Stars in My Pocket Like Grains of Sand

Stars in my Pocket like Grains of Sand (1984) is a science fiction novel by Samuel R. Delany.

Description

Set in a dazzlingly complex far-future network of societies, this dense, descriptive novel centers around the short romance between Marq Dyeth (the narrator) and Rat Korga (a freed slave from a destroyed world). Dyeth is an 'Industrial Diplomat' whose job is to liaise with alien cultures; Korga is a 'Rat', one who has voluntarily opted for a form of psychosurgery making him incapable of anxiety or independent thought.

Throughout the narrative Marq Dyeth speaks to the reader as if he's a tour guide to his own thoughts and perceptions. His opinions on history, art, sex, politics and civilization are woven into nearly every paragraph. The result is a dizzying but immersive science fiction experience.

Thematically, the central relationship - an intellectual and a disadvantaged person - has much in common with those in Delany's other SF and mainstream works. The novel is set in an extremely rich world, corners of which are made subtly visible to the reader. For example, a single sentence, easily missed on first reading, alludes to orthographic reform reducing the alphabet to roughly 19 letters. This fact contributes nothing to the plot, instead forming the background environment.

The novel plays several other linguistic tricks on the reader, including a change to the meaning of such basic units of language as pronouns ('he', 'she', and variants).

Although Stars in my Pocket like Grains of Sand is part of a planned diptych whose second half never saw daylight, and is at times over-descriptive (the last chapter is essentially a postmodern soliloquy), it nevertheless comes closest to the emotion said by many to lie at the core of sci-fi: wonder.

• Delany, Samuel R., "Stars in My Pocket Like Grains of Sand". Bantam Dell Pub Group, Sep 1985. ISBN 0553050532