Drawing themes out of Samuel Delany's story collection Driftglass is made much more difficult by the author's preoccupation … with texture, immediacy, being-not-meaning. Just occasionally this leads to a sort of sentimentality—the self-selecting singers who make spontaneous poetry for the masses and never go commercial, the nice adventurers who relate mysteriously to the natives wherever they go and never get taken for tourists. But these icons of dropout piety are superficial reader pleasers…. The stories make their impact through an immense zest for complication and an unrivalled ability to crystallize this in scenes, people, and objects.

T. A. Shippey, "Natural Alternatives," in The Times Literary Supplement (© Times Newspapers Ltd (London) 1978; reproduced from The Times Literary Supplement by permission), No. 3976, June 16, 1978, p. 662.∗