The Jewel Hinged Jaw Notes on the Language of Science Fiction by Samuel R. Delany introduction by Matthew Cheney: 288 pp. 6 x 9" $27.95 Paper ISBN: 978-0-8195-6883-0 http://www.upne.com/0-8195-6883-X.html When it was released in 1977, science fiction master Samuel R Delany's collection of essays The Jewel-Hinged Jaw initiated a new way of looking at the science fiction genre. No longer content with simply cataloguing the particularities of a supposedly inferior form and calling it criticism, Delany drew from his extensive body of knowledge and intense respect for science fiction to formulate a challenging, meticulous expression of the unbounded possibilities contained within tales of "events that have not happened." With the republication of this important critical work, Wesleyan University Press is pleased to introduce to a new generation of science fiction devotees the diverse set of essays that Junot Diaz calls "unsparing, wise and catastrophically irrevocably true." Here readers will find a rigorous attention to language with definite poststructuralist inclinations, as well as careful textual readings of great subtlety and a nascent engagement with feminism, gender, and sexuality that marked Delany out as a visionary then and remain profoundly relevant today. |
The Jewel Hinged Jaw: Notes on the Language of Science Fiction by Samuel R. Delanyposted Jul 28, 2009 3:20 PM by John Tranter [ updated Jul 28, 2009 3:21 PM ] |