The Fall of the Towers

Rating:
Summary: Drastically underrated by those who bring pre-conceptions
Review: If you want an intro to Delany, get "Babel-17". If you have read several of his works and enjoyed them, consider this one. If you don't care about reading Delany per se, but just want a darn good read, give it a try.

This book was my introduction to Delany. I read it first at the tender age of 14 in the Fall of 1974. Not his best work, but ten times better than most of the drivel masquerading as SF on the shelves today. It sparked my interest, and led me to read any and all books by Mr Delany.

This is a guy who generally evokes two kinds of response. One venerable reviewer stated, and I quote, that his books were well beloved by academics ever in search of "grist for the mills of exegesis." Interpretation: I don't think he likes him. Others are excited by his ideas about language, science, human sexuality, and how these are/were interweaving to create original novels that expand the human consciousness.

Me, I just thought he told a darn good story.

Why does all this stick in my mind?

My first college degree was in English Lit. To graduate I had to write a thesis paper on a contemporary writer. At the time, my favorite was Delany. [the title was "Science Fiction: the New Mythology". Hey, 25 years ago this was original stuff, okay?]

So, why read THIS book? Quite simply, it really IS is a darn good read. It has good guys, bad guys, interesting characters who undergo heroic trials, simpletons, Ubermensch, street performers, new looks at how technology changes human lives, insightful observations in to individual behaviors, and, long before "The Matrix" and "Neuromancer" were even dreamt of, a foggy Virtual Reality world in which a war is fought. [!??!]

So, get on board, give it a try, help yourself to some lemonade.

Rating:
Summary: nadir
Review: incomprehensionable fools rush for illiterate lame[ARE WE SERIOUS HERE] POORLY executed dismal gives me the tremors Juvenile delerious DROLL hack work of the ponderouslt ripe part flash gordon GEE WHIZZ, part detention attention deficit scrawl CRAWL through one empty sugar coated CYFER /DISCIFER YOWL how BAD NITEMARE MEGA INNANE metaphoors PHOEY, bologna post haunt ART THAT DONT ILLUMINATE,hack hack work pulp weary.. ive read better MUCH BADDEER BEING BETTER fools fluff than this artificial banter.

Rating:
Summary: Aberrantly poor
Review: Terribly dated first attempt at speculative fiction by a soon-to-be-great writer... it bears his name but not the quality of Delany's later work. One can only wonder why it is again in print. I can't supply any answers to that but I can say that the absurd writing here borders on absurdism without quite breaking through, even though the extreme hokey-ness of the prose wedded to the writer's modernist aspirations achieves a veritable surrealism that will literally force you again and again to wonder "did I just read that?"

Rating:
Summary: Chip Delany's first books stand the test of time.
Review: This is one of Delany's first books, written in the mid 1960s, well-before his sexual revolution, and definitely within the scifi genre. I recently reread this work and now wonder how it missed all the awards.

Rating:
Summary: great read
Review: This is very different from Delany's later work (of which Triton is my favorite) being more accessible and lighter on hardcore philosophical theories. At the same time, the writing never falls short of brilliant, the storyline will keep you at the edge of your seat till the end, and the author's ideas about the social dynamics of race and sex in the future world are so far ahead if his time that it is hard to believe that the trilogy was finished in 1964.

But more than anything, it's a great story. Read it, and see for yourself.

Rating:
Summary: Delany branches into fantasy.
Review: This three volume set comprises an attempt by Delany to broaden his fan base. Exploring the realm of fantasy fiction with his own combination of psyodelica storytelling.

Rating:
Summary: Nonsensible waste of space and money
Review: This trilogy-in-a-book could have been better told in a short story of about 25 pages. While some of the prose might indeed be considered poetic, the plot is non-sensible, and the dialogue ranges from vapid to atrocious. The character development is so deficient that it's difficult, if not impossible, for the reader to form any kind of attachment with the main characters. There are some entertaining nuggets in the plot stemming from farcical happenings, as well as some perhaps-unintended absurd writing. In his defense, Mr. Delany was only 19 years old when he wrote the book. How many people attain any kind of professional accomplishment at that age? Nonetheless, save yourself the frustration of this book.

Rating:
Summary: Amazing. Proves Oscar Wilde Wrong.
Review: Those who come to a Delany novel with preconceived notions inevitably will be disappointed, turning away in disgust and incomprehension, but those who approach his books with an open mind will invariably rewarded. In this brilliant early novel, composed in three parts, Delany examines a society on the verge of change and revolution through the eyes of a collection of laser-etched characters whose lives intersect in complicated and subtle ways. Delany's intelligence at 21 was fierce, and one of the beauties of this novel is the way it intertwines the intellectual and the everyday, how it is beautifully written and fiercely opinionated.

Though the action nominally concerns two gestalt beings from another universe, and their interactions with the empire of Toromon on Earth, Delany's true concern is human society in general, ours in particular, its cyclical fate and all-renewing possibility. It's not your typical science fiction. It's a thousand times better, science fiction idealized, then actualized.

I stayed up late to get to the end of the third volume, "City of a Thousand Suns," and closed the book with one word: "Amazing." Even more amazing, I truly meant it. Oscar Wilde famously said that anyone who seeks to write a novel in three parts knows nothing of Art and Life. Here, Delany gloriously proves him wrong.