Samuel R. Delany 3 hr 22 min read

In a far-future empire ruled by a mad computer and a duel of psychic forces, ordinary people are the pawns caught in the fire.

Samuel R. Delany's 1963 novel (later revised as 'Out of the Dead City') opens his Fall of the Towers trilogy, an early work already glittering with the ambitious prose and complex world-building that would make him a giant. Vivid, poetic, densely imagined space opera. Read it for early Delany, a dazzling young talent building a strange and beautiful future.

In its time

Published in 1963, during the 1960s, new wave revolutionizes the genre.

Reading it

3 hr 22 min read (a novel-length work, settle in).