Triton
This Book is Currently in the Wild!
1 journaler for this copy...
Delany's usual complex prose. Has a strong feeling of its origins in the 1970s, where Delany was the first to write about some of the issues he brought up here.
Delany has never been a "genre" writer, and though this starts out in genre, it is worth comparing to _The Dispossessed_, in that it's an exploration of contemporary political and personal issues by projection onto planetary scenarios. _Triton_ could just as easily be on Earth, in communities that are exploring new social designs. What distinguishes Delany from Le Guin is that Delany is conscious of race and sexuality; Le Guin is more interested in class, but especially anarchy, in the old Soviet committee formats.
But in _Triton_, Delany eschews these explicitly political issues and tackles instead collective housing, co-parenting, shared spouses, homosexuality, bisexuality, prostitution, and heterosexuality. In many ways, his characters are convincing inhabitants of the late 1970s -- real people, and thus his novels have Vonnegut-like moments of bouncing back and forth from "genre" (with spacecraft, "metalogic", etc) to perfectly contemporary discussions like the emotional response of a former prostitute to becoming a john (although here, Delany as usual takes the SF liberty of swapping around gender expectations).
However, as entertainment, it carries features of much late 20th century "real" fiction, in that it is hard to see a story carrying through the entire novel. Worth the effort to get through, but reading SF shouldn't always be work.
Delany has never been a "genre" writer, and though this starts out in genre, it is worth comparing to _The Dispossessed_, in that it's an exploration of contemporary political and personal issues by projection onto planetary scenarios. _Triton_ could just as easily be on Earth, in communities that are exploring new social designs. What distinguishes Delany from Le Guin is that Delany is conscious of race and sexuality; Le Guin is more interested in class, but especially anarchy, in the old Soviet committee formats.
But in _Triton_, Delany eschews these explicitly political issues and tackles instead collective housing, co-parenting, shared spouses, homosexuality, bisexuality, prostitution, and heterosexuality. In many ways, his characters are convincing inhabitants of the late 1970s -- real people, and thus his novels have Vonnegut-like moments of bouncing back and forth from "genre" (with spacecraft, "metalogic", etc) to perfectly contemporary discussions like the emotional response of a former prostitute to becoming a john (although here, Delany as usual takes the SF liberty of swapping around gender expectations).
However, as entertainment, it carries features of much late 20th century "real" fiction, in that it is hard to see a story carrying through the entire novel. Worth the effort to get through, but reading SF shouldn't always be work.
Journal Entry 2 by trochee at -- Wild Released Somewhere In Seattle in Seattle, Washington USA on Sunday, August 8, 2004
Released on Saturday, August 07, 2004 at 21st & Union Cafe in Seattle, Washington USA.
Left on the table; I told the staff what the deal was.
Left on the table; I told the staff what the deal was.
