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.

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.

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.

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.

Sci-fi like you've never heard before! Innovative.

That was unique and so different than any other sci-fi that I've ever read! It's a little weird how abstract, dream-like, and how experimental this fiction is and it's a little jarring. There's a definite story, but it can be a tad hard to follow only because there are some passages where the words flow out in a poetic and dream-like kind of manner so it can be hard to tell what's real in the world of the story.

I think it's all real in the world of the story but there's at least 2 or 3 passages that really push the limits... wow! So hard to describe because the author has really pushed the boundaries of the form in such a creative and interesting way.

There are MANY references to other texts, to the travel journal of the author, to poetry, to other stories, and to other texts at the beginning of chapter sections. The narrator does a great job of changing tone and inflection so these references don't confuse the narrative of the story too much... but it can still throw you off a tad (especially if you're getting really into the story at that moment).

I honestly wanted more or maybe wanted it to be longer or just wanted to better understand these aliens, understand their world, understand why and how they're different and maybe I don't need to... maybe the mystery and the confusion of only having the smallest peek into another time and another world is kind of the point. I'm sure the characters in the story feel the same kind of confusion and disconnect in relation to our culture and myths as I the reader feel about them. Fascinating!

The reading is great! This narrator is perfect for this story.

Does not work wellAs an audio book

The readings at the beginning of every chapter do not work well for an audio book and the story itself is written in a vague an inconclusive way