Status
Available
Call number
Publication
Sphere (1977), Paperback
Description
A nonhuman race reimagines human mythology.
User reviews
LibraryThing member clong
Delany was 25 when this book won the 1968 Nebula for best novel (his third!). It is a strange, yet compelling read. It's kind of a fantasy/horror story set in a science fiction universe, with a strong thread of mythology running throughout. Add to this a collection of quotes both from other authors
Show More
and from Delany's notes that he was keeping as he was writing this book (he was touring Italy and Greece), and you have a thoroughly confusing, genre-hopping, yet oddly poetic quick read. The book is populated with archetypal characters who explore difference vs. sameness, reality vs. perception, observation vs. action. I'm not sure that I understood what happened at the end, and I'm not sure that repeated readings would make it any clearer, but I think it would be worth repeated readings to find out. Show Less
LibraryThing member benjaminjudge
Dude. Like, wooah. I mean far out man.
Yes it is 1967 and, seemingly, everyone is a bell-end. This book is so steeped in the utter dross of the nineteen sixties that it is almost impossible to have any sort of objective opinion on it. It is a time piece. A fragment of a best forgotten time. Like so
That said though, that doesn't necessarily have to be a bad thing. Sometimes it is interesting to read things like this. To see a fragment of a new thought before it collapses under it's own silliness. The book can be forgiven many crimes because it is so slim. This means it can be read through in a couple of hours. It is laughable as science but has it's moments as fiction and surely as a work of the imagination that is the real truth.
It is hard to be mean about such a lovable preposterous train wreck of a thing. At the end you are willing it to all come together, and it tries, but when it fails you don't get too cross about it. I'm not sure it's position as a mini-classic is safe but it is quite a fun read.
Yes it is 1967 and, seemingly, everyone is a bell-end. This book is so steeped in the utter dross of the nineteen sixties that it is almost impossible to have any sort of objective opinion on it. It is a time piece. A fragment of a best forgotten time. Like so
Show More
many books that try for the cutting edge it hasn't aged well.That said though, that doesn't necessarily have to be a bad thing. Sometimes it is interesting to read things like this. To see a fragment of a new thought before it collapses under it's own silliness. The book can be forgiven many crimes because it is so slim. This means it can be read through in a couple of hours. It is laughable as science but has it's moments as fiction and surely as a work of the imagination that is the real truth.
It is hard to be mean about such a lovable preposterous train wreck of a thing. At the end you are willing it to all come together, and it tries, but when it fails you don't get too cross about it. I'm not sure it's position as a mini-classic is safe but it is quite a fun read.
Show Less
LibraryThing member jimmaclachlan
This is the only book by Delany that I've ever cared for & I love it. He blends SF & mythology, a post-apocalyptic world filled with wonders & monsters. Our hero journeys through this world, discovering more about it, himself & the human race. He shows mankind's greatest failures & achievements
Show More
through the eyes of something else. A very interesting read & re-read.I read it again & although the words are very familiar after all these years, still they move me in different ways & make me think of different things. Certainly a classic. Show Less
LibraryThing member Jim53
A very young (25 I think) and self-conscious Delaney gives us a story of a young man in a far future who reenacts aspects of Orpheus's journey to the underworld. Genetics play a key role in this world, with people having to earn the right to be considered "full norms." Semi-educated Lobey, our
Show More
protagonist, falls in love with a girl who dies, and undertakes a journey to kill Kid Death and bring her back. Along the way he meets characters clearly based on Christ, Judas, Billy the Kid, and Jean Harlow. Delaney introduces chapters with quotations from other writers and entries from the journal he kept while writing. Overall the story is confused, but isn't really helped by his journal entries or the explanations one character feels compelled to provide. It's fun to see Delaney just starting out, feeling his way into the mythological material and combining it with the popular culture of the time. One thing he does well, for the most part, is NOT explaining the world his characters inhabit... we learn things along with Lobey, and we know enough to process the story. The style, like the story, is confused and inconsistent; it jars occasionally but overall it fits well with the characters and the story. Show Less
LibraryThing member timothyl33
For the most part the story seems to hint an at intriguing premise of post-apocalyptic Earth being inhabited by someone trying to become humans. But almost 10 pages before the end, it feels like this concept was more than the author could handle and he just gave up. Overall, not a book I would
Show More
recommend, except for those who love to say "huh??" at the end of books. Show Less
LibraryThing member DinadansFriend
A post-apocalyptic World is the setting for this novel about how an alien might try to understand who the human race was. We're gone, and all we have left behind is a computer, who has a good deal of explaining to do. The larger theme is an exploration of how the "Odd" among us, come to terms with
Show More
"Normal" life. Show Less
LibraryThing member sffstorm
It was interesting and well written, but quite often I found myself wondering what the hell was going on. I feel like Delany actually intended on that reaction though. I did enjoy the read, but I'm not entirely sure what it is that I read or what actually happened.
LibraryThing member raizel
I like stories that use or retell myths. Some chapters start with the author's journal; I found his notes helpful in explaining connections that I did not see on my own.
SOME QUOTES:
about myths, modern and ancient and their basis in fact and how they evolve:
".... You remember the legend of the
a typical poetic description, which had immediate resonance when the book was written and people still burned their leaves:
I passed some leaves, blown here by what wind, that his hooves had ignited. They writhed with worms of fire, glowing about my toes. And for a moment the darkness was filled with autumn. [p. 32]
SOME QUOTES:
about myths, modern and ancient and their basis in fact and how they evolve:
".... You remember the legend of the
Show More
Beatles? You remember the Beatle Ringo left his love even though she treated him tender. He was the one Beatle who did not sing, so the earliest forms of the legend go. After a hard day's night he and the rest of the Beatles were torn apart by screaming girls, and he and the other Beatles returned, finally at one, with the great rock and the great roll... Well, that myth is a version of a much older story that is not so well known. There are no 45's or 33's from the time of this older story. There are only a few written versions, and reading is rapidly losing its interest for the young. In the older story Ringo was called Orpheus. He too was torn apart by screaming girls. But the details are different. He lost his love---in this version Eurydice---and she went straight to the great rock and the great roll., where Orpheus had to to to get her back. He went singing, for in this version Orpheus was the greatest singer, instead of the silent one. In myths things always turn into their opposites as one version supersedes the next." [pp. 17-18]a typical poetic description, which had immediate resonance when the book was written and people still burned their leaves:
I passed some leaves, blown here by what wind, that his hooves had ignited. They writhed with worms of fire, glowing about my toes. And for a moment the darkness was filled with autumn. [p. 32]
Show Less
LibraryThing member jonfaith
As morning branded the sea, darkness fell away at the far side of the beach. I turned to follow it.
So ends The Einstein Intersection. My own interest in Delany may be terminated as well. The novel began as Orpheus and became Red River and ended as David Copperfield. All that without Walter
So ends The Einstein Intersection. My own interest in Delany may be terminated as well. The novel began as Orpheus and became Red River and ended as David Copperfield. All that without Walter
Show More
Brennan. Delany lards his fiction with ideas, with theory. Unfortunately he can't stop acknowledging that. A future grimdark place where the humans have left. Mutants remain, clinging to our myths. This novel appeared to be all sprint. I do not wish to end this Delany endeavor. We shall see. 2.3 stars Show Less
LibraryThing member StigE
I don't think I got it... Pretty, but (to me) nonsense
LibraryThing member Karlstar
I added this to my 'to read' list a long time ago as I'm trying to get through all of the older Hugo winners and I've read other Delaney. Unfortunately, while this may be a classic, its a strange one. It takes place in some sort of post-human (possibly post Apocalyptic) Earth where supposedly an
Show More
alien race has come to live on an Earth with no humans. The aliens seem to suffer from mutations, some of which are viable, some are not. There is a whole new form of personal pronouns which seem to correspond to him, her and a third option. In addition, the aliens seem to be ranked both by their lack of mutations and by the strength of their mutations. When one of the aliens with a peculiar psychic talent (that 'he'? is not aware of) goes from the country to the city, he finds that city folk reject the categorization of people by both gender and mutation/ability - city folks just do NOT discuss differences. Along the way the young alien is also questing to bring back to life his 'girlfriend'? who died, killed by a monster from an old human ruin. The 'journey of discovery' plot for the young alien is not tremendously original and in places is extremely confusing as he seems to confront death and in fact another alien 'Kid Death' in several different ways. Perhaps this whole book is Delaney's way of envisioning a future with no gender or other distinctions. I may not be taking enough prescription medicine to understand this book fully, it really didn't make a lot of sense. Show Less
LibraryThing member quondame
I don’t think too well of this one. I would have thought less of it when it first came out. Alien human re-interpreter Orpheus who doesn’t even get as far as walking out of Hades.
LibraryThing member James_Knupp
This reads more like an epic poem than a novel. It's very odd, but its treatment of the ideas of gender and "the other" were really interesting.
LibraryThing member leslie.98
A very interesting book - I liked it a lot even though I am not sure that I understood it! I loved the myths which entwined the science fiction (and had some laughs at the 1960s references to 45s & 33s; Ringo Starr & "the great rock and the great roll").
LibraryThing member wealhtheowwylfing
Lobey is a herder in a small village. Although they live a simple life, they live atop the ruins of a maze of tunnels filled with abandoned computers. Further, it seems that radiation and limited genetic diversity create so many mutations that the villagers hardly look human. Still, it's a quiet
The writing is good, but I kept getting sidetracked in my confusion over what exactly was happening. For instance, Lobey creates music with his knife (?) which has holes in it for this purpose (?) which he plays with his feet and fingers (?). Too often, trying to picture what was going on overtook my appreciation of the story itself. And the story is wonderful, and something I've never read before. Lobey's tale is a harsh adventure because of the pressures of societal expectation and assumption--they're trying so hard to be human that any difference is shameful and avoided. And not only is Lobey himself different, but he's seeking a way to tell the tale of Orpheus in a different, not-so-human way. To get Friza back, he has to challenge the archetypes and mythology that his world uses to maintain themselves, and create a new ending. It's pretty fabulous--but also, I'm sad to say, deeply confused me.
(If anyone can explain what Green-Eyes was doing in the comments, I would deeply appreciate it. All I got was that he was a sort of new Christ-y figure? IDK!
Show More
life. He and his childhood friend, Friza, are finally becoming romantic with each other when she apruptly, inexplicably, dies. Unwilling to accept her death, Lobey ventures outside his village and finds that the rest of the world is far stranger than he imagined. He hires on as a dragon-herder and makes his way to the city, where he discovers that Friza was murdered, and that it may be possible to bring her back to life.The writing is good, but I kept getting sidetracked in my confusion over what exactly was happening. For instance, Lobey creates music with his knife (?) which has holes in it for this purpose (?) which he plays with his feet and fingers (?). Too often, trying to picture what was going on overtook my appreciation of the story itself. And the story is wonderful, and something I've never read before. Lobey's tale is a harsh adventure because of the pressures of societal expectation and assumption--they're trying so hard to be human that any difference is shameful and avoided. And not only is Lobey himself different, but he's seeking a way to tell the tale of Orpheus in a different, not-so-human way. To get Friza back, he has to challenge the archetypes and mythology that his world uses to maintain themselves, and create a new ending. It's pretty fabulous--but also, I'm sad to say, deeply confused me.
(If anyone can explain what Green-Eyes was doing in the comments, I would deeply appreciate it.
Show Less
LibraryThing member Neil_Luvs_Books
The Einstein Intersection was just an ok read for me. I doubt that I will read it again. I think I missed the point of aliens inhabiting human form after humans have left the earth. I suspect that Delany was trying to say something about the significance of difference and myth but it was unclear to
Show More
me. In contrast, I really enjoyed reading Dhalgren four decades ago despite that book having a meandering plot. But that one was still interesting. I wonder if I just missed something in TEI. Show Less
LibraryThing member ikeman100
There are a couple of Delany books I really like but this is not one of them. I prefer "SF" and this is "Fantasy". To many good books in the pile to waste my time on this one. Did not finish.
LibraryThing member dreamweaversunited
It was with a heavy heart that I abandoned this book halfway through, because normally I love Delany. He is truly an inspiration to me. But while I loved the worldbuilding in this book, as I always do with Delany, I found the book confusing and hard to follow, and the main character not very
Show More
compelling. Show Less
LibraryThing member leslie.98
A very interesting book - I liked it a lot even though I am not sure that I understood it! I loved the myths which entwined the science fiction (and had some laughs at the 1960s references to 45s & 33s; Ringo Starr & "the great rock and the great roll").
Subjects
Awards
Hugo Award (Nominee — Novel — 1968)
Nebula Award (Nominee — Novel — 1967)
The Guardian 1000 Novels Everyone Must Read (Science Fiction and Fantasy)
Language
Original publication date
1967
Physical description
159 p.
ISBN
0722129130 / 9780722129135