonfiction: hb/Martin Quint]
Martha ABartter. "The (Science-Fiction) Reader and the Quantum Paradigm: Problems in Delany'sStars in My Pocket Like Grains of Sand" (November 1990Science Fiction Studies #17.3) [pp325-40: mag/]
Christopher PStephens.A Checklist of Samuel R. Delany (Hastings-on-Hudson, New York: Ultramarine,1991) [bibliography: chap: second edition: pb/nonpictorial]
Bill Wood, editor.On Samuel R Delany's Dhalgren (New York: Fantastic Books,2021) [nonfiction: anth: hb/]

further reading

Bill Campbell and NisiShawl, editors.Stories for Chip: A Tribute to Samuel R Delany (Greenbelt, Maryland: Rosarium Publishing,2015) [anth: pb/uncredited]

links

previous versions of this entry