The aspect of The Star Pit that is most likely to alarm readers (though perhaps not too many given the context) is the use of the word nigger in a passage near the end of the novel. It certainly seems out of place, almost irrelevant to the narrative, but it is used to illustrate one of the reasons Earth is a primitive place; it also is possible that Delany followed the lead of many other African-American writers of the post-World War II era in using racist language in a realistic manner to illustrate social status. In the case of The Star Pit, the word is meant to indicate, in part, how Vyme feels about a golden seeming to say that nongolden's have "trapped" him.

It is not an effective passage, but the instance of such an objectionable word is unique in the novel and detracts not...