The Einstein Intersection by Samuel R. Delany

Hello, Stranger.

Let's talk about Samuel Delany's The Einstein Intersection.

The Short of It

Plot: Kid Death has taken Friza and it's up to Lo Lobey to stop him.

Page Count: 142

Award: 1967 Nebula

Worth a read: No
Primary Driver: (Plot, World, or Character)
Bechdel Test: Fail
Technobabble: Moderate
Review: A distant post-apocalyptic world (30,000 years in the future) with wildly inconsistent rules is for some reason still referring to the Beatles and Greek myths. Starring an uninteresting first person narrator who stumbles from one event to another.

The Medium of It

Spoiler Free!

Another one that is not remarkably bad but just completely forgettable.

Post-Apocalyptic Fiction Checklist:

• Radiation mutants
• Scary desert
• Giant lizards
• Abandoned talking computer
• Subterranean tunnels
• Misunderstanding pop culture references
• Mercenary capitalism
• New titles/societal order
• "We will remake the world better than before"

Hero-Goes-On-A-Journey Checklist

• Shepherd who happens to be an excellent hunter
• "You are... different"
• Trying to count the number of stories a building has and losing track
• Seeing a paved road for the first time
• "What is this horseless carriage?!"
• "You've got a lot to learn"
• "I learned a lot that day"
• "Join or die"
• "I will do anything for her"
• "I won't kill you this time"

I am quite certain that there are many more cliches here as well. Cliches can be fun; Half a King by Joe Abercrombie is one of the most middle-of-the-road, cliche-ridden books I've ever read, but it is quick and enjoyable. The Einstein Intersection does not have quick pacing and takes itself extremely seriously. Plenty of other excellent books have been built entirely upon well worn genre tropes. This is not one of them.

Lo Lobey, our narrator, is totally devoid of personality. A first person narrator needs to be engaging to carry a story, and he is not. Part of this is that his style of speech (as conveyed by his narration) is inconsistent; he has no clear voice. The two excerpts below are provided without context to avoid spoilers to show how varied Lobey's speech pattern can be.

...since I've been playing music I've been called all different kinds of fool-more times than Lobey, which is my name.

What I look like?

Ugly and grinning most of the time. 

This is how he speaks much of the book - a good number of sentence fragments, switching between short and run-on sentences, simple language. But every now and again something like this shows up:

Alone in her dark hands, I recognized the music.

Polyphonized and danced by strangers, it was the mourning song of the girl who shielded my eyes now, played for the garroted prince. 

Or consider these two descriptions:

I sprang to my feet and away from the telltale light. Motes cycloned in the slanting illumination where I had been. And the motes stilled.

And: 

My stomach felt like a loose bag of water sloshing around on top of my gut.

Those sentences come together, in that order, early on in the story. Lobey is all over the place with this. Perhaps we are supposed to think that he is remarkably intelligent, but the feeling is instead one of inconsistency, that there is no real character here at all. The illusion is shattered.

Personal pet peeve: books in the distant future that still use contemporary references. There is an offhand comment that one of the abandoned cities is probably 30,000 years old. People are still referring to Elvis, the Beatles, etc. Also using Greek myths as a normal point of comparison. It is very hard to feel like this is a real world.

Also, abuse of epigraphs. I counted 26 of them, I may have missed a few.

This was far better than the other Delany offering, but still not worth the time.

If, for some reason, you still want to read it, I'd be grateful if you used the link below. I'll get a few cents at no cost to you!

Lo Stranger, I am a link!

The Long of It

Spoilers Ahead!

There is not a whole lot more to say about this book; it is a room temperature cup of tea. Sure, I'll drink it, because for some reason it's on my desk. But I would never offer it to a guest.

That said, there is one exchange that I love, which showed a spark of creativity that was otherwise lacking.

Lobey is hanging off the edge of a cliff, and Kid Death approaches him. 

"Lobey," he said, shaking wet hair back from his forehead. "I judge you can hold on there twenty-seven minutes before you drop over the edge from exhaustion. So I'm going to wait twenty-six minutes before I do anything about saving your life. O.K.?"

There is so much in this one line. Kid Death has Lobey's full measure, he is ice cold and calculating, he has a sick sense of humor. It is a superb bit of dialogue in a sea of mediocrity. Reading this made me wish for the better version of this book, one where this was the writing style and quality of the whole as opposed to the part. Having also just read Babel-17 by the same author, it is remarkable how different the styles are. I do wonder if this was an intentional response - Babel-17 as a hyper-technical piece of work, this much simpler. 

Alas, it does not work.

Admire the cover art, acknowledge that Kid Death has one great line, and move on.

That's all for this one, Stranger.

And don't forget to read a book!