oh! samuel r delaney. he's a GENIUS. literally. absolutely brilliant.

probably a better writer than leguin. at least in an experimental stylistic way. with him it's very much about the writing, while with leguin it's more about the content/message and she just happens to be very very good at writing.

his masterwork is dhalgren. it's a huge tome of about 800 pages about a city cut off in space, time, and logic in the middle of america. fires burn indefinately without fuel or sound. the sun suddenly appears 1000 times it's normal size. two moons shine at night and then disappear. but people can wander in and sometimes out. but not all people. and inside some peoples experiences don't match up at all with others. time shifts, weeks are lost. it's an experiment in subjectivity gone wild. it's weeeeird. and not exactly science fiction.

he does have real science fiction though that is equally good but on a smaller scale. the jewels of aptor is very good. the ballad of beta-2 is very good, and also very anthropological. heh. babel-17 is very good and also very anthropological. nova. stars in my pockets like grains of sand. and also his short stories, like time considered as a helix of semi-precious stones. a good collection is called aye, and gomorrah.

incidentally he's gay and black. his neveryon series brings in the gay bit but is more "fantasy" than scifi. but it's not really fantasy. it's more of an imagined prehistory. and in that sense is also rather anthropological. prehistorical fiction in an imagined place that could have existed but isn't connected to any actual place.

i'll definately be on the lookout for changing planes and calvino!