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scifi_rat's review against another edition
adventurous
mysterious
reflective
medium-paced
4.0
The Jewels of Aptor - ★★
The Ballad of Beta-2 - ★★★★
They Fly At Ciron - ★★★★.5
The Ballad of Beta-2 - ★★★★
They Fly At Ciron - ★★★★.5
Content Warnings
Moderate: Confinement, Grief, Injury/Injury detail, Animal death, Blood, Death of parent, Death, Gore, Kidnapping, Medical content, Murder, Pregnancy, Violence, Gun violence, Physical abuse, War, and Xenophobia
Minor: Excrement, Sexual content, Fire/Fire injury, Misogyny, Rape, Religious bigotry, Sexual violence, Slavery, Torture, Vomit, Drug abuse, and Emotional abuse
le_lobey's review against another edition
3.0
Finished: The Jewels of Aptor
I love Samuel Delany's writing, and in this — his first novel — you can see his uniquely poetic style germinating without becoming terribly overwrought. You can also see him working with one of his favorite devices: setting his stories on a distantly post-human earth where our seemingly immutable history has been clouded, distorted and extant only as myth. Just as time has deteriorated the archival evidence of human civilization, evolution has garbled the embodied history of humanity, and Delany makes good use of these temporal and anatomical displacements to alienate his readers from the characters. By erecting these boundaries, Delany forces you to engage with the story from an historical perspective.
Held back at times by clunky and contrived dialogue framing, the characters are otherwise lots of fun to accompany on their adventure. A poet, a sailor, and a four-armed mut(e)ant are sent to steal the last of the three powerful jewels from the dark god Hama's temple on Aptor, where the Goddess incarnate of their own faith has been kidnapped. A lot of the plot ends up resting on a falsely dualistic pseudopsychology, but the moral lessons are less Manichean. A warning against absolute power delivered on most fronts by more self-aware beings than ourselves.
I love Samuel Delany's writing, and in this — his first novel — you can see his uniquely poetic style germinating without becoming terribly overwrought. You can also see him working with one of his favorite devices: setting his stories on a distantly post-human earth where our seemingly immutable history has been clouded, distorted and extant only as myth. Just as time has deteriorated the archival evidence of human civilization, evolution has garbled the embodied history of humanity, and Delany makes good use of these temporal and anatomical displacements to alienate his readers from the characters. By erecting these boundaries, Delany forces you to engage with the story from an historical perspective.
Held back at times by clunky and contrived dialogue framing, the characters are otherwise lots of fun to accompany on their adventure. A poet, a sailor, and a four-armed mut(e)ant are sent to steal the last of the three powerful jewels from the dark god Hama's temple on Aptor, where the Goddess incarnate of their own faith has been kidnapped. A lot of the plot ends up resting on a falsely dualistic pseudopsychology, but the moral lessons are less Manichean. A warning against absolute power delivered on most fronts by more self-aware beings than ourselves.
he_slaughtered's review
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.5
Delany's first three novels were amazing, as expected. On one plane, they're works of fiction with wonderfully rich characters with deep cultural context. The poetry, songs, myths, religion, etc. packed into these stories feel so fully fleshed out and fresh. On top of that, the political and philosophical queries give the stories such an important dimension. They feel real, and significant, Delany crafts worlds and characters who's conflicts can serve as both simple entertainment and also thought experiment, a theoretical exercise. The Ballad of Beta-2 is my favourite from this omnibus, though the others of course don't disappoint.
patchworkculture's review
Finished A and B, stopped at C. Wasn't in the mood for the harder sci-fi but will try to get back to it.
myotinae's review
4.0
First story wasn't to my tastes but 5 stars for both the remaining two (they fly at ciron started out as a bit of a slog for me but by the end I ADORED it; ballad of beta-2 is exactly my type of sf) and the lovely accompanying essays that form the prologue and afterward.
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