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story what was the solution of the first story is now the problem. In general the solution for story N becomes the problem of story N + 1. This allows the writer to go back and critique his own ideas as they develop over time. Often of course the progression isn’t all that linear. Sometimes a whole new problem will insert itself into the writer’s concern—another kind of critique of past concerns. Sometimes you’ll rethink things in stories more than one back. But the basic factor is the idea of a continuous, open-ended, self-critical dialogue." Delany goes on to say: "The series is very flexible. Here’s a short story. Next’s a bulky novel. That can be followed by a novella, or another novel, or another short story... (One good form of criticism comes from asking the question, ‘What, historically, might have caused people to act in a particular way that, when I wrote the last story, I just assumed was unquestioned human nature?’)". Delany wanted something that was coherent but supple and self-critical. In the same interview he says that the story series is, in many ways, closer to the continuous modernist “longpoem,” such as
308:), "How can one relational system model another? . . . What must pass from system-A to System-B for us (system-C) to be able to say that system-B now contains some model of system-A? . . . Granted the proper passage, what must be the internal structure of system-B for us (or it) to say it contains any model of system-A?”. In the interview Delany goes on to answer his own question: “The question encompasses the semiotic situation, since the answer to the second part of the question ("What must pass from system-A to System-B...") is some form of the answer ‘signs’; and the answer to the third part ("...what must be the internal structure of system-B for us (or it) to say it contains any model of system-A?”) is: "Clearly it must be of an internal structure that allows it to interpret signs—i.e., its internal structure must be one that allows it to perform some sort of semiosis." To the extent that Return to Nevèrÿon deals with narrativity and writing, this would explain one of Delany's comments about this major project, that Return to Nevèrÿon was conceived as "a child’s garden of
285:, manage to slip outside the overall project. Part Three of the "Informal Remarks" is the first appendix to that volume, by "S. L. Kermit". This is the discussion of the supposed source of all the Nevèrÿon tales in an ancient manuscript known as the "Culhar' Fragment" or the "Missolongi Codex", an ancient text of some nine hundred words, which exists in "numerous" translations in many ancient languages. It is presumed to be a translation of humanity's first ancient attempt at writing. But because of the many ancient translations, no one is really sure which actually came first. Kermit's discussion even takes in a theory by an actual archaeologist who did her work in the early eighties,
205:, having to do with content, image, and reflection, which basically holds that when one moves from a content to an image to a reflection, one reverses the form of the content. This is a complicated idea, but it is also a central trope of the series and is dramatized and redramatized throughout the Nevèrÿon tales in many different forms, perhaps most clearly in the second story in the first volume of tales, “The Tale of Old Venn". Hardly a tale in the cycle of eleven fails to appeal to this concept in some form.
289:, which proposes an earlier "token" writing using sculpted beads for words and ideas; according to Schmandt-Besserat, the earliest cuneiform writing that we have today is a matter of these "tokens" first pressed into clay to leave an imprint. Later the same marks were drawn on soft clay with a sharp stick, which eventually led to writing. Apparently, according to the essay, a fragment of the "Culhar’ Fragment" even exists in a "token writing" version.
145:(or short-novel) length, including the seventh tale, "The Tale of Fog and Granite" (1984); the ninth tale and the first novel-length treatment of AIDS from a major U.S. publisher, "The Tale of Plagues and Carnivals” (1984); the tenth tale, "The Game of Time and Pain" (1985); and the eleventh, "The Tale of Rumor and Desire" (1987). The sixth story,
304:), section 15 discusses the Modular Calculus directly, for those who need a helping hand or who have not carefully pursued the notion for themselves through all the "Informal Remarks". As Delany puts it in another interview, "The Second Science Fiction Studies Interview", he quotes from "The Informal Remarks, Part II" (the second appendix to
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When he was actually in the midst of writing the series, in a discussion of the formal way the stories in a series differ from the chapters in a novel, in a later interview Delany wrote that in the series: "Put simply, the first story poses a problem and finally offers some solution. But in the next
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As well, in discussing the relation between sword and sorcery and science fiction, Delany notes: “sword and sorcery represents what can still be imagined about the transition between a barter economy and a money economy,” while “science fiction represents what can be most safely imagined about the
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Science
Fiction Library series publication of the single volume collection of Russ's stories in 1977, Delany makes several statements that throw light on his own sword-and-sorcery series, which he began the following year. In that Introduction he wrote:
92:) is the fictional land the stories are set in, a name derived from the aristocratic neighborhood of Neveryóna (pronounced "Ne-ver-y-O-na") in the capital city Kolhari. The men and women of the reigning civilization have brown to black skin.
149:(1981), is a full-length 380 page novel. As well, a set of appendices and an over-all introduction are fixed to the project, all of which have elements that make them part of the fiction. The introduction to the first volume of stories,
161:) and one Charles Hoequist, Jr., who, unlike the fictitious Steiner and Kermit, is an actual person—a graduate student in linguistics at Yale University during the early eighties when Delany was first writing the stories.
277:(1976), which functions as a prologue to the Nevèrÿon tales. The second part of "The Informal Remarks" is the second appendix to that novel, "Ashima Slade and the Harbin-Y Lectures". Apparently the first five stories of
153:, is presumably written by a young black woman academic, "K. Leslie Steiner", for example, who turns out to be a character in the ninth tale, "The Tale of Plagues and Carnivals". The first appendix to the novel
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and, indeed, different sets of foreground characters. But all take a greater or lesser part in recounting an overall story running through the whole series, the history of a man called Gorgik the
Liberator.
130:(1996), the first tale is reprinted, not so much to emphasize the cyclic nature of the series but to highlight how different a second reading makes the story seem once one has read the intervening tales.
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live to the south: a people with pale skin, yellow hair, and light eyes. By the time the stories start, clearly some amount of racial mixing has occurred. But the barbarians were for many years the
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For sword and sorcery to be at its best, one needs a landscape that is ‘on the brink of civilization’ in an almost scientifically ideal way. It is only here that one can truly play the game.
300:, the “Informal Remarks” are constituted by the sections in which the doubling (discussed earlier in this article) has most to do with writing. In "Closures and Openings” (in
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is an exchange of letters between a fictive character, S. L. Kermit (who also appears in "Plagues and
Carnivals" and is the "author" of the appendix to the first volume,
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The eleven tales are discussed in the articles devoted to the individual volumes mentioned above. The rest of this article is dedicated to the series as a whole.
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transition from a money economy to a credit economy”. He goes on to redescribe this relationship in terms of a mathematical theory, put forward by
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Currently the eleven stories are collected in four volumes, put out by
Wesleyan University Press. At the end of the fourth book,
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Delany, Samuel R. (2000). “Neither the First Word nor the Last on
Deconstruction, Structuralism, and Poststructuralism,” in
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For a discussion of this particular aspect of the stories, see
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Other literary sources that Delany himself has cited are the tales of the
English language Danish writer
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and the fantasy subgenre "sword and sorcery" (the term was coined by science fiction writer
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296:, and Part Five is the AIDS novella, "The Tale of Plagues and Carnivals". Starting with
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The stories themselves are discussed in the articles devoted to each individual volume.
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in general. Each of the stories begins with an epigraph from a theoretical thinker.
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Spencer, Kathleen (1996). "Nevèrÿon
Deconstructed: Samuel R. Delany's
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599:, edited by James Sallis. Jackson: University of Mississippi Press.
581:, edited by James Sallis. Jackson: University of Mississippi Press.
573:
James, Kenneth R. (1996). “Subverted
Equations: G. Spencer Brown's
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Others important influences are the work of the French psychiatrist
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A Sense of Wonder: Samuel R. Delany, Race, Identity, and
Difference
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Delany, Samuel R. (1977). "Alyx" (an introduction to Joanna Russ'
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Delany, Samuel R. (1994). "The Semiology of Silence," in
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of the dominant brown-skinned culture, especially for
480:, Wesleyan University Press: Hanover and London: 1994
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263:"Some Informal Remarks Toward the Modular Calculus"
974:Time Considered as a Helix of Semi-Precious Stones
577:and Samuel R. Delany's Analytics of Attention” in
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292:Part Four of "Some Informal Remarks" is the novel
597:Ash of Stars; On the Writings of Samuel R. Delany
579:Ash of Stars; On the Writings of Samuel R. Delany
549:. Hanover and London: Wesleyan University Press.
459:Ash of Stars; On the Writings of Samuel R. Delany
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111:(as we learn in both “The Tale of Gorgik” and
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917:Neveryóna, or: The Tale of Signs and Cities
147:Neveryóna, or: The Tale of Signs and Cities
56:Neveryóna, or: The Tale of Signs and Cities
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171:, author of the sword-and-sorcery series,
1014:The Complete Nebula Award-Winning Fiction
837:Through the Valley of the Nest of Spiders
421:, p. 197, Berkeley Books, New York: 1977.
18:
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777:Stars in My Pocket Like Grains of Sand
221:’s “Structure of Ryme” or “Passages,”
635:Internet Speculative Fiction Database
141:A number of the Nevèrÿon stories are
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1044:Aye, and Gomorrah, and other stories
1119:Times Square Red, Times Square Blue
118:Many of the stories have different
115:) – and in many places still are.
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1168:Short stories set in prehistory
595:and the 'Modular Calculus'" in
609:Tucker, Jeffrey Allen (2004).
229:, or Rachel Blau Du Plessis’s
84:The eleven tales that make up
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613:. Wesleyan University Press.
563:. Wesleyan University Press.
507:, "Appendix B", p. 356 .
390:. Wesleyan University Press.
1079:The Motion of Light in Water
16:Book series by Samuel Delany
631:Return to Nevèrÿon (series)
535:. Seattle: Serconia Press.
531:Delany, Samuel R. (1989).
528:. New York: Berkeley Books.
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490:Delany, Samuel R. (2000).
386:Delany, Samuel R. (1994).
367:Delany, Samuel R. (1985).
344:Delany, Samuel R. (1983).
174:Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser
727:The Einstein Intersection
474:of Silence," p. 48,
287:Denise Schmandt-Besserat
281:, the fiction proper in
187:, first written for the
1178:Novels by Samuel Delany
1158:Fantasy books by series
1153:American fantasy novels
882:City of a Thousand Suns
1089:The Straits of Messina
851:The Fall of the Towers
633:series listing at the
533:The Straits of Messina
522:The Adventures of Alyx
267:Through the course of
255:and the French writer
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184:The Adventures of Alyx
35:is a series of eleven
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1034:Atlantis: Three Tales
1024:Driftglass/Starshards
862:Captives of the Flame
22:
1173:Metafictional novels
1163:Fantasy novel series
965:Aye, and Gomorrah...
927:Flight from Nevèrÿon
697:The Ballad of Beta-2
526:The Jewel-Hinged Jaw
431:The Jewel-Hinged Jaw
419:The Jewel-Hinged Jaw
369:Flight from Nevèrÿon
257:Marguerite Yourcenar
63:Flight from Nevèrÿon
872:The Towers of Toron
687:The Jewels of Aptor
137:Structure and genre
1069:Heavenly Breakfast
937:Return to Nevèrÿon
896:Return to Nevèrÿon
678:Stand-alone novels
388:Return to Nevèrÿon
302:Return to Nevèrÿon
279:Return to Nevèrÿon
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787:They Fly at Çiron
767:Trouble on Triton
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605:978-0-87805-852-5
593:Tales of Nevèrÿon
587:978-0-87805-852-5
547:Silent Interviews
477:Silent Interviews
327:Tales of Nevèrÿon
323:Delany, Samuel R.
306:Trouble on Triton
298:Trouble of Triton
283:Tales of Nevèrÿon
274:Trouble on Triton
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797:The Mad Man
707:Empire Star
189:Gregg Press
181:'s series,
179:Joanna Russ
109:agriculture
39:stories by
26:book covers
1147:Categories
1060:Nonfiction
994:Driftglass
406:References
211:Ezra Pound
472:Semiology
348:Neveryóna
310:semiotics
294:Neveryóna
155:Neveryóna
113:Neveryóna
94:Barbarian
976:" (1968)
967:" (1967)
757:Dhalgren
717:Babel-17
325:(1979).
80:Overview
956:Stories
817:Phallos
747:Equinox
515:Sources
143:novella
1132:(2000)
1122:(1999)
1112:(1996)
1102:(1995)
1092:(1989)
1082:(1988)
1072:(1979)
1047:(2003)
1037:(1995)
1027:(1993)
1017:(1983)
1007:(1981)
997:(1971)
940:(1987)
930:(1985)
920:(1983)
910:(1979)
885:(1965)
875:(1964)
865:(1963)
840:(2012)
830:(2007)
820:(2004)
810:(1995)
800:(1994)
790:(1993)
780:(1984)
770:(1976)
760:(1975)
750:(1973)
740:(1968)
730:(1967)
720:(1966)
710:(1966)
700:(1965)
690:(1962)
617:
603:
585:
567:
553:
539:
505:Triton
394:
375:
356:
333:
231:Drafts
215:Cantos
105:mining
101:slaves
97:tribes
524:) in
470:"The
227:Jovis
807:Hogg
737:Nova
615:ISBN
601:ISBN
583:ISBN
565:ISBN
551:ISBN
537:ISBN
392:ISBN
373:ISBN
354:ISBN
331:ISBN
107:and
312:."
225:’s
217:or
213:’s
1149::
259:.
233:.
972:"
963:"
663:e
656:t
649:v
400:.
381:.
362:.
339:.
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