92 pages
Published 1966
Read from December 17 to December 18
Rating: 3.5 out of 5
This novella is about perspectives, about growth and the understanding that there is no single point of view, but rather a plethora of perspectives on every action. This is brilliantly orchestrated right from the first page, a bravura introduction of character and POV. The rest of the novel is a somewhat picaresque Bildungsroman following the education — and, separately, the learning — of Comet Jo, a young farm worker from a backwater “simplex” community, as he leaves home and journeys across the wider universe.
Delany uses Jo’s credulous perspective to ironically explore institutions built upon slavery. A rich “multiplex” benefactor impresses Jo with the necessity of enslaving the Lll, the sacrifice required to own them, and the protections the Lll enjoy, while the narrative slowly builds a picture of how the galactic powers that be destroy any Lll who dare to defy their own “protection” in order to be free.
I love Delany’s blue collar space milieu from this era of his career, full of barefoot and mildly homoerotic “shuttlebums” and poets. Empire Star isn’t as compelling as its companion novel, Babel-17, possibly because of the novella’s brevity, possibly because its picaresque aspect didn’t click with me quite so well. But Star is a must-read all the same.
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