Delaney is a prolific science
fiction writer who also writes prose.
This slim PM Press collection includes a fictional narrative about a
visit to Baruch Spinoza by fellow-philosopher Gottfried Liebniz. The year is 1676, the month November, the
locations Amsterdam
and south of that city. Spinoza of
course is the famous “Jew” who questioned God even before Nietzsche. In Spinoza’s discussion with Liebniz, Spinoza
describes his philosophically materialist theory about the separation between the
concept of God or human thoughts and the actuality of physical reality.
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| The Writer and the Coffee |
The story is a mannered and florid
description of Liebniz’s thoughts and actions, including a visit to an old
friend and his encounter with a threatening or servile servant. “Small clothes” play a role. (Now known as underwear.)
The second part is a famous essay by
Delaney about being segregated from other writers at various science fiction
events. He is gay and light brown, so
didn’t fit the regular cream-colored drill.
The third is an interview with Delaney
by Terry Bisson, the writer of “Fire on
the Mountain.”
Other science fiction / dystopian
fiction reviewed below: “Hunger Games,” “The Road,” “The
Dispossessed,” “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep,” “World War Z,” “Cloud
Atlas,” “The Heart Goes Last,” “Divergent-Insurgent,” “American War,” “Blade
Runner,” “War for the Planet of the Apes,” “Dawn of the Planet of the Apes,”
“Handmaid’s Tale,” “Good News,” “Fire on the Mountain.” Use blog search box, upper left, to find these.
And I bought it at May Day Books!
The Kommissar of Kulture
January 12, 2019
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