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TRITON

                                             August 29, 1989

                                             Originally a post to
  		                             rec.arts.sf-lovers

Samuel R Delany's
"Triton" (1976)      Later, a 1996 edition
                     was published using
                     the intended title:      Ah, the haunting music
                     "Trouble on Triton"      of pulp language...

                                              LOST_WORLDS_OF_UNKNOWN_TOMORROWS

                                              THE_SECRET_MASTERS_OF_DESTINY

"Triton" takes place in a very urban,
terraformed Triton that could almost
(but only almost) take place anywhere
in the solar system.

You should beware that Triton doesn't
follow the conventional conflict/resolution
structure of most fiction, so you may find
it somewhat disconcerting.

When I read it (back when I was around 17)
I felt like throwing it across the room a
few times, because the protagonist kept
persisting in being so screwed up.

Arguably, that's what the book is about:
even in a high tech world where anything
that technology can fix has been fixed,          A borrowed
people will still be fucked up and crazy.        insight from

The best stuff in Triton, I think is                 VILLON
Delany's skill at working out a detailed
vision of the future.  So, some random
details:

 o  The main character's profession: "metalogician".
    What's that? Applied metalogics, of course.

         (Manual labor has become a luxury of the wealthy.)

 o  Spy cameras are commonplace and ignored (everyone has some access
    to random images of themselves, ala the FOIA); there is no way
    anyone could have the time to view everything the cameras record.

 o  The sky is blotted out with a "sensory shield", that displays
    slowly changing colorful designs (shades of Dhalgren?).        DHALGREN

 o  Popular fiction is dominated by "Ice Operas" (apparently like
    Westerns about the early days on Triton's frontier).  The formula
    requires a scene where the main character masturbates while
    thinking about the love interest.

 o  There is a war on, but no one knows much of what it's about,
    nor is anyone's life really much effected by it.

 o  Not only is gender subject to easy technical modification, but
    so is sexual preference.


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