Aye, and Gomorrah: And Other Stories
The contents ofDriftglass(1971), two stories fromDistant Stars(1981), and three fugitive stories constitute a de facto complete edition of Delany's short fiction: 15 stories displaying an impressive variety of manners. Nine are science fiction, mostly either space westerns a laStar Trek,such as the outstanding "We, in Some Strange Power's Employ, Move on a Rigorous Line," about culture clash on a final frontier; and space gangster stories, such as Hugo and Nebula winner "Time Considered as a Helix of Semi-precious Stones"; the Poe-ish "Cage of Brass" falls in neither camp. Five are fantasies: the excellent original fairy tales "Prismatica" and "Ruins"; the William Burroughsian double story "Among the Blobs"; the dark prose-poem-like "Tapestry"; and the hallucinatory "Night and the Loves of Joe Dicostanzo." The densely textured "Dog in a Fisherman's Net" resembles a Paul Bowles tale of horror in paradise but ends in hope rather than morbidity. Delany is an acknowledged titan of "literary" sf; these psychologically and ethically intriguing stories demonstrate why he has that reputation.Ray OlsonCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved