Forty years ago, Samuel R. Delany changed the face of
science fiction. He won the field’s highest honors as a young man, and was seen
as the most promising writer in a genre struggling to redefine itself.
His
book, The Einstein Intersection,
which won the Nebula Award in 1967, is both action adventure and exploration of
myth. Its language is literary and its allusions are esoteric. Billy the Kid,
Jean Harlow, the Beatles, Orpheus, and Elvis all float through the novel like
gorgeous ghosts. And Delany’s colleagues held up the novel as an example of the
genre at its finest. Critic Paul Di Filippo puts it this way: “There was a
consensus at the time that he was the best and brightest.”
Since then,
science fiction has splintered into dozens of subgenres. Overrun by high-tech
killing machines, elves and dwarves, Wookies and Klingons, science fiction no
longer has such a clear sense of what it is or what it does well. But Samuel
Delany has remained a potent force within the field.
He
is now an academic, teaching at Temple University in Philadelphia. His works
are often published by university presses, not in throwaway 35-cent editions,
as they were at the beginning of his career. University of Rochester professor
Jeffrey Tucker says of him: “He’s one of us.”
But Delany
began his career as a science fiction writer, and to this day is part of that
world. Though his audience has changed, he still holds a place of honor among
older science fiction readers.
When
he speaks at the University of Rochester next week, he will likely continue to
overturn expectations and confront clichés head-on.
For
starters, he’s black and he’s gay. Tucker, who is responsible for bringing
Delany to Rochester, sees his work as “a very important example of the
significance of the intersection of race and sexuality.” Tucker uses Delany’s
works in classes focused not just on the SF field, but the wide spectrum of
black American experience. Racial identity, slavery, the AIDS crisis: all of
these are explored in Delany’s fiction.
Those who
attend the reading will not go away feeling soothed or empowered. Sexually
adventurous, unapologetically intellectual, Delany does not reassure or comfort
his audience. He is a true innovator, having written the first Cyberpunk novel
(Nova) well before the term was
coined. The Mad Man, a novel that
even his strongest advocates call “pornographic,” takes readers to a place few
of us want to go.
The Motion of Light in Water, his
autobiography, challenges the standard expectations for such work. The
subtitle, “Sex and Science Fiction Writing in the East Village, 1957-1965,”
certainly addresses topics seldom linked together. His critical essays are as
daunting as any to come from a high-powered intellectual. And Dhalgren, which sold over a million
copies, is a huge and sweeping in its concerns, likely influenced by the urban
riots and political chaos of the ’60s.
Paul Di
Filippo says, “The culture has mutated since the ’60s. He seemed to embody the
zeitgeist then. He used to be at the core of SF readership. Now he’s on the
periphery.”
Yes,
academics do exist on the fringes of American culture. But Samuel R. Delany is
one who breaks that mold. His work, though embraced by fewer readers than
before, still is relevant. He may not be at the crest of any cultural or
intellectual wave. Still, his work retains much of the power it had when he
began writing over 40 years ago.
Samuel R. Delany will speak on Monday, March 1, in the
Welles-Brown Room of the Rush Rhees Library, on the University of Rochester
River Campus, at 8 p.m. Free. 275-4092
This article appears in Feb 25 – Mar 2, 2004.
