Return to Nevèrÿon (series)
Eleven sword and sorcery tales set before history.
Return to Nevèrÿon is a series of ten sword and sorcery stories by Samuel R. Delany, released across four books from 1979 to 1987: *Tales of Nevèrÿon*, *Neveryóna, or: The Tale of Signs and Cities*, *Flight from Nevèrÿon*, and *Return to Nevèrÿon*. The stories take place before recorded history in the fictional land of Nevèrÿon, a name drawn from the aristocratic district of Neveryóna in the capital city Kolhari. In this setting, the dominant civilization has brown to black skin, while southern barbarian tribes have pale skin, yellow hair, and light eyes. Some racial mixing has occurred by the time the tales begin, but the barbarians were long enslaved by the brown-skinned culture, particularly for mining and agriculture, and in many places still are.
Though the stories feature different protagonists and foreground characters, they collectively trace the overarching history of a man named Gorgik the Liberator. The four volumes are published by Wesleyan University Press. The final book, *Return to Nevèrÿon* (1987), reprints the first tale at its end—not to emphasize the series’ cyclical nature, but to show how a second reading changes the story after one has read the intervening tales.
Several of the stories are novella or short-novel length: the seventh tale, "The Tale of Fog and Granite" (1984); the ninth, "The Tale of Plagues and Carnivals" (1984), a novella that was an early treatment of AIDS in fiction; the tenth, "The Game of Time and Pain" (1985); and the eleventh, "The Tale of Rumor and Desire" (1987). The sixth story, *Neveryóna, or: The Tale of Signs and Cities* (1981), is a full-length 380-page novel. The series also includes appendices and an overall introduction that blur into the fiction. The introduction to the first volume, *Tales of Nevèrÿon*, is supposedly written by a young black woman academic named "K. Leslie Steiner," who later appears as a character in the ninth tale. The first appendix to *Neveryóna* is an exchange of letters between a fictive character, S. L. Kermit (who also appears in "Plagues and Carnivals" and is the "author" of the appendix to *Tales of Nevèrÿon*), and Charles Hoequist, Jr., a real graduate student in linguistics at Yale University during the early 1980s when Delany was writing the stories.
In his 1977 introduction to Joanna Russ's *The Adventures of Alyx*, Delany wrote that sword and
- number_of_stories
- 10
Lore & Background
The eleven tales that make up Return to Nevèrÿon are set before the dawn of history. Nevèrÿon is the fictional land the stories are set in, a name derived from the aristocratic neighborhood of Neveryóna in the capital city Kolhari. The men and women of the reigning civilization have brown to black skin. Barbarian tribes live to the south: a people with pale skin, yellow hair, and light eyes. By the time the stories start, clearly some amount of racial mixing has occurred. But the barbarians were for many years the slaves of the dominant brown-skinned culture, especially for mining and agriculture – and in many places still are. Many of the stories have different protagonists, but all take part in recounting the history of Gorgik the Liberator.
The series includes novella-length tales such as 'The Tale of Fog and Granite' (1984), 'The Tale of Plagues and Carnivals' (1984), 'The Game of Time and Pain' (1985), and 'The Tale of Rumor and Desire' (1987). The sixth story, Neveryóna, or: The Tale of Signs and Cities (1981), is a full-length 380 page novel. Appendices and an overall introduction are fixed to the project, all with elements that make them part of the fiction. The introduction to the first volume is presumably written by a young black woman academic, 'K. Leslie Steiner', who turns out to be a character in the ninth tale. The first appendix to Neveryóna is an exchange of letters between a fictive character, S. L. Kermit, and Charles Hoequist, Jr., an actual graduate student in linguistics at Yale University.
Reader's Guide
Return to Nevèrÿon is significant as a sword and sorcery series that engages with critical theory, including the work of Jacques Lacan, and with the transition between barter and money economies. Delany connected the series to a larger project, 'Some Informal Remarks Toward the Modular Calculus', which includes his science fiction novel Trouble on Triton (1976) as a prologue. The series is notable for its self-critical structure: in Delany's words, 'the first story poses a problem and finally offers some solution. But in the next story what was the solution of the first story is now the problem.' This allows the writer to critique his own ideas as they develop. The series also includes the first novel-length treatment of AIDS from a major U.S. publisher, 'The Tale of Plagues and Carnivals' (1984). The stories are collected in four volumes put out by Wesleyan University Press. At the end of the fourth book, Return to Nevèrÿon (1996), the first tale is reprinted to highlight how different a second reading makes the story seem once one has read the intervening tales.
Did You Know?
- The series includes the first novel-length treatment of AIDS from a major U.S. publisher, 'The Tale of Plagues and Carnivals' (1984).
- The introduction to the first volume is written by a fictional academic, K. Leslie Steiner, who later appears as a character in the ninth tale.
- The series is connected to a larger project called 'Some Informal Remarks Toward the Modular Calculus', which includes the novel Trouble on Triton.
- Each story begins with an epigraph from a theoretical thinker.
More in Novels by Samuel Delany 1-24
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