Stars in My Pocket Like Grains of Sand in Queereaders

Aug 15, 2010 Bill rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: favorite-books-re-read, science-fiction

I am a fairly experienced reader, but I had difficulty reading this book. I found the use of names confusing. If ever I have truly needed a name glossary, it is with this book. I kept getting confused about whether a name referred to a person, a place, a planet or a star. I was uncertain about who was human, who not and the continual shift of pronouns made this even more difficult. In a sense this relates to cultural confusion in our 'real' world. In another sense this book needs to be read when I am a fairly experienced reader, but I had difficulty reading this book. I found the use of names confusing. If ever I have truly needed a name glossary, it is with this book. I kept getting confused about whether a name referred to a person, a place, a planet or a star. I was uncertain about who was human, who not and the continual shift of pronouns made this even more difficult. In a sense this relates to cultural confusion in our 'real' world. In another sense this book needs to be read when one is able to concentrate and focus. I was not.

Much has been written here about this novel on this page, much that perhaps I will comment on after future readings. The book is about many things, but a couple have invaded my quasi-consciouness.

The simplest of these concerns Delany's concept of the Web which was brilliantly prophetic at the time this was written relative to today's WWW.

Though we still are tethered to external devices, we can quickly find information we desire, still have to digest it ourselves, but find the information is controlled by another web of anonymous personages, powers and machines while maintaining the appearance of being free and open. And, all our activities on the Web are archived forever for those same entities to monitor. Delany's Web spans 6000 worlds and tens of thousands light years, but his ideas have much relevance to our current, if provincial Earthside WWW.

The other is more difficult to put into words, but I think it has to do with the nature of reality, communication and our own essential aloneness. How can you know me? How can I know you? All we know about each other is illusory and incomplete as is information and the science of information or the information of science, as is how we understand our culture and alien cultures. It is likely as difficult to understand each other as it would be meeting an alien being from another star system who has entirely different ways of sensing the external world. As it stands we can never grok another being.

But Delany provides a clue how we might do: (view spoiler) ...more

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Nov 08, 2008 J. rated it really liked it

So amazing. The only slight problem I had with the text, and this is just my preference, is that the ending is indefinite. I see why he does it, though, and it makes sense. The idea that there could be such a thing as someone's "perfect erotic object" calculated mathmatically...that's a powerful reworking of Disney's "prince charming" myth, and I love how he Delany uses the embodied Queerness to examine it. ...more

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May 30, 2022 Megan rated it liked it

Not my favorite Delany though lots to think about re: where desire comes from and to what degree it may be predictable. (The plot line is centrally about a character who encounters his perfect erotic object, based on Web-like calculations.) Some interesting gender stuff - on some worlds here, all subjects, male, female, and neuter (are the options) are referred to as women with she/her pronouns - EXCEPT when one considers another desirable - THEN the object desire becomes a he/him to the desirin ...more

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Sep 25, 2018 Andrew Peters added it

Shelves: gay-fantasy, sff

I have so much author envy of Delaney. To read his work is more than escaping into a story — a fine enough diversion. It’s an experience of getting swallowed up by big questions about the human condition, language, social organization, and more. He’s one of those few authors whose writing stays with you for years and years and challenges and ultimately transforms the way you think about the world.

Stars In My Pocket does not disappoint in that regard. I’ll get my minor gripes out of the way. I di I have so much author envy of Delaney. To read his work is more than escaping into a story — a fine enough diversion. It’s an experience of getting swallowed up by big questions about the human condition, language, social organization, and more. He’s one of those few authors whose writing stays with you for years and years and challenges and ultimately transforms the way you think about the world.

Stars In My Pocket does not disappoint in that regard. I’ll get my minor gripes out of the way. I didn’t love the book as much as I loved his Neveryon saga. That could be because I’m more inclined toward fantasy than futuristic sci fi. But there were some stretches of the book that lost my fascination. The main story took a while to warm up after the extraordinarily long “prologue” (which I dug), and then there’s quite a lengthy set up before the two main characters Marq Dyeth and Korga meet, which you know is inevitable. Some of the passages felt too long and just described things that weren’t so essential to the story. So there was some plodding through on my part to get to the good stuff.

Me, presuming to criticize Delaney? Well, take it for what it’s worth.

Now what I did love about Stars in My Pocket is multitudinous. Let’s start with Delaney’s premise: in a distant, space-traveling future, the concept of gender has evolved such that everyone—human and alien— is a woman and she/her/hers, and the use of masculine pronouns is contextual, related to specific sexual roles, effectively de-emphasizing that genitalia defines identity. That idea alone makes the book a brilliant and provocative read (and if you think the average reader has moved past understanding gender from an essentialist, prescribed POV, I’ll direct you to some of the reviews below) :)

Of course, I loved that Delaney chose gay characters as the leads in this very intriguing story. I thought at first that Korga might be a recycling of Gorgik from Neveryon based on his physical description and enslaved circumstances; but his journey is quite different. He never overcomes his dispossessed status, which is sad for sure and makes him a sympathetic character. Marq Dyeth on the other hand is a new type of narrator from Delaney. He’s a regular guy with a regular job and has an immense curiosity about foreign worlds, foreign species, languages, religions and such.

Besides the story’s different take on gender, there’s a different take on how our senses give us knowledge about the world. Taste is the most prominent of the five senses among the aliens who co-exist on Marq Dyeth’s planet. Delaney is so impressive at running with a wild idea, showing how it impacts language and social interaction.

It’s been said Delaney presaged the invention of the Internet with his idea of an electronic GI network that’s a searchable database available to people across the universe. The book was written in the 1980s. I’d also say he foretold the advent of “fake news” through hints that not all is what it seems on that information highway based on political agendas. There certainly is a Big Brother feel to the world of Stars in My Pocket, and with the scale of its world being pretty much unfathomable, that theme blows up as even more darkly fascinating. So yeah, this is another work of genius by Delaney that goes down as a SFF classic.
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Apr 30, 2009 Randal rated it it was ok

Shelves: sci-fi, lgbtq

I adored the first 60 pages of "Stars" and the poignancy of Rat Korga's story. Then Delany switched the viewpoint to that of another character, Marq Dyeth, and it went downhill for me.

As an "Industrial Diplomat," Marq would compare and contrast other cultures with his own, an excellent device to reveal the story's setting. But it went on for so long, that it seemed as if Delany was a little too in love with his own creation.

All that said, "Stars" explored fascinating possibilities of gender, se ...more

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