Flight from Nevèrÿon

Book excerpt: Two novellas and a full-length novel set in the land at the limit of history: “The tales of Nevèrÿon are postmodern sword-and-sorcery” (The Washington Post Book World). In The Tale of Plagues and Carnivals, a disease has come to Nevèrÿon. Men, rich and poor, have been stricken with it—but far fewer women. More and more die, and no one recovers. The illness seems to have first come from the Bridge of Lost Desire, a hangout for prostitutes male and female, but its spread through the city has been terrifying. And it will change Nevèrÿon forever, both its sexual and its political landscape. Written in 1984, The Tale of Plagues and Carnivals is an astute fictionalization of New York City in the first two years of the AIDS crisis. Interwoven with the ancient story are Samuel R. Delany’s modern accounts of what went on in the meanest streets of Gotham during that time. This wholly original novel (the first novel about AIDS from a major American publisher) is presented along with two other stories about mummers, prostitutes, and street people in the fantastic land of Nevèrÿon and its capital, port Kolhari—an ancient city that becomes more and more modern with each story. This ebook features an illustrated biography of Samuel R. Delany including rare images from his early career.