The jewel-hinged jaw : notes on the language of science fiction / Samuel R. Delany.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Delany, Samuel R.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Delany, Samuel R.

Science fiction--History and criticism.

Science fiction.

Science fiction--Technique.

Physical Description:

xxx, 254 pages ; 23 cm

Edition:

Revised edition.

Place of Publication:

Middletown, CT : Wesleyan University Press, 2009.

Summary:

Samuel R. Delany's The Jewel-Hinged Jaw first appeared in 1977, and has long been out of print and hard to find. Its demonstration that science fiction is a special language, rather than gadgets and green-skinned aliens, had an impact that reverberates today in science fiction criticism. This edition includes two new essays, one written at the time and one written about those times, as well as an introduction by writer and teacher Matthew Cheney, placing Delany's work in historical context. Close textual analyses of Thomas M. Disch, Ursula K. Le Guin, Roger Zelazny, and Joanna Russ read as brilliantly today as when they first appeared. Essays such as "About 5,750 Words" and "To Read The Dispossessed" first made the book a classic; they assure it will remain one.

Contents:

Ethical aesthetics, an introduction / by Matthew Cheney

About 5,750 words

Critical methods/speculative fiction

Quarks

Thickening the plot

Faust and Archimedes

Alyx

Prisoners' sleep

Letter to the symposium on "Women in science fiction"

To read the dispossessed

A fictional architecture that manages only with great difficulty not once to mention Harlan Ellison.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9780819568847

0819568848

OCLC:

291193734