Status
Available
Call number
Series
Publication
Voyager (1988), Paperback
Description
-- Tales of Nevron In these sagas of barbarism, new knowledge, and sex, youll find far more than in most sword-and-sorcery. They are an epic feat of language, an ironic analysis of the foundations of civilization, and a reminder that no weapon is more powerful than a well-honed legend. This eminently readable and gorgeously entertaining (The Washington Post Book World This ebook features an illustrated biography of Samuel R. Delany including rare images from his early career.)
User reviews
LibraryThing member clong
Delany is one of the few authors about whom I can say that I always feel like he’s way smarter than I am, like he’s got something really important to say, some Platonic truth of which he’s offering his readers imperfect glimpses. He seems to channel some profound understanding of the
Even his early works demonstrate a masterful use of language. Much more than most science fiction authors, Delany clearly thinks about language, and understands what language is, and understands how language works. Indeed his stories often seem (sometimes explicitly, sometimes implicitly) to be about language as a tool and as symbolism.
Tales of Neveryon in some ways feels like an anti-fantasy; it takes many of the familiar tropes from the Tolkienesque quest story in ways very different from the reader’s expectations. At one point (near the end of “The Tale of Old Venn”), Delany even breaks into a direct conversation with the reader in which he says something like “this is where you expect A to do B to save C, but that’s not how it’s going to work in my story.” I read this book shortly after having read Joanna Russ’s very effective skewering of science fiction tropes We Who Are About To... (1977), and it’s hard to avoid viewing Tales of Neveryon (1979) as an effort to bring a similar lens to some of the underlying assumptions of mainstream fantasy (Russ is one of the three dedicatees of Neveryon; Delany would contribute an introduction to a later reprint of Russ’s novel).
This is one of those books that should probably be classified as a “mosaic novel.” It’s a series of linked short stories, only one of which (as far as I can tell) was ever published outside of this book. The first two stories stand up pretty well on their own, but the last three wouldn’t really work outside of the context of the collective work.
I thought the first two stories, which establish Delany’s very young world, were very strong. I particularly liked “The Tale of Old Venn,” which tackles in a very thought-provoking way the concept of money as symbolism, of how the existence of money changes values, societies, and people. I have no idea if compelling sociologic research would back Delany up, but he certainly rings true to me. The third installment, an introduction of the character Small Sarg, is considerably less ambitious. The fourth and fifth tales begin the narrative of what actually happens to the characters established in the first three (but doesn’t really take this narrative very far).
There is absolutely no sense of closure in this book. It reads like the opening chapter of a longer tale. So it’s more thought provoking that satisfying as a stand alone read.
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collective unconscious (if there is such a thing), of people’s irrational wants and fears, of what drives us to do what we do. Even his early works demonstrate a masterful use of language. Much more than most science fiction authors, Delany clearly thinks about language, and understands what language is, and understands how language works. Indeed his stories often seem (sometimes explicitly, sometimes implicitly) to be about language as a tool and as symbolism.
Tales of Neveryon in some ways feels like an anti-fantasy; it takes many of the familiar tropes from the Tolkienesque quest story in ways very different from the reader’s expectations. At one point (near the end of “The Tale of Old Venn”), Delany even breaks into a direct conversation with the reader in which he says something like “this is where you expect A to do B to save C, but that’s not how it’s going to work in my story.” I read this book shortly after having read Joanna Russ’s very effective skewering of science fiction tropes We Who Are About To... (1977), and it’s hard to avoid viewing Tales of Neveryon (1979) as an effort to bring a similar lens to some of the underlying assumptions of mainstream fantasy (Russ is one of the three dedicatees of Neveryon; Delany would contribute an introduction to a later reprint of Russ’s novel).
This is one of those books that should probably be classified as a “mosaic novel.” It’s a series of linked short stories, only one of which (as far as I can tell) was ever published outside of this book. The first two stories stand up pretty well on their own, but the last three wouldn’t really work outside of the context of the collective work.
I thought the first two stories, which establish Delany’s very young world, were very strong. I particularly liked “The Tale of Old Venn,” which tackles in a very thought-provoking way the concept of money as symbolism, of how the existence of money changes values, societies, and people. I have no idea if compelling sociologic research would back Delany up, but he certainly rings true to me. The third installment, an introduction of the character Small Sarg, is considerably less ambitious. The fourth and fifth tales begin the narrative of what actually happens to the characters established in the first three (but doesn’t really take this narrative very far).
There is absolutely no sense of closure in this book. It reads like the opening chapter of a longer tale. So it’s more thought provoking that satisfying as a stand alone read.
Show Less
LibraryThing member paradoxosalpha
At first glance, the title and table of contents for this book make it look like a set of disparate fantasy stories in a shared setting, but it is in fact an integrated novel. Each "Tale of" people and doings in Nevèrÿon ends up linked to the others on multiple levels, and all of them take place
This fantasy is imaginative, but far less "fantastic" than most. There are no supernatural elements, no giants or fairies. If Tolkien's Middle Earth was a step closer to our world than Dunsany's Pegāna, Delany's Nevèrÿon is a considerable stroll in our direction. The appendix ("Some Informal Remarks on the Intermodal Calculus, Part Three," alluding to the appendices of his prior science fiction novel Triton) summarizes some fictional scholarship to place Nevèrÿon in our actual (pre-)history, via the study of the apocryphal Culhar' Text. The effect of this retroactive framing--in combination with the philosophical motifs of the main text--is positively vertiginous.
The epigrams for the individual tales are drawn from post-structuralist philosophy, while the book as a whole is paradoxically concerned with the imagined origins of cultural systems: language, money, gender roles, slavery, politics, and so on. There are nested stories and digressions that highlight these concerns, but the characters of the general narrative are unusual and vivid, and the setting is carefully developed, so that the book doesn't degenerate into a string of deconstructivist parables.
Those chiefly seeking escapism from their fantasy reading should avoid this book, while philosophical readers will find much to enjoy in it.
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over roughly a single generation. This fantasy is imaginative, but far less "fantastic" than most. There are no supernatural elements, no giants or fairies. If Tolkien's Middle Earth was a step closer to our world than Dunsany's Pegāna, Delany's Nevèrÿon is a considerable stroll in our direction. The appendix ("Some Informal Remarks on the Intermodal Calculus, Part Three," alluding to the appendices of his prior science fiction novel Triton) summarizes some fictional scholarship to place Nevèrÿon in our actual (pre-)history, via the study of the apocryphal Culhar' Text. The effect of this retroactive framing--in combination with the philosophical motifs of the main text--is positively vertiginous.
The epigrams for the individual tales are drawn from post-structuralist philosophy, while the book as a whole is paradoxically concerned with the imagined origins of cultural systems: language, money, gender roles, slavery, politics, and so on. There are nested stories and digressions that highlight these concerns, but the characters of the general narrative are unusual and vivid, and the setting is carefully developed, so that the book doesn't degenerate into a string of deconstructivist parables.
Those chiefly seeking escapism from their fantasy reading should avoid this book, while philosophical readers will find much to enjoy in it.
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LibraryThing member bokai
This book is something of a slog, but generally a worthwhile one. It also feels like reading a very strong social critique disguised as fiction. There's certainly a proud tradition of such things, particularly in spec fic, though the issues of gender, money, and society that this particular book
All of these narrative beats exists purely to set up situations in which the characters can discuss or consider ideas of money, contextualization, philosophy. At times it feels that the book takes itself too seriously, and if this sort of thing were attempted by someone who didn't really have much to say, it would be a complete failure. Neitzche is name dropped in the prologue, and the appendix is named " Some informal remarks towards the modular calculus." I'm told that people with a stronger grasp of the philosophical tradition, and Marx in particular, might catch on to some of the more direct references in the text (and remember, this all is supposed to take place in a fantasy land that does not map perfectly to anywhere here on Earth). Even without more than a passing familiarity with all of that it's clear that the book is over and over again challenging the reader into what-ifs and thought experiments about how our society is arranged, and whether it could or should be arranged any other way, which is work that spec fic is particularly suited for.
So considering that this book is asking all the time to read less the story and more the argument, how does the argument hold up? It seems to me that there are two main themes that Delany returns to again and again. The effect or currency on society, and the use of certain types of categorization to create behaviors and norms, particularly with regards to gender. So as we travel from place to place in Neveryon, and meet people with a variety of cultural backgrounds, there is a constant discussion of what it means when money is introduced to a society, or what happens when people come up with creation myths in which one gender is considered the root and the other gender is considered a digression or corruption of that root. Delany is not subtle about this. The characters talk to each other bluntly about these issues, and in many ways Delany tries to make the reader uncomfortable by presenting certain sorts of normal that are different than or opposite to what we expect. So you have women who are disgusted by how men are allowed to behave in certain regions, or places where women are more valued than men by society generally. These situations are presented as matter of fact, and the insinuation that it could be otherwise is considered barbaric and dangerous.
With the issue of money in particular, Delany is working from a theory that I'm not sure I agree with. The idea of money, of debt, and the move away from barter is not treated as a good thing, but leads to a corruption of the spirit of society. But suggesting that a society without currency might somehow be free of certain dangerous human interactions is unreasonable and doesn't seem to follow what we know about how society actually works. The narrative seems to fall into a trap of the noble savage trope in some places with these suggestions, when the myth that more primitive societies were structured entirely around barter appears myth only and was almost never true in history. Debt has existed in the oldest and most so-called "primitive" of societies, which makes certain arguments about the corrupting evil of such debt seem unconsidered.
In making the message the priority some other things suffer in service to it, particularly the pacing (it doesn't really exist in the same sense as it would in a more standard fantasy book) and the dialogue. The way dialogue is treated in this book is a little difficult for me to digest, because in its desire to present arguments and counter-arguments, Tales of Neveryon creates mouthpieces out of all of its characters. No matter who you are talking to, whether a southern barbarian, a poor potter, a torturer, or a merc, they will all speak exactly the same, with an unrealistically elevated vocabulary. For example, near the end of the book two pairs of characters meet for the first time after we've followed them separately in different parts of the book, and immediately get into a discussion of the nature of slavery, with one going into a rather didactic explanation of why even though he's a free man he wears a color (He's into BDSM but has to explain it like like a deep philosophical truth.) Maybe I was supposed to take this as poignant, but I just thought it was dumb.
If you are used to reading books that don't even try to have a layer of accessibility, or would like to try something weird or different, Tales may be worth a look. But if you want standard fantasy fare this thing is a complete miss.
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addresses are usually not popular topics. That is, they were not extremely common topics back when this book was published, in 1979. The strong social message overpowers what there is of a traditional plot. This certainly isn't a typical fantasy novel, where good and bad clashes, there's battles, flashy magic, likely an overabundance of dramatics, and a sense of narrative suspense. Instead the book consists of a series of stories that on the surface seem extremely mundane. There's a short intro about a boy who becomes a slave and then a slaver, then a very long tale about an old woman having conversations with a young woman, a very quick interlude about a, a business trip, and so on.All of these narrative beats exists purely to set up situations in which the characters can discuss or consider ideas of money, contextualization, philosophy. At times it feels that the book takes itself too seriously, and if this sort of thing were attempted by someone who didn't really have much to say, it would be a complete failure. Neitzche is name dropped in the prologue, and the appendix is named " Some informal remarks towards the modular calculus." I'm told that people with a stronger grasp of the philosophical tradition, and Marx in particular, might catch on to some of the more direct references in the text (and remember, this all is supposed to take place in a fantasy land that does not map perfectly to anywhere here on Earth). Even without more than a passing familiarity with all of that it's clear that the book is over and over again challenging the reader into what-ifs and thought experiments about how our society is arranged, and whether it could or should be arranged any other way, which is work that spec fic is particularly suited for.
So considering that this book is asking all the time to read less the story and more the argument, how does the argument hold up? It seems to me that there are two main themes that Delany returns to again and again. The effect or currency on society, and the use of certain types of categorization to create behaviors and norms, particularly with regards to gender. So as we travel from place to place in Neveryon, and meet people with a variety of cultural backgrounds, there is a constant discussion of what it means when money is introduced to a society, or what happens when people come up with creation myths in which one gender is considered the root and the other gender is considered a digression or corruption of that root. Delany is not subtle about this. The characters talk to each other bluntly about these issues, and in many ways Delany tries to make the reader uncomfortable by presenting certain sorts of normal that are different than or opposite to what we expect. So you have women who are disgusted by how men are allowed to behave in certain regions, or places where women are more valued than men by society generally. These situations are presented as matter of fact, and the insinuation that it could be otherwise is considered barbaric and dangerous.
With the issue of money in particular, Delany is working from a theory that I'm not sure I agree with. The idea of money, of debt, and the move away from barter is not treated as a good thing, but leads to a corruption of the spirit of society. But suggesting that a society without currency might somehow be free of certain dangerous human interactions is unreasonable and doesn't seem to follow what we know about how society actually works. The narrative seems to fall into a trap of the noble savage trope in some places with these suggestions, when the myth that more primitive societies were structured entirely around barter appears myth only and was almost never true in history. Debt has existed in the oldest and most so-called "primitive" of societies, which makes certain arguments about the corrupting evil of such debt seem unconsidered.
In making the message the priority some other things suffer in service to it, particularly the pacing (it doesn't really exist in the same sense as it would in a more standard fantasy book) and the dialogue. The way dialogue is treated in this book is a little difficult for me to digest, because in its desire to present arguments and counter-arguments, Tales of Neveryon creates mouthpieces out of all of its characters. No matter who you are talking to, whether a southern barbarian, a poor potter, a torturer, or a merc, they will all speak exactly the same, with an unrealistically elevated vocabulary. For example, near the end of the book two pairs of characters meet for the first time after we've followed them separately in different parts of the book, and immediately get into a discussion of the nature of slavery, with one going into a rather didactic explanation of why even though he's a free man he wears a color (He's into BDSM but has to explain it like like a deep philosophical truth.) Maybe I was supposed to take this as poignant, but I just thought it was dumb.
If you are used to reading books that don't even try to have a layer of accessibility, or would like to try something weird or different, Tales may be worth a look. But if you want standard fantasy fare this thing is a complete miss.
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LibraryThing member presto
A collection of interrelated stories set in a mythical empire beyond time. Gorgik, a slave becomes a leader of armies; Small Sarg, a barbarian prince becomes a slave to set others free; swordmistress Raven lives in a land where the women rule; and Norema, daughter of fisherwoman attains
These are fascinating stories, very well written, in fact beautifully written. The various characters weave in and out of the different stories. Gorgik and Small Sarg are particularly interesting, as their relationship develops from Master and Slave, through physical intimacy to a voluntary master/slave relationship necessary for the intimacy to function.
However while very pleasurable to read, I found it difficult to engage with the characters, the narrative seemed to put them at a distance, leading me not to care too much about their destinies; and for me that is an essential part of the reading experience. So this is really a book which I can happily pick up and read a few pages, but not one which compels me to keep reading.
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freedom.These are fascinating stories, very well written, in fact beautifully written. The various characters weave in and out of the different stories. Gorgik and Small Sarg are particularly interesting, as their relationship develops from Master and Slave, through physical intimacy to a voluntary master/slave relationship necessary for the intimacy to function.
However while very pleasurable to read, I found it difficult to engage with the characters, the narrative seemed to put them at a distance, leading me not to care too much about their destinies; and for me that is an essential part of the reading experience. So this is really a book which I can happily pick up and read a few pages, but not one which compels me to keep reading.
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LibraryThing member ConnieJo
A great surprise! The stories started out a little slow, but I loved the unique take on the sword & sorcery genre. It deals with issues of slavery and sexuality. The slavery issue is an odd one, and doesn't get discussed thematically until the last story. The ruling class is dark-skinned, and they
The discussion of sexuality is an interesting one, though. For a story with a gay (or possibly bisexual) "main" male character, there are a number of feminist societies, and a strong female presence. They are mostly subservient to men in the present, but historical feminine cultures are discussed at length, and a strongly feminist warrior appears near the end of the book. I loved her take on the barges that appear periodically throughout.
I was a little worried, since the only thing I knew of Delaney was Equinox, and I absolutely didn't want to run across that here. There was one character that was a little uncomfortable, but his situation was less creepy than Daenerys Targaryen, so this mostly passed my test.
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enslave their own as well as others from different geographical regions. Race doesn't seem like a factor as much as area, but perhaps the issue will come up later?The discussion of sexuality is an interesting one, though. For a story with a gay (or possibly bisexual) "main" male character, there are a number of feminist societies, and a strong female presence. They are mostly subservient to men in the present, but historical feminine cultures are discussed at length, and a strongly feminist warrior appears near the end of the book. I loved her take on the barges that appear periodically throughout.
I was a little worried, since the only thing I knew of Delaney was Equinox, and I absolutely didn't want to run across that here. There was one character that was a little uncomfortable, but his situation was less creepy than Daenerys Targaryen, so this mostly passed my test.
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Awards
National Book Award (Finalist — 1980)
Prometheus Award (Nominee — Novel — 1982)
Language
Original publication date
1979
Physical description
336 p.; 6.77 inches
ISBN
0586202706 / 9780586202708