Out of the Dead City

This first third of The Fall of the Towers trilogy is vintage early Delany, offering his unique blend of surrealism, brutality, optimism and naiveté. The characters are colorful and immediately likable. The plotting is simple yet still manages to be confusing at times, but then for this kind of book plotting almost doesn't matter. It is quite obviously a book of the Vietnam era, telling of a future society fighting a war against an unknown enemy for unknown reasons..

I liked it.

I believe the author's note explains some of the dementia I experienced throughout the novel—it was the result of the author doing too much "whittling".

From the first sentence through about chapter two, I felt as if the words were mesmerizing me, that I was experiencing each word, sentence, and picture painted in complete fullness. That wore off—I'm not sure what it was...

The W.H. Auden excerpt from his poem 'HORAE CANONICAE' makes it clear that Delany's novel was realized within that poem; or, at least it sure is a well-fitting shoe.

I felt as if though I was not getting a clear picture of everything going on in the novel; that confusion was being borne to sort out later in the sequels; that their was after the initial chapters a show more certain pervading abstractedness. The sequels may have sorted things out; and I am interested enough in The Dead City to read them.

I very much liked the idea of the forest people—made up of giants, little people, and even odder mutations from the radiation, such as Tloto—living apart from a horrid society of aquarium-slaves and bourgeoisie.

I also was impressed with Telphar, the city which builds and maintains itself. I was very pleased to find the same type of anarchist ideals flowing here that flow as a cool, refreshing, and very much awakening stream in the novels of Dick, Heinlein, Wilson, et cetera.

As stated, Toromon is an Empire, and the Queen a bitch. War was the solution to their self-fulfilling economic crisis. It's an old story... Gads at that poisoned fish and the death it reeked!!

It just struck me that the intensity and at times fog-like abstractedness that comes and goes may be explained by the following wikipedia quote on Delany:

"Delany has published several autobiographical/semi-autobiographical accounts of his life as a black, gay, and highly dyslexic writer."

As this was my very first Delany novel, I find that I am intrigued by what other other-worldliness may be penned by a "highly dyslexic writer" whose vision is set upon the future. show less

Primer libro de la serie "La caída de la torres". Los tres volúmenes de "La Caída de las Torres" reflejan lo que luego sería una constante en la obra de Delany: una trama de aventuras unida a un estilo fulgurante y erudito. Aquí conocemos a los primeros personajes que luego darán vida a la historia: Jon Koshar, el único en poder escapar de la ciudad muerta; Tel, el valiente muchacho de los ojos verde-mar; la duquesa Petra, el poder tras el trono; Alter, la joven y bella acróbata; Clea, la audaz matemática; y la figura misteriosa y enigmática del Señor de las Llamas.
El rapto de un príncipe, la inconsciencia de un rey, y el peligro de guerra que se cierne sobre Toron, la decadente ciudad cuyo brillo es opacado por el "verde de show more las alas de los escarabajos... el rojo del carbunclo pulido... una red de fuego de plata". show less