Samuel R. Delany Standalone Novels books in order

Reading order

Samuel R. Delany’s standalone novels cover more than five decades of work by one of science fiction’s most important and challenging writers. Delany won four Nebula Awards and two Hugo Awards, was inducted into the Science Fiction Hall of Fame, and received the American Academy of Arts and Letters Award. His fiction ranges from tightly plotted space opera to dense, experimental literary novels.

The early works are science fiction at its most inventive. The Ballad of Beta-2 (1965) is a short novel about a student researching an old spacefaring song. Babel-17 (1966) won the Nebula Award and builds its plot around the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis that language shapes thought. The Einstein Intersection (1967) also won the Nebula. Nova (1968) is a space opera about a quest for a rare element. Then came Dhalgren (1975), a massive, difficult novel set in a mysteriously ruined American city that sold over a million copies and divided readers and critics.

Later works include Stars in My Pocket Like Grains of Sand (1984), a far-future novel about information and desire; Dark Reflections (2007), a quiet literary novel about a poet’s life; and Through the Valley of the Nest of Spiders (2011), a long, explicit novel about a gay couple over sixty years. Delany’s work is not for every reader, but those who engage with it find fiction that pushes at the boundaries of what science fiction and literature can do.