Title: Tales of Nevèrÿon /
Authors: Delany, Samuel R.
Publisher: University Press of New England [for] Wesleyan University Press,
Year: 1993
Subjects: Fantasy fiction, American.
Abstract: In his four-volume series Return to Neveryon, 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 Neveryon volumes in trade paperback. The eleven stories, novellas, and novels in Return to Neveryon'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.
Contents: The tale of Gorgik -- The tale of Old Venn -- The tale of Small Sarg -- The tale of potters and dragons -- The tale of dragons and dreamers.