Tales of Nevèrÿon
By: Samuel R. Delany.
Series: Return to Nevèrÿon
Publisher: Wesleyan University Press; University Press of New England
Published: 1993
Place of publication: [Middletown, Conn.]; Hanover, NH
Language: eng
Number of pages: 260
Subjects: Fantasy fiction, American
Description: 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.