They Fly at Ciron - Hardcover

Delany, Samuel R.

3.24

338 ratings by Goodreads

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0963363700 ISBN 13: 9780963363701

Publisher: Incunabula, 1993

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When a peaceful nation of well-organized peasants is overrun by the army of an expanding industrialized neighbour, the people of �iron must forge a pact with the strange and fearsome race of flying humans dwelling high above in the mountains.

In scenes of excellent bloodshed, the invaders are routed at the end – but the outcome is by no means obvious, despite the aid of a renegade invader, Lieutenant Kire, and, more significantly, of the winged people, regal, fierce, libidinous, leathery masters of the sky.

The gloriously strange fantasy world comes newly alive in Delany’s masterful prose – the setting was first used by him in 1962 in a short story. He nudges into the light many less than obvious truths about character. His unique talent for getting inside physical sensations and making them tangible with words, significant in shaping outlook, is much in evidence and ensures that the strategies employed by both sides in the bloody conflict are nailbitingly uncertain.

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Review:

"Bringing out "new" early Delany is the publishing equivalent of extracting dinosaur DNA from flies embedded in amber. Would that there were more!" --William Gibson""They Fly at ciron" is a delightful novel that would make an excellent introduction to its author's books...a body of work that remains the platinum standard by which other works of science fiction and fantasy should be measured. I was so drawn into it that I read the book in a single hungry sitting, and I imagine most readers will do the same..." "Science Fiction Eye""A tremendous story, a powerful plot, full of sex and warfare, beauty and wonder. It's got everything. You will like it." --Michael Swanwick"An intense rapid adventure...Delany's usual musicality and precision is here expressed in an urgent clean line, which reads to me as if this great artist is perhaps entering a new period or style." --Kim Stanley Robinson

From the Back Cover:

SURRENDER TO THE FORCES OF MYETRA!

A small pastoral village is invaded without warning by the armies of a distant empire sweeping across the world. Facing mortal danger for the first time in their history, the villagers must forge a pact with the strange and fearsome race of flying people dwelling high above in the mountains.

"'They Fly at Ciron' is vivid and succinct...the extraordinary clarity of detail that has always been his hallmark now serves the purpose of probing, mature, post-romantic mind busy investigating the nature of humanity, culture, nurture, nations and war"
LOCUS

"An extraordinarily satisfying experience"
NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW

"Vintage Delany in his finest fantasy mode"
URSULA K. LE GUIN

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