Three groundbreaking novels from the multiple Hugo and Nebula Award–winning Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Famer and SFWA Grand Master.
Babel-17: Rydra Wong is the most popular poet in the five settled galaxies, capturing the mood of mankind after two decades of war. Now, a new weapon has been unleashed against humanity. Random attacks strike without warning, tied together by broadcast strings of sound. In that gibberish, Rydra recognizes a coherent language. To save her people, she must master this strange tongue, but the more she learns, the more she is tempted to join the other side, in this Nebula Award–winning novel.
Nova: The year is 3172. Two political families—the Earth-based galactic conglomerate Draco and the Pleiades Federation of the Von Ray Clan—vie for ultimate power. Both want to control the market for Illyrion, the element that makes interstellar travel possible. When a star implodes, tons of the priceless fuel is discovered floating in the wreckage. Now, in a race to claim it, Lorq Von Ray leads a crew of ragtag misfits into the heart of a dangerous nova . . .
Stars in My Pocket Like Grains of Sand: Subjected to the Radical Anxiety Termination procedure, Korga is transformed into a dim-witted slave. Now known as Rat, Korga serves many masters—until the Cultural Fugue, a critical mass of shared knowledge, destroys his homeworld. Marq Dyeth is an “industrial diplomat,” who travels between worlds solving problems that come with the spread of “General Information.” Brought together by the organization known as the Web, Rat and Marq find themselves manipulated by an entity determined to control the flow of information.
Samuel R. Delany published his first novel, The Jewels of Aptor, at the age of twenty. Throughout his storied career, he has received four Nebula Awards and two Hugo Awards, and in 2008 his novel Dark Reflections won the Stonewall Book Award. He was inducted into the Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame in 2002, named a Grand Master by the Science Fiction Writers of America in 2014, and in 2016 was inducted into the New York State Writers Hall of Fame. Delany’s works also extend into memoir, criticism, and essays on sexuality and society. After many years as a professor of English and creative writing and director of the graduate creative writing program at Temple University, he retired from teaching in 2015. He lives in Philadelphia with his partner, Dennis Rickett.