Stars in My Pocket participates in the tradition of African American literature and demonstrates the difference that race-that is, both Delany's own identity and the social phenomenon that has structured so much of the American experience-makes to the author's conception of science fiction and its potential as a tool for critical analysis. Stars in My Pocket guides readers through a variety of webs-epistemological, electronic, and semiotic-and it has been celebrated as a science fiction novel engaged in a productive dialogue with critical theory this essay considers the significance of Delany's racial identity to such claims. Delany's work demonstrates how science fiction is a necessity for contemporary African American intellectual inquiry. Delany, who writes from a variety of subject positions: African American, gay, feminist, and more. A wonderful, sophisticated read, highly recommended.This essay starts with two questions: how does one define science fiction, and what difference does race makes to science fiction? Posing these questions together suggests that they are related and provides an opportunity to consider Stars in My Pocket like Grains of Sand (1984) and its author, Samuel R. I picked up a used copy of the text and found it added greatly to my sense of the book. Two, this is a work so inventive that many of the words and some of the ideas (such as contrapuntal speech by multiple tongues) are better seen than heard. Driving, I had to continually adjust the volume or repeat passages. Delany published his first novel, The Jewels of Aptor, at the age of. One, the reading is excellent but bassy, such that it works better in a room than a car. Stars in My Pocket Like Grains of Sand by Samuel R. stars in my pocketlike grains of sandstars in my pocketuniverse in my handsi stand alonehands safe insidewhile standing stillthe world i rideflight is the il. As prescient as William Gibson's cyberpunk (both the Web and a kind of universal Wikipedia are present) and as ethnographically subtle as Ursula Le Guin's Hainish books, with sophisticated flavors from queer theory and Sapir-Whorf throughout, 'Stars in My Pocket Like Grains of Sand' is both ingenious sci-fi narrative and an experiment in literary cultural criticism. This, my introduction to Delaney, is a mind-expanding, category-shattering novel rich in characters both familar and unfathomably Other.

Stars in my pocket