The Einstein Intersection

By: Samuel R. Delany, Neil Gaiman - foreword, Gabrielle de Cuir - producer

Narrated by: Stefan Rudnicki

Length: 4 hrs and 40 mins

Publisher's summary

The Einstein Intersection won the Nebula Award for best science fiction novel of 1967. The surface story tells of the problems a member of an alien race, Lo Lobey, has assimilating the mythology of Earth, where his kind have settled among the leftover artifacts of humanity. The deeper tale concerns, however, the way those who are "different" must deal with the dominant cultural ideology.

The tale follows Lobey's mythic quest for his lost love, Friza. In luminous and hallucinated language, it explores what new myths might emerge from the detritus of the human world as those who are "different" try to seize history and the day.

©2018 Samuel R. Delany (P)2018 Blackstone Audio, Inc., and Skyboat Media, Inc.

great story

A little confusing a times but just keep in mind these are none humans taking over after humans transcend earth. Great story worth a listen

Great story, great voice

Excellent speculative fiction read in a an expressive bass voice. The only nit I have to pick with the performance is that sometimes the narrator will shift into a character’s voice for dialogue and not shift out of it for narration, or even for another character’s dialogue.

An instant SF Classic

Read this book a few times. I think it’s my favorite Delany. My vintage Ace paperback of this book is easily one of my most prized possessions.

beautiful, but not for everyone

this book is confusing at times. it requires your complete attention, and many things are inferred rather than stated. with that said, the prose is gripping and moving. I was enthralled. I am about to read through the book a second time to see what more I can learn from it. definitely not for the faint of heart, but if you enjoy wierd scifi this is a must read

sci-fi with such great prose

it was a bit difficult to follow at first (but that may be because I'm not really used to audiobooks), but the story progressed quickly enough that my attention was grabbed! i loved following Lo Lobey on his journey of self-discovery - in that sense it is a coming-of-age and I'd recommend for teens (13+).
there is an ongoing theme of mythology in the story that pops up sometimes, that surprised me or made me laugh. the author has also cast this idea of mythology into the future, by writing my favourite character as an influencer basically. an ig gworl. they only make an appearance in the final chapters though. it was quite a ride! the scene of Lobey's first little solo battle was written almost like poetry! thank you to Stefan for reading this so well.

I'm confused...

...but I did enjoy this book. I wouldn't recommend it if you want a straight forward plot. What Delany does here, instead, is gradually take the reader through a very interesting reality without stopping very often to explain anything.
At the end there aren't many clear answers.
I think I'd like to look at a print version because I have some big questions about the book that are much harder to answer with an audio version.

Confusing

The author has some great ideas that are hugely diluted, or perhaps require a significant ancient literary background to appreciate.

Maybe this needs to be read..

There seems to be a mental groove that you’ve got to be in, to understand and enjoy this story. I could never find that groove.
I don’t know if it’s background knowledge or life experience or just what but, I didn’t have it.

A stylish piece

The characters in this book were drawn from ancient myth: Orpheus and Eurydice and Hades coming between the lovers, juxtaposed with a posthuman setting obsessed with history and somehow denying their origns. The mutant society makes distinctions between those who are more or less normal and those who are afflicted by the genetic afflictions which are prevalent in the aftermath of nuclear contamination, their main feature distinguishing them from people of our time being prehensile feet and toes. The main character is obsessed with with recovering the women he lost, possibly to death, which he blames on the demonic Kid Death, and consults various unusual beings on how to exact his revenge. He descends to the underworld, herds flying dragons, meets a world class celebrity beauty, and plays music for them on his combination flute-machete. There is a lot of dialogue in this book, most of it very stylized, and each each chapter is headed with epigrams going back to our own times. The author's emphasis is less upon a tight plot and much more on lyrical tone and settting. By the end I was not sure matters reached a real resolution or just stopped. The audiobook was well narrated by Stefan Rudnicki, who knows how to deliver the impression that something significant has happened without access to the details of what that something actually was.

A perfect gateway Delany

Short and dense and filled with perfect words for every concept explored and deployed. The world is dead. The human is a casing. Fingers on feet. And Ringo gets called Orpheus.