The Jewel-hinged Jaw

by Delany, Samuel R.

• ISBN13: 9780819568830
• ISBN10: 081956883X
• Edition: Revised
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2009-07-07
• Publisher: Wesleyan Univ Pr

Summary

Samuel R. Delany's The Jewel-Hinged Jaw appeared originally in 1977, and is now long out of print and hard to find. The impact of its demonstration that science fiction was a special language, rather than just gadgets and green-skinned aliens, began reverberations still felt in science fiction criticism. This edition includes two new essays, one written at the time and one written about those times, as well as an introduction by writer and teacher Matthew Cheney, placing Delany's work in historical context. Close textual analyses of Thomas M. Disch, Ursula K. Le Guin, Roger Zelazny, and Joanna Russ read as brilliantly today as when they first appeared. Essays such as "About 5,750 Words" and "To Read The Dispossessed" first made the book a classic; they assure it will remain one.

Author Biography

SAMUEL DELANY is a novelist and critic who currently teaches English and creative writing at Temple University. He has won both Hugo and Nebula awards. MATTHEW CHENEY is a columnist for Strange Horizons and writes regularly about all sorts of things at his weblog, The Mumpsimus.

Table of Contents

Prefaces and Acknowledgments	p. ix
Ethical Aesthetics, An Introduction	p. xv
About 5,750 Words	p. 1
Critical Methods / Speculative Fiction	p. 17
Quarks	p. 29
Thickening the Plot	p. 35
Faust and Archimedes	p. 43
Alyx	p. 59
Prisoners' Sleep	p. 77
Letter to the Symposium on "Women In Science Fiction"	p. 85
To Read The Dispossessed	p. 105
A Fictional Architecture That Manages Only with Great Difficulty Not Once to Mention Harlan Ellison	p. 167
Appendixes
Midcentury	p. 185
Letter to a Critic	p. 227
Index	p. 243
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