Trouble on Triton: An Ambiguous Heterotopia / Edition 1

by Samuel R. Delany, Kathy Acker

Overview

In a story as exciting as any science fiction adventure written, Samuel R. Delany's 1976 SF novel, originally published as Triton, takes us on a tour of a utopian society at war with . . . our own Earth! High wit in this future comedy of manners allows Delany to question gender roles and sexual expectations at a level that, 20 years after it was written, still make it a coruscating portrait of "the happily reasonable man," Bron Helstrom -- an immigrant to the embattled world of Triton, whose troubles become more and more complex, till there is nothing left for him to do but become a woman. Against a background of high adventure, this minuet of a novel dances from the farthest limits of the solar system to Earth's own Outer Mongolia. Alternately funny and moving, it is a wide-ranging tale in which character after character turns out not to be what he -- or she -- seems.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780819562982
Publisher:	Wesleyan University Press
Publication date:	07/19/1996
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	326
Sales rank:	524,758
Product dimensions:	5.25(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.74(d)

About the Author

Samuel R. Delany's many prizes include the Hugo Award, the Nebula Award, and the William Whitehead Memorial Award for a lifetime's contribution to gay and lesbian literature. Wesleyan has published both his fiction and nonfiction, including Atlantis: three tales (1995), Silent Interviews: On Language, Race, Sex, Science Fiction, and Some Comics (1994), Longer Views: Extended Essays (1996), and Shorter Views: Queer Thoughts & the Politics of the Paraliterary. The press has also reissued his classic science fiction and fantasy novels Dhalgren (1996), The Einstein Intersection (1998) and the four-volume Return to Nevèrÿon series.

Kathy Acker was author of many books including Pussy, King of the Pirates (1996), My Mother: Demonology (1994), Blood and Guts in High School (1989), and Empire of the Senseless (1988), and also wrote several plays for Richard Foreman.

What People are Saying About This

Earl Jackson

“This is classic Delany that maintains a cutting edge of sheer platinum. Delany sets his interrogation of the myth and politics of a central culture within an infinitely richer galaxy of interwoven margins. The dazzle always illuminates: the novel offers vision-altering thrills on the order of paradigm shifts or sex at its most rapturously cataclysmic.”

From the Publisher

"This is classic Delany that maintains a cutting edge of sheer platinum. Delany sets his interrogation of the myth and politics of a central culture within an infinitely richer galaxy of interwoven margins. The dazzle always illuminates: the novel offers vision-altering thrills on the order of paradigm shifts or sex at its most rapturously cataclysmic."—Earl Jackson, Jr., author of Fantastic Living: The Speculative Autobiographies of Samuel R. Delany

Editorial Reviews

"Delany's most controlled, and therefore his most successful, experiment to date . . . Triton is a novel of manners –– those of a rich and complex society in which the avowed highest good is the free expression of each individual's personality." —Gerald Jonas, New York Times Book Review

"Delany has been the cutting edge of the SF revolution for more than ten years . . . [He] may turn out to be as important a writer as Pynchon."—Mother Jones

"An excellent novel. The author has created an innovative and fascinating culture."—Orca

From the Publisher

Published back-to-back in 1975 and 1976, respectively, these works involve an apocalyptic society on the verge of collapse and a utopian society at war with Earth. LJ's reviewer dubbed Dhalgren an "important novel" (LJ 3/15/75).

Library Journal

Delany's most controlled, and therefore his most successful, experiment to date. Triton is a novel of manners -- those of the rich and complex society in which the avowed highest good is the free expression of each individual's personality. -- New York Times Book Review

Gerald Jonas

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