SOURCE: “‘Across Never’: Postmodern Theory and Narrative Praxis in Samuel R. Delany's Nevèrÿon Cycle,” in Science-Fiction Studies, Vol. 24, No. 2, July, 1997, pp. 289-01.

In the following essay, Kelso addresses aspects of postmodern literary theory in the Nevèrÿon cycle, notably the influence of Derrida and Foucault on Delany's notion of deconstruction and marginality. Kelso draws attention to the motifs of sexual deviancy and degradation in the Nevèrÿon narratives, through which Delany explores the limits of racial identity, feminism, and sexual politics.

It is something of a truism that sf writers like to work at the cutting-edge—if not the wacky limits—of science. Although Samuel R. Delany favors the “softer” disciplines, his novels usually operate at, or ahead of, the speculative edge. There is, for example, the brilliant extrapolation from computer languages in Babel-17 (1966): what if people constructed reality using a language without concepts...