Trouble on Triton: An Ambiguous Heterotopia

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Wesleyan University Press, Jul 19, 1996 - Fiction - 312 pages

Interplanetary war, capture and escape, diplomatic intrigues that topple worlds.

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.

 

Contents

Der Satz
1
Solvable Games
21
Avoiding Kangaroos
45
La Geste dHelstrom
117
Idylls in Outer Mongolia
135
Objective Knowledge
185
Tiresias Descending
235
From The Triton Journal
279
Ashima Slade and the HarbinY Lectures
291
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About the author (1996)

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 Nevčr˙on 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.