num_pages: 310
description: In his four-volume series Return to Nevèrÿon, Hugo and Nebula award-winner Samuel R. Delany appropriated the conceits of sword-and-sorcery fantasy to explore his characteristic themes of language, power, gender, and the nature of civilization. Wesleyan University Press has reissued the long-unavailable Nevèrÿon volumes in trade paperback. The eleven stories, novellas, and novels in Return to Nevèrÿon's four volumes chronicle a long-ago land on civilization's brink, perhaps in Asia or Africa, or even on the Mediterranean. Taken slave in childhood, Gorgik gains his freedom, leads a slave revolt, and becomes a minister of state, finally abolishing slavery. Ironically, however, he is sexually aroused by the iron slave collars of servitude. Does this contaminate his mission - or intensify it? Presumably elaborated from an ancient text of unknown geographical origin, the stories are sunk in translators' and commentators' introductions and appendices, forming a richly comic frame.
language: English
title: The Bridge of Lost Desire
titlecomplete: The Bridge of Lost Desire
characters: Gorgik
genres: Fiction, Speculative Fiction, Science Fiction Fantasy, Science Fiction, Collections, Queer, Sword and Sorcery, Fantasy, Short Stories, LGBT
ratings_count: 371
places: Neveryon
series: Return to Nevèrÿon
publisher: Arbor House (NY)