Samuel Delany & John Kessel at Duke 4/30

John Kessel (left) and Samuel R. Delany at Duke University on Sunday, April 30, as part of the NC Festival of the Book.

Although the talk was entitled Science Fiction as a premier platform for discussing race, sex, and politics, the two writers for the most part steered clear of the Duke lacrosse rape case. Nonetheless, a fascinating conversion for this SF fan to observe between two of my all-time favorite writers.

Delany read from his mid-60s novella The Star Pit, an audio production of which was created at WBAI-FM in 68 or so, and which has recently surfaced on the web here. The Star Pit is, to use a trite cliche, quintessential Delany, from the 10 page introductory section built around the metaphor of the ant-farm by which you learn that some things have changed (family structures, educational levels, technologies) and some things haven't (alcoholism, kids' curiousity at the world around them); the jarring transition to the story's present day; the characters living on society's margins, emotionally and physically scarred by the world; the word games (two pages on how golden became a noun); the sly homage to what Delany has referred to as a critical epiphany in his early SF reading (that being the casual, offhand reference, some 200 plus pages into the novel Starship Troopers by Heinlein, that the main character has brown skin) which occurs in an otherwise almost invisible conversation between the main character (Vyme) and a minor character (Poloscki).

I'll post some transcripts over the next week or two, so check back.