DIVDIVSlavery is outlawed, Nevèrÿon is free, and Gorgik the Liberator must revisit the mines for a final struggle where he himself was once a slave/divDIV Alone in a deserted castle in the Nevèrÿon countryside, a great warrior and a young barbarian meet at midnight to tell each other tales from their intersecting lives. But are they really alone? And, if they aren’t, what will it mean for Nevèrÿon . . . ?/divDIV The three stories in this volume end Samuel R. Delany’s Return to Nevèrÿon saga and cycle. But they are also its beginning—taking us back to the start of Gorgik’s epic—although, from what we’ve learned from the others, even that has become an entirely new story, though not a word in it has been changed . . ./divDIV This ebook features an illustrated biography of Samuel R. Delany including rare images from his early career./divDIV/div/div

This 1979 American Book Award nominee contains five interlocked stories that tell of the slave Gorgik in a long-ago land, and a masked swordswoman narrates an astonishing feminist creation myth.

A novel of myth and literacy, Nevèrÿona tells how young Pryn, who can write in this largely pre-literate land, flees her mountain village on a dragon's back for Neveryon's capital port, Kolhari, to aid Gorgik's rebelllion. Now on the Bridge of Lost Desire, now in Madam Keyne's emotionally embattled gardens, now at an empty, moonlit mansion in Nevèrÿon - Kolhari's old artistocractic neighbourhood - and finally through a journey into the dangerous south, Pryn finds more answers - and questions - about Nevèrÿon's power structure.

Silent, upon a peak in Nevèrÿon. The enchanted land of Nevèrÿon is the most fascinating fantasy empire ever mapped by a modern word-enchanter - a realm of nameless terror and sensuous delights beyond the feeble imaginings of mortal men and women. Now Nevèrÿon's wildest desires and darkest dreams collide with the drear realities of our own blighted world as the gossamer boundaries between the real and the fantastic, truth and falsehood being to break down. And the world we know (or think we know) is revealed to us as if for the first time.

Six essays from the critic and award-winning author exploring topics such as theater, LGBTQ+ scholarship, cyborgs, metaphors, and Star Wars. “Reading is a many-layered process—like writing,” observes Samuel R. Delany, a Nebula and Hugo Award–winning author and a major commentator on American literature and culture. In this collection of six extended essays, Delany challenges what he calls “the hard-edged boundaries of meaning” by going beyond the customary limits of the genre in which he’s writing. By radically reworking the essay form, Delany can explore and express the many layers of his thinking about the nature of art, the workings of language, and the injustices and ironies of social, political, and sexual marginalization. Thus, Delany connects, in sometimes unexpected ways, topics as diverse as the origins of modern theater, the context of lesbian and gay scholarship, the theories of cyborgs, how metaphors mean, and the narrative structures in the Star Wars trilogy. “Over the course of his career,” Kenneth James writes in his extensive introduction, “Delany has again and again thrown into question the world-models that all too many of us unknowingly live by.” Indeed, Delany challenges an impressive list of world-models here, including High and Low Art, sanity and madness, mathematical logic and the mechanics of mythmaking, the distribution of wealth in our society, and the limitations of our sexual vocabulary. Also included are two essays that illustrate Delany’s unique chrestomathic technique, the grouping of textual fragments whose associative interrelationships a reader must actively trace to read them as a resonant argument. Whether writing about Wagner or Hart Crane, Foucault or Robert Mapplethorpe, Delany combines a fierce and often piercing vision with a powerful honesty that beckons us to share in the perspective of these Longer Views. “An intellectually adventurous book. . . . Every page of every essay here rewards a second reading, and a third. Delany has a fearsomely stocked intellect, and a wider range of experience than most writers can even imagine. . . . He is brilliant, driven, prolific.” —The Nation “One of science fiction’s grand masters. . . . Delany’s elegant command of language and deep insight into other authors’ works are delightful to behold.” —Booklist “Rare personal frankness and stunning erudition. . . . Recommended for readers who enjoy the challenge of being led into remote regions of a gifted mind.” —Library Journal

In Shorter Views, Hugo and Nebula award-winning author Samuel R. Delany brings his remarkable intellectual powers to bear on a wide range of topics. Whether he is exploring the deeply felt issues of identity, race, and sexuality, untangling the intricacies of literary theory, or the writing process itself, Delany is one of the most lucid and insightful writers of our time. These essays cluster around topics related to queer theory on the one hand, and on the other, questions concerning the paraliterary genres: science fiction, pornography, comics, and more. Readers new to Delany's work will find this collection of shorter pieces an especially good introduction, while those already familiar with his writing will appreciate having these essays between two covers for the first time.