Comments on: A Bite of Stars, A Slug of Time, and Thou – Episode 11

By: Anne Dambrowski

Anne Dambrowski — Sun, 12 Oct 2008 13:45:47 +0000

I read A&G as a teen. I was surprised how well I remember it. Certain turns of phrase and imagery are still as striking as in my first reading. Love the radio version.
Thank you.

By: Mark G

Mark G — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 16:13:32 +0000

So, weep in a way, and rejoice in another…

By: Martin Skidmore

Martin Skidmore — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 15:38:15 +0000

The only Heinlein I like is a couple of short stories! By His Bootstraps is one, one of the best time paradox stories, and there’s another that uses a tesseract projected into our 3-D world. I rather hate his big novels with adult content in particular.

My start with Delany was when my school friend Dave recommended him to me – I’d moved from Asimov, Clarke and the like on to Dick, Sturgeon and others, and he told me how much he loved Dhalgren, though I think I first read one of the smaller ones (Einstein Intersection or Nova, I think). I read Dhalgren soon after, and many times since, and I think it is still my favourite novel.

By: Martin Skidmore

Martin Skidmore — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 15:34:17 +0000

I don’t think we know anything about Gomorrah’s offences – I think the whole narrative (where the main offence is not specifically sodomy, but a group of men wanting to rape an angel) is set in Sodom, and it was a case of wiping out all the cities of the plain (I think there were a couple of others, but I don’t know their names).

I really enjoyed this episode – one of my favourite writers, as you know. I think he had a real advantage in understanding various kinds of outsider statuses and social distinctions because, as he has said, he was a black man who has at times ‘passed’ as white and, less unusually, a gay or bi man who has lived as straight.

By: pˆnk s lord sükråt cunctør

pˆnk s lord sükråt cunctør — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 14:54:03 +0000

yes i probably first read A&G in my teens — i’ve had a copy of SRD’s short-story collection “driftglass” since the mid70s — but it left no impact at all beyond the title, which i assume means it just made no sense to me

sadly i think we will have to leave heinlein for a while — i’d have to do a TON of catch-up reading — even though i think he’d be enormously interesting

(incidentally, i think the reason that A&G isn’t in my copy of dangerous visions is that i only have vol.1 of vol.1, so to speak)

By: Jack Fear

Jack Fear — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 14:17:32 +0000

Now, this is where science fiction begins, for me. (Well, this and Heinlein.) DANGEROUS VISIONS was published the year that I was born, and by the time I started reading SF in by the early 80s, the pages of ASIMOV’S and F&SF were alive with provocative ideas, rendered in prose both unflinchingly explicit and self-consciously “literary.” The themes and techniques of the New Wave had been thoroughly absorbed into the mainstream by a next generation of writers.

While I was reading a steady diet of that stuff, I plowed through the two volumes of DANGEROUS VISIONS and quite liked most of it – but as for “Aye, and Gomorrah,” I distinctly remember struggling through and not understanding a word of it. Says more about 14-year-old me than about Delany, of course.

Sinker briefly alluded to a Heinlein influence/connection, as well. He’d be an interesting topic for the show; problematic, though, in that the short story wasn’t really his medium, and any discussion of his influence would have to dwell primarily on the novels.