Samuel R. Delany uses a fictional galaxy-controlling organization as a metaphor for the ways text controls reader response in 'Stars in My Pocket Like Grains of Sand.' The Web not only selects which events take place, but how sentient beings perceive those events. Delany...

The new reproductive technologies force us to rethink the concepts 'mother,' 'father,' 'family.' As we draw analogies to traditional patterns, we must distinguish between ethical and conceptual questions. Ruth Macklin is professor of bioethics, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Bronx, N.Y. ...

In the following essay, Blackford examines Delany's presentation of gender and sexuality in Stars in My Pocket Like Grains of Sand. Blackford contends that the novel, while often confusing and overly ambiguous, reveals Delany's innovative effort to subvert gender-coded language and popular stereotypes about physical beauty and sexual norms.

In the following essay, Bartter interprets the complexity and indeterminacy of Delany's fiction in terms of quantum mechanics, which she argues is a more fitting paradigm for Delany's work than Newtonian physics or Einsteinian relativism. Drawing attention to the controlling metaphors and structural innovations of Stars in My Pocket Like Grains of Sand, Bartter contends that Delany's “quantum” worldview challenges accepted notions of reality and pushes the boundaries of s...

In the following essay, Bray examines Delany's subversion of language and social organization in Stars in My Pocket Like Grains of Sand. Bray contends that the reader is drawn into a “textual webbing” that illustrates the relationship between the individual and society and brings into focus current social realities and alternative futures.