Starboard Wine
Also by Samuel R. Delany
FICTION
The Jewels of Aptor (1962)
The Fall of the Towers
Out of the Dead City (1963)
The Towers of Toron (1964)
City of a Thousand Suns (1965)
The Ballad of Beta-2 (1965)
Babel-17 (1966)
Empire Star (1966)
The Einstein Intersection (1967)
Nova (1968)
Driftglass (1969)
Equinox (1973)
Dhalgren (1975)
Trouble on Triton (1976)
Return to Nevèrÿon
Tales of Nevèrÿon (1979)
Neveryóna (1982)
Flight from Nevèrÿon (1985)
Return to Nevèrÿon (1987)
Distant Stars (1981)
Stars in My Pocket Like Grains of Sand (1984)
Driftglass/Starshards (collected stories, 1993)
They Fly at Çiron (1993)
The Mad Man (1994)
Hogg (1995)
Atlantis: Three Tales (1995)
Aye, and Gomorrah (and other stories, 2004)
Phallos (2004)
Dark Reflections (2007)
Through the Valley of the Nest of Spiders (2012)
GRAPHIC NOVELS
Empire (artist, Howard Chaynkin; 1980)
Bread & Wine (artist, Mia Wolff; 1999)
NONFICTION
The Jewel-Hinged Jaw (1977; revised, 2008)
The American Shore (1978)
Starboard Wine (1978; revised, 2012)
Heavenly Breakfast (1979)
The Motion of Light in Water (1988)
Wagner/Artaud (1988)
The Straits of Messina (1990)
Silent Interviews (1994)
Longer Views (1996)
Times Square Red, Times Square Blue (1999)
Shorter Views (1999)
1984: Selected Letters (2000)
About Writing (2005)
STARBOARD WINE
REVISED EDITION
More Notes on the Language of Science Fiction
Samuel R. Delany
WESLEY AN UNIVERSITY PRESS
Middletown, Connecticut
Wesleyan University Press
Middletown CT 06459
Wesleyan edition © 2012 Samuel R. Delany
Introduction © 2012 Matthew Cheney
Original edition © 1984 Samuel R. Delany
All rights reserved
Manufactured in the United States of America
Typeset in Trump Mediaeval by Integrated Publishing Solutions, Grand Rapids, Michigan.
Wesleyan University Press is a member of the Green Press Initiative.
The paper used in this book meets their minimum requirement for recycled paper.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Delany, Samuel R.
Starboard wine: more notes on the language of science fiction / Samuel R. Delany.—Rev. ed.
p. cm.
Includes index.
ISBN 978-0-8195-6884-7 (pbk.: alk. paper)—isbn 978-0-8195-7294-3 (ebook)
1. Delany, Samuel R. 2. Science fiction—History and criticism. 3. Science fiction—Technique. I. Title.
PS3554.E437S67 2012
814’.54—dc23
2012006646
5 4 3 2 1
ForDavid Hartwell
Contents
Starboard Wine, An Author’s Introduction
Science Fiction and Difference: An Introduction to Starboard Wine by Matthew Cheney
1. The Necessity of Tomorrow(s)
3. Some Presumptuous Approaches to Science Fiction
5. Science Fiction and “Literature”—or, The Conscience of the King
10. Dichtung und Science Fiction
11. Three Letters to Science Fiction Studies
1) A Letter from New York
2) Another Letter from New York
3) A Letter from Rome
12. Reflections on Historical Models
Acknowledgments
The