Prøve GULL - Gratis
Galaxy Brain
The New Yorker
|July 10 - 17, 2023 (Double Issue)
How Samuel R. Delany reimagined science fiction.

Delany believes that sci-fi's primal impulse, like poetry's, is the "incantatory task of naming nonexistent objects."
Last September, while working at his desk in Philadelphia, Samuel R. Delany experienced a mysterious episode that he calls "the big drop."His vision faded for about three minutes, and he felt his body plunge, as if the floor had fallen away. When he came to, everything looked different, though he couldn't say exactly how. Delany, who is eighty-one, began to suspect that he'd suffered a mini-stroke. His daughter, Iva, an emergency-room physician, persuaded him to go to the hospital, but the MRI scans were inconclusive. The only evidence of a neurological event was a test result indicating that he had lost fifteen per cent of his capacity to form new memories and a realization, in the following weeks, that he was unable to finish his novel in progress, "This Short Day of Frost and Sun." After publishing more than forty books in half a century, the interruption was, he told me, both "a loss and a relief."
For years, Delany has begun most days at four o'clock in the morning with a ritual. First, he spells out the name Dennis, for Dennis Rickett, his life partner. Next, he recites an atheist's prayer, hailing faraway celestial bodies with a litany inspired by the seventeenth-century philosopher Baruch Spinoza: "Natura Naturans, system of systems, system of fields, Kuiper belt, scattered disk, Oort cloud, thank you for dropping me here." Finally, he prepares oatmeal, which he faithfully photographs for the friends and fans who follow him on Facebook. Every so often, when the milk foams, he sees Laniakea-the galactic supercluster that's home to Earth.
Denne historien er fra July 10 - 17, 2023 (Double Issue)-utgaven av The New Yorker.
Abonner på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av kuraterte premiumhistorier og over 9000 magasiner og aviser.
Allerede abonnent? Logg på
FLERE HISTORIER FRA The New Yorker

The New Yorker
Coconut Flan
Somehow, after the plane landed though before Andrés and Daria reached the taxi stand, Daria's wallet went missing.
22 mins
October 13, 2025

The New Yorker
SEASON OF DISCONTENT
Gustavo Dudamel at the New York Philharmonic; \"Kavalier & Clay\" at the Met.
6 mins
October 13, 2025

The New Yorker
THE TALK OF THE TOWN
For someone openly campaigning to get a Nobel Peace Prize, Donald Trump has been going about it in an unusual way. Early last month, the President proclaimed in a press conference that the Department of Defense would thereafter be known as the Department of War. At the same briefing, the presumed new Secretary of War, Pete Hegseth, promised that the armed forces will deliver “maximum lethality” that won't be “politically correct.” That was a few days after Trump had ordered the torpedoing of a small boat headed out of Venezuela, which he claimed was piloted by “narco-terrorists,” killing all eleven people on board, rather than, for instance, having it stopped and inspected. After some military-law experts worried online that this seemed uncomfortably close to a war crime, Vice-President J. D. Vance posted, “Don't give a shit.”
4 mins
October 13, 2025

The New Yorker
THESE BLACK BOOTS ARE DIFFERENT FROM THOSE BLACK BOOTS
These have an almond toe.
2 mins
October 13, 2025

The New Yorker
LOCKED IN
Two murders, a strike, and an explosive year inside New York's prisons.
41 mins
October 13, 2025

The New Yorker
DON'T BLAME ME
Taylor Swift's new album eschews vulnerability for revenge.
6 mins
October 13, 2025

The New Yorker
CONTINENTAL DREAMS
African independence was a time of high hopes. What happened?
16 mins
October 13, 2025

The New Yorker
OUT OF OFFICE
Can a Prime Minister have work-life balance? Sanna Marin tried.
24 mins
October 13, 2025

The New Yorker
ALMA MATER
\"After the Hunt.\"
6 mins
October 13, 2025

The New Yorker
THE HAGUE ON TRIAL
Political intrigue—and a lurid scandal—rocks the International Criminal Court.
22 mins
October 13, 2025
Translate
Change font size