The Fall of the Towers

The Fall of the Towers #1-3

by Samuel R. Delany, Kelly Freas (Illustrator)

The Empire of Toromon was the last hope and refuge of mankind. Sealed off from the charred, radioactive wastlelands by the radiation barrier, the Empire survived to face new adversaries deadlier even than the Great Fire. The Lord of the Flames, a force of evil devoid of physical substance. The berserk computer which guided the Empire's military complex. And an alien intelligence which crossed the abyss of space in search of new worlds to conquer

Come and enter Samuel Delany's tomorow, in this trilogy of high adventure, with acrobats and urchins, criminals and courtiers, fishermen and factory-workers, madmen and mind-readers, dwarves and ducheses, giants and geniuses, merchants and mathematicians, soldiers and scholars, pirates and poets, and a gallery of aliens who fly, crawl, burrow, or swim.

Genres: Science Fiction, Fiction, Fantasy, Speculative Fiction, Science Fiction Fantasy, Novels, Post Apocalyptic

413 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published January 1, 1970

About the author

Samuel Ray Delany, also known as "Chip," is an award-winning American science fiction author. He was born to a prominent black family on April 1, 1942, and raised in Harlem. His mother, Margaret Carey Boyd Delany, was a library clerk in the New York Public Library system. His father, Samuel Ray Delany, Senior, ran a successful Harlem undertaking establishment, Levy & Delany Funeral Home, on 7th Avenue, between 1938 and his death in 1960. The family lived in the top two floors of the three-story private house between five- and six-story Harlem apartment buildings. Delany's aunts were Sadie and Bessie Delany; Delany used some of their adventures as the basis for the adventures of his characters Elsie and Corry in the opening novella Atlantis: Model 1924 in his book of largely autobiographical stories Atlantis: Three Tales.

Delany attended the Dalton School and the Bronx High School of Science, during which he was selected to attend Camp Rising Sun, the Louis August Jonas Foundation's international summer scholarship program. Delany and poet Marilyn Hacker met in high school, and were married in 1961. Their marriage lasted nineteen years. They had a daughter, Iva Hacker-Delany (b. 1974), who spent a decade working in theater in New York City.

Delany was a published science fiction author by the age of 20. He published nine well-regarded science fiction novels between 1962 and 1968, as well as several prize-winning short stories (collected in Driftglass [1971] and more recently in Aye, and Gomorrah, and other stories [2002]). His eleventh and most popular novel, Dhalgren, was published in 1975. His main literary project through the late 1970s and 1980s was the Return to Nevèrÿon series, the overall title of the four volumes and also the title of the fourth and final book.

Delany has published several autobiographical/semi-autobiographical accounts of his life as a black, gay, and highly dyslexic writer, including his Hugo award winning autobiography, The Motion of Light in Water.

Since 1988, Delany has been a professor at several universities. This includes eleven years as a professor of comparative literature at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, a year and a half as an English professor at the University at Buffalo. He then moved to the English Department of Temple University in 2001, where he has been teaching since. He has had several visiting guest professorships before and during these same years. He has also published several books of criticism, interviews, and essays. In one of his non-fiction books, Times Square Red, Times Square Blue (1999), he draws on personal experience to examine the relationship between the effort to redevelop Times Square and the public sex lives of working-class men, gay and straight, in New York City.

In 2007, Delany was the subject of a documentary film, The Polymath, or, The Life and Opinions of Samuel R. Delany, Gentleman. The film debuted on April 25 at the 2007 Tribeca Film Festival.

Reviews

[Karl]

There are three volumes, entitled:

V1 - "Out of the Dead City"
V2 - "The Towers of Toron'
v3 - "City of a Thousand Suns"

V1 is signed by Samuel R. Delany
David Ho
Michael Swanwick

This is copy number 40 of the 300 signed and numbered set.

[Kara Babcock · Rating 2 out of 5]

Sunday, the beginning of my week off at the end of the summer. What better way to start it off than with a golden oldie? As with many authors, I’ve been gradually collecting any Samuel R. Delany books that show up at the used bookstore in town, and I haven’t read any for a while. So I picked up The Fall of the Towers, an omnibus of a trilogy that Delany wrote in his early twenties. This is far from “peak Delany” and nowhere near as good as Triton or, my personal fave, Stars in My Pocket Like Grains of Sand . Yet precursors of the themes and motifs he explores more confidently and deeply in those books show up in this trilogy … and it’s a lot of fun. This is about as “beach read” as SF can get while still being thinky, and that is a tough balance to achieve.

The Fall of the Towers takes place in the empire of Toromon. Five hundred years after the Great Fire, Toromon is the only known human habitation left on Earth. It’s isolated from the rest of the planet by impassable radiation belts. There is an uneven distribution of technology, with an aristocracy in control but a merchant class starting to rival the aristocrats. Interestingly, as Toromon reclaims the technological innovations of its ancestors, its constrained economy can’t keep up. In the face of these pressures, some people in power think it’s best for Toromon to go to war—so they conjure up an enemy “beyond the barrier” and get very creative when it comes to fighting this false war.

Delany’s cast is as interesting as it is diverse. Jon Koshar, our initial protagonist, is a somewhat stereotypical masculine hero, but this characterization is buoyed by the way he changes and relies on his allies. These include two prominent women: Petra, a Duchess far more capable than the King of Toron and mastermind of a scheme to kidnap the heir apparent so he’ll grow up in a more formative environment; and Clea, an up-and-coming brilliant young mathematician, who is also Jon’s sister. There’s also Arkor, a member of the forest giants, a race of humanity mutated by exposure to radiation in such a way that they are taller, stronger, and occasionally telepathic. Together, these people must fight off the “Lord of the Flames”, a non-corporeal being from another universe essentially causing trouble and destabilizing Toromonian society. Although they get a little assistance from the “Triple Being” (another non-corporeal but apparently more benevolent entity, and no, I didn’t miss the Christian symbolism to all this) to root out the Lord of the Flames, they are largely on their own when it comes to addressing the social problems its visit has amplified.

I want to say that reading this reminds me of Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon and all the other zany, improbable, “high fantasy in space” productions of the 1940s and 1950s. Certainly this is a book heavily influenced by the zeitgeist of late 1950s science fiction: the spectre of atomic apocalypse, near-magical appliances and labour-saving devices, but with computers still envisioned as bulky, specialized equipment. There is an element of adventure and romance to this book, but by and large it’s social commentary.

Out of the Dead City depicts a corrupt aristocracy high on itself in the days before a war. The rulers on Toron have little concern for the lower classes or the people who live on the mainland. To the masterminds behind the war, these people are simply statistics: too many here, not enough there, production up or down in different places. There is a sense of calculation to this, emphasized more in The Towers of Toron, where Jon et al finally reveal the war as a sham. Yet even once they find themselves in a position of effecting meaningful change in Toromon, they are somewhat hesitant.

Thus, Delany defies the traditional hero narrative in which an exiled prince shows up, takes the throne, and it’s suddenly the good old days. It is much harder than that. Stopping the war pretty much has the opposite effect from what was intended, as the method that our protagonists use also gives everyone a brief glimpse of the horrible disconnection we suffer from each other. City of a Thousand Suns, probably the weakest of the three novels in terms of plot and writing both, features an entire empire basically attempting to recover from one hell of a collective hangover. As we revisit characters seen (or even just mentioned) in the first two novels, the protagonists have to stop the Lord of the Flames one last time, even as an evil computer threatens the safety of Toron.

If it sounds a bit hokey, that’s because it is. Lots of this book is pure, grade A cheese. The Lord of the Flames/Triple Being plot forms a convenient narrative thread throughout the novels, but it’s really just an excuse to bring these disparate characters together. Entirely too-contrived coincidences show how minor characters’ lives keep intersecting the main narrative. Some of this might be Delany trying to be clever, but I think mostly it’s a way to frame The Fall of the Towers as a kind of science-fiction fairytale or quest story. There’s just the tiniest resemblance to The Dying Earth here—I have no idea if that’s intentional or not, but that’s probably the closest comparison I can come to. This is a type of science fiction that doesn’t so much eschew magic as relabel it into “science” without actually making it scientific; this is a book that comes from a time before marketing decided to cleave SF&F into “science fiction” and “fantasy”. Although there have always been authors who straddled, moved between, or reunited these genres on their own, it is nice to see a book that is a product of a time when this was more common and conceivable.

The Fall of the Towers, then, is fun because of its age and its context. It has a lot of interesting but perhaps not groundbreaking thoughts on war and social order and life—the kind of grandiose stuff you’d write about if you’re a smart(ass) twenty-something like Samuel R. Delany was when he wrote this. I wouldn’t recommend you rush out to find a copy any time soon, but if you happen to see one lying around one day and need something to read, I think you might just like it.

[Rhys · Rating 4 out of 5]

All Delany is good. This trilogy is one of the weakest of his creations and yet it is still enjoyable, worthwhile and relevant. Delany's strengths are his lyrical voice, his luminous imagery, his understanding (which he had decades before most other science fiction writers) that the imagining of future social changes is at least as important to the genre as speculating on technological progress. I also admire his characterisation: his protagonists are generally nice people, curious about the world around them, talented and artistic, and open minded.

I have owned this omnibus edition of the trilogy since my late teens but I only got round to reading it in recent weeks. Sometimes the books we own must wait 30+ years before we turn our attention to them. The story is a dystopian adventure but done Delany-style, with poets, artists, mathematicians, and several variants of the basic human being. There are plots and wars and extraterrestrial threats. The final quarter of the third volume changes into something that doesn't really resemble what has gone before. But all in all I am glad I finally read this volume.

[Tomislav · Rating 3 out of 5]

The book here is the omnibus edition of three Chip Delany science fantasy novels that form a trilogy – Out of the Dead City (also known as Captives Of The Flame) (1963), The Towers of Toron (1964), and City of a Thousand Suns (1965). According to the author’s note, he made minor revisions for the 1966 British editions, which are included in the 1970 omnibus re-publication.

Out of the Dead City (also known as Captives of the Flame) – 30 December 2024. So, wow, even in this early writing, the tension of Delany’s plot was driven by the reader’s need to resolve ambiguous settings and events. In this case, the setting is most likely a post-holocaust Earth, similar to but distinct from that of Delany’s The Jewels of Aptor. The Toromon Empire consists of the island capital of Toron and some settled mainland that ends at a deadly radiation barrier – where the abandoned city of Telphar still lies. In this world, Jon Koshar has escaped from five years hard labor in a mining camp, under the influence of a mysterious guiding personality. It seems that the coming war between Toromon and the something that is behind the radiation barrier is just a façade for the coming conflict between hidden alien powers from another universe. Near the end, the boundaries between universes break down, as Jon is allied with a few others also under influence of the alien powers. Even as the war ends, much of the setting is left unresolved for the next book. Rating 3/5.

The Towers of Toron – 11 January 2025. A few pages in, Delany has Professor Chatham expound an infodump on some of the primary world-building mysteries that drove Captives of the Flame – but not all. I mean why and how does Jon Koshar’s secretive invisibility work, anyway? In this second novel, the narrative alternates between several plot threads involving a large cast of characters. Jon, Duchess Petra, and Arkor pursue an agenda of the transcendent Triple-Being against the likewise transcendent Lord of the Flames (some heavy-handed symbolism there?) Interspersed with that thread are some parallel stories of the same conflict taking place among other alien worlds. Prince Let is kidnapped to live in the forest among the Guardians. Tel and several Guardians and Neo-neanderthals become soldiers in the war against the not-well understood “enemy beyond the barrier.” And Alter and Jon’s sister Clea join a circus. One theme being that war is a psychotic fantasy, and setting the stage for a more direct conflict between the transcendent beings through their human actors. Rating 4/5.

City of A Thousand Suns – 13 January 2025. This third volume of the Fall of the Towers trilogy was unexpectedly detached from the earlier volumes. Oh, the Triple-Being and Lord of the Flames are still there, but mostly serve as narrative assistance to explain to the reader what has previously taken place. Conveniently, the community headed up by the Triple-Being abruptly decides to take a totally hands-off approach to events on Earth until about 10 pages from the end. If I hadn’t been told, I would have no idea which characters were “inhabited” at which times by which transcendent beings. However, as always, Delany’s descriptive prose is imaginative and stimulating. The surprisingly violent events are described evocatively. In his love for language, he goes so far as to write didactic passages that address how science, history, and poetry are written in relationship to their audience. And yet, at the same time, as I have seen in some of Delany’s later works (Babel-17), his notions of technology generally and computers specifically are ludicrously primitive - as if they could be human characters capable of the afflictions of abnormal human psychology. While this did wrap up most of the long-standing plot issues in its offhand way, it did not live up to the promise of the opening of the trilogy for me. The philosophical musings seemed air-dropped onto the ending. Rating 2/5.

[Jenny (Reading Envy)]

May read some day. Will be donating my copy because my brain hates mass market paperbacks.

[Michael Battaglia · Rating 5 out of 5]

Working backwards with Samuel Delany can be an interesting affair, as so much of his later science-fiction (or novels in general) is so infused with theoretical underpinnings that it's almost a pleasant revelation that he could write a story without having the plot become hijacked because he's in hurry to get to the essay at the back explaining how everything you've previously read was an exercise in his new literary theory of applied semiotics. Not that his earlier works were devoid of ideas beyond Ray Gun Man fighting Bug Aliens . . . "Babel-17" has to do with the nature of language and I'm pretty sure "The Einstein Intersection" has a rollicking good time with Jungian archetypes, but you can probably argue at some point that he started to trade the entertainment value of a story in exchange for being able to craft it into the delivery system for a series of increasingly abstract ideas (in that light, the novels focusing on sexuality are almost a welcome relief . . . it may not always be a conclusion I agree with or even find as fascinating as he does, but at least I can understand it without having to hunt down another book on literary theory). I think science-fiction is better off for having works like "Dhalgren" existing, but if everything was like that from the start then I'm not sure how much attention he would have received.

In that light, "The Fall of the Towers" is a slightly revised omnibus of three novels that he did in the early sixties, presenting a trilogy about an empire on a future Earth that is engaged in a war that nobody seems to really understand. The enemy isn't quite seen and there are areas that people can't go into due to radiation and back home people are getting conflicting reports of what's really happening out there, to the point where some people start to wonder if they should perhaps do something about all of this.

That's the view the first book ("Out of the Dead City", but that's the rewritten title, the original was "Captives of the Flame") takes, introducing a bunch of characters from various walks of life in this future society that we'll be seeing extensively later. It depicts a society that's pretty convinced its in a war and is possibly starting to question whether that war is even worth it. There's an appealing strangeness to it, as Delany focuses on a rather diverse group of people living at every level of society, from the Duchess who wants to kidnap a prince, to a mathematician with a rebellious brother and her soldier fiancee, to the giant Neanderthal telepaths that exist at the fringes. The exuberant verve that Delany was known for early on is clearly present and even if a lot of it comes across as rather standard SF for the time, it's well written SF with a sense of style. And if the whole thing seems to turn into a rather stoned take on Doc Smith's "Lensman" series toward the end (all the "Lord of the Flame" stuff that carries through the entire trilogy) its pretty clear that he's still trying to figure this stuff out.

Yet while the first book flirts with the styles and ideas he would eventually be later known for (at one moment there seems to be a tease that the Neanderthal and the prince are going to have a relationship like the ones we see in "Neveryon") once you get partway through "The Towers of Toron" you can basically mark the moment where Chip Delany becomes once and for all Samuel R Delany. We're taken inside the war and like anyone else inside a war the whole thing seems very strange and claustrophobic, while everyone else stuck on the outside can't figure out why they're unable to see in. The scenes with the soldiers feel like the moments that he was most inspired by and while this isn't "Starship Troopers" once we're taken inside the book really doesn't start to let up, become a harrowing and confusing series of events that feels like both hallucination and commentary. As soon as everyone starts watching videos and receiving training you have a feeling that something bad is about to happen and that sense of unease permeates the novel. He doubles down on his views of a collapsing society collapsing further, with barely contained chaos happening at the edges and the few people who believe themselves capable of stopping it might either not be strong enough or completely delusional. And if the revelation that comes at the climax doesn't come as a surprise to anyone who has read fifty years of SF in its wake, that's not something you can really hold against the book.

And by the time we reach "City of a Thousand Suns" Delany is in full flight, not quite reaching the heights of his early classics but showing the potential that existed for them. His prose has sharpened into something more glittering and while some of the plot momentum has been replaced by the shower of abstract ideas there's still somewhat of a balance, with a flair of seemingly offhand yet striking phrases (the most notable the business card worthy "You are trapped in that bright moment where you learned your doom") and a real sense that we're in a place that's only tangentially connected to the world we know, a future that can be extrapolated from ours and still seem very alien, where even the poetry has a flavor to it that we can't quite relate to. It's the view from the bottom of the collapse, where the only real way to go is up and its only fitting that the best way to escape from that is to through the joys of mathematics as people have to relearn how to connect to themselves again and society as a whole. It loses a little bit of the humanity that had infused at the very least the second book, delving into more of the Lord of the Flame stuff and transferring the war from the idea of combat to a more abstract conflict over ideas, appealing more to the intellect than the emotions. But it's a route that Delany would later refine (and quite possibly peak with "Dhalgren", although that's a nice a convergence of the intellect and raw sexuality, a combination he wouldn't be as successful with in other works) into a style that was uniquely his, for all its values and faults. Like any early works these ones are raw, even with some rewriting to polish them, but you get the benefit of when Delany was forced to write in a much zippier style (three books in four hundred pages!) and the underlying joy of an author who's just realized that he can do whatever the heck he wants, and unbound by any notion of what a novel by him is supposed to be like, can't wait to try them all at once.

[Becky · Rating 5 out of 5]

The singular feeling of reading Delany ❤️

[Michael · Rating 3 out of 5]

It can be unsettling to go back to the early writings of one of your favorite authors and realize that at one time he or she was nowhere near as unique or original as in later years. This book, while showing promise in a few places, is simply not the kind of brilliant experimental and lyrical work that I expect from Delany. It’s a fairly conventional adventure story, which leans on several sci fi clichés to tell a classic quest and battle of cosmic Good against Evil. For some reason, Delany felt the need to divide it into three distinct novellas, which apparently is how it was first published, although by current standards at just over 400 pages it barely counts as a novel anymore.

The adventure follows the exploits of Jon Koshar, an escaped prisoner from the noble classes of a post-nuclear-apocalyptic feudal society, in his alliance with an alien “Triple Being” that is attempting to prevent something called The Lord of the Flames from waging war against our Universe (the Christian allegory is unexpected from Delany, therefore interesting, but it’s not especially well-handled). Along the way, Delany introduces a number of other interesting characters, including neo-Neanderthals (throwbacks in human evolution, due to the radiation), telepathic Forest Guards (advances in human evolution, due to the radiation), Alter the circus acrobat, Prince Tel who is raised among the Forest Guards, a fisherman’s son named Let who dies in a meaningless war, the brilliant mathematician Clea, Jon’s sister and the one person able to see through the war, and Vol Nonik, a malcontent poet who loses his greatest love in a meaningless act of revenge.

It’s disappointing that the major romance, between Alter and Jon, is completely conventional and heterosexual. Still, you can see little hints of Delany peeking through at times. Both the neo-Neanderthals and the Forest Guards seem to describe different aspects of his sexual preferences (there are no females of either species described). Prince Let spends a lot of time in the woods with a male Forest Guard guide, although no explicit affection is described between them. The final chapter brings us increasingly into the mind of the poet, which allows for a slightly more experimental writing structure. Even the scene in which Alter first shows Tel how to do some simple acrobatic moves on a horizontal bar struck me as quintessentially Delanian, though it’s hard to say exactly why – most writers wouldn’t have bothered with the scene, and if they did, they wouldn’t have gotten the flavor of it quite right.

All of which is to say that I did get some enjoyment out of the book, but I wouldn’t recommend it as a starting point for someone just discovering Delany, or for anyone expecting his later levels of greatness.

[J. · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm taken aback by this book, to be honest. I'm not sure what to do with a book that is and at the same time isn't very Delany.
I will say, though, as an American, reading a book about "towers" falling in a post-9/11 world lends entirely new layers to the book, especially it's clear class-warfare and pragmatism-vs.-art messages.
As many have talked about, though, the "triple being" vs. The Lord Of The Flames nakedly Christian allegory is bizarre from an author who spends so much of his later career dismantling such good vs. evil trappings in narrative. I want to attribute it to this work being so early in Delany's career, but that seems like it might be low-hanging fruit.
Delany is also famous for queening relationships between characters, but there's nothing here except straightforward heterosexual monogamy with all the usual (for other writers) distancing between male friendships.
I have to be honest, again, and say that I do not understand Tel's reason for joining the military in book 2. I see that it furthers the plot well, but I don't see what a character running from an abusive father would join a heavily patriarchal institution which would duplicate that same abusive father. That confusion pulled me out of the second book almost entirely. That twist re: the "war," though it pre-figures "The Matrix" in some cool ways (and is a chillingly prescient comment-in-advance about our own post-towers-falling American war/propaganda culture machine), makes no real sense, either. The reveal for me was much more "Huh?" than "Aha!"
In the end, a deeply flawed trilogy of novellas that combine to make a deeply flawed book filled to the gills with big ideas but not much connecting them.

[Skjam! · Rating 3 out of 5]

Five hundred years after the old civilizations perished in the Great Fire, the Toromon Empire occupies all the known livable space on Earth. But they are hemmed in by deadly radioactive belts and there’s nowhere for it to grow. And yet–and yet, the Empire is not alone and there is something beyond the barrier…is it the enemy the Toromon government claims?

This science fiction trilogy is an early work by noted author Samuel R. Delany. I have previously reviewed the first part, Out of the Dead City and it would be best if you read that review first. To briefly recap, escaped prisoner Jon Koshar, the Duchess of Petra, and scarred giant Arkor are contacted by a disembodied intelligence called the Triple Being to battle another disembodied intelligence, The Lord of the Flames, which is interfering with humanity. This is set against a backdrop of the Empire preparing for war with its unknown enemy.

The Towers of Toron: It has been three years since the climax of the previous volume. The war with the enemy beyond the barrier is in full swing, although it is impossible to tell how well it is doing, as none of the soldiers ever return. The Lord of the Flames has returned to Earth, and must be rooted out again regardless of the cost.

The emphasis shifts somewhat in this volume, with two previously minor characters taking on new importance. Clea Koshar, physicist and math genius (and Jon’s sister) is in hiding. She is suffering what we would now call PTSD due to her war work, and is triggered by a common patriotic phrase, so has holed up in a boarding house under an assumed name and tries to avoid interacting with anyone. Towards the end of the book, she begins to heal with the aid of circus acrobat Alter.

Runaway fisherman’s son Tel joins the army and is sent into the war. Anyone who’s ever been through basic training (and quite a few who haven’t) will recognize that the training sequences don’t make any sense–which is only the first clue that something is very wrong here. Once Tel is in the war itself, it turns out to be a murky affair, mists constantly concealing everything even a few feet away, constantly repairing machinery of unclear purpose, and random lethal attacks by an enemy that is never actually seen.

While banishing The Lord of the Flames is a necessary thing, it is not sufficient to stop the war. That will take an unprecedented act of communication and understanding.

The City of a Thousand Suns: A month after the events of the previous book, the war appears to be over, but one of the participants hasn’t put down their arms, and the consequences of the war are coming home to the island of Toron, where the Toromon Empire is centered.

On another front, actions taken by the Triple Being earlier in the trilogy have left their agents susceptible to influence by The Lord of the Flames, which is starting its endgame, to learn how to make war against the universe. The Earthlings must finish their final mission without the direct aid of their sponsors. That mission: collect three books that represent the finest thinking of humankind.

One of the authors comes directly on stage for the first time in the trilogy: poet Vol Nonik. He’s finally gotten out of the street gang he was in, but former rival gang leader Jeof still holds a grudge. He and his minions attack Vol and his artist wife Renna, crippling the poet and murdering the woman. This tips Vol Nonik over the edge into despair..which is good for his poetry…maybe? He’s not so sure.

This volume is heavy on the Big Ideas as it wraps up the themes of the trilogy. Creating new perceptions by forcibly moving a person from one setting to another, the question of whether it’s better to fix sick social systems or just let them go smash, and of course, the meaning of life. One of the recurring images is the gambling game Randomax, which appears as random as the name suggests, but is actually easily manipulated by those with higher math skills.

There’s more sexism as the trilogy continues, less, I think, from the author himself than from the social assumptions he’s working with. There’s also a fair amount of “fantastic racism” as prejudice against the Neo-Neanderthals and the gigantic forest guards comes up every so often, and within the forest guard culture, how they treat their telepathic minority.

The closing chapters become clumsy, with hallucinatory paragraphs meant to show a poet plunging into suicidal madness, and a huge infodump by the Triple Being to explain what The Lord of the Flames really is and how it was working behind the scenes of the final book. The Lord never becomes a character in its own right, and we will just have to accept the Being’s word that it is no longer a threat.

But then there is the city of a thousand suns, and perhaps there is hope for the future after all.

Recommended for Delany fans and those interested in the roots of New Wave science fiction.

[Joe · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is very difficult to review, largely due to the fact that each of the three volumes reads so differently. The first volume is a mostly-typical sci-fi adventure, written with typically great prose from Delany. There are some really cool ideas that lay groundwork for what he had planned in the last volume, but most of the exciting ideas are glossed over. There are aliens and battles between factions on a far-future Earth, and it's all generally good.

The second volume reads like an anti-war novella, and there is a lot of imagery that echoes stories told of the Vietnam War experience (makes sense, given that this was written at the height of the conflict). Delany also goes more deeply into his ideas on politics and the human condition (Delany will never be accused of not being "deep"). Stuff gets pretty heady in this book, and I this is where everything started to interest me more. The story of Tel and his war experience was genuinely heartbreaking, as is the grand reveal at the end of this volume.

Volume 3 is where everything goes a bit bonkers, and readers will either get very frustrated or love it. I LOVED IT! Shit gets so weird, and all the build-up of the first 2 volumes pays off, as characters that we thought were throwaways become major players, and the 4 main characters fight for the survival of their entire species. It's definitely a little messy, but the writing is so consistently beautiful that it's easy to forgive the flaws in plotting. There is a little more exposition than I like in the climax of the book, but I don't know that I would have been able to piece everything together without the help (I don't know if I pieced it all together anyways, but whatever). The generally bleak narrative becomes almost oppressive, and then Delany is able to turn everything on its head and leave the reader with hope.

Overall, I'm very glad I read this. It's a little sloppy, but there are so many great characters (Arkor, Let, Alter, Tel, Koshar, Nonik) and beautiful passages that make it worth reading. I would not recommend reading this until reading a few other of Delany's books, particularly the short stories, and Babel-17. I'd read it before Dhalgren though, since a lot of the ideas come up again in Dhalgren, and I think it's best to wait to read that until you have a good background with what makes Delany tick.

[Jacob · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have been a fan of Delany's for about 2 years now, since I first read what is widely considered his magnum opus. Dhalgren, that work, is the first I read from Delany. Looking back, I wish I had read Dhalgren and the Fall novels more closely together because now several years down the line I have found several suspicions regarding Dhalgren to have some basis.

Namely, Dhalgren has a gnostic or alchemical streak which is intimated at and remains an esoteric gesturing. In City of a Thousand Suns, that gesture is instead more violent- Delany seems to reach out and grab the reader by the shoulders, shaking them. I think that this is more a function of when the novels were written: the trilogy being much earlier and presumably at a weaker point in Delany's craft and Dhalgren being written at a later point and, having read much of his work, I would say embodies the high point of his career.

Having just finished the Fall novels, I find my thoughts regarding this "alchemical streak" still in an embryonic stage and I feel will take several more readings of the trilogy to more firmly elucidate- I've read Dhalgren three times and only on the last did I manage to grasp some of the finer points which had earlier remained hazy.

[Akiva · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is early Delaney and it shows (well technically it is a short trilogy packaged in one volume, but he plotted them together and wrote them in quick succession). It's set on an earth that has rebuilt itself into a small empire following a nuclear war, essentially making the setting a science fantasy world of aristocracies, power blades, and a weird alien consciousness always written in italics called The Lord of the Flames.

The pacing is weird and many of the events end up resolving anticlimactically or off stage. Some of the science fiction elements are pretty hokey, and serve the plot without really adding to it. There are some revelations that should be horrifying, but somehow fall flat.

That said, there are some obvious signs of the talent that shows itself in Delaney's other books. Some of the prose is quite beautiful and there's a certain amount of perceptive commentary and discussion on the nature of societies and history.

Overall, a decent book, but not up to say Nova, which came out soon after and also has a hokey science fiction premise, but is gorgeous and precise.

[Stacey D. · Rating 3 out of 5]

Whoosh. Right over my head! Yes, that's what happens when I read Mr. Delany's brilliant works, filled with deep philosophical thought on life and art. Amazingly, Delany penned The Fall of the Towers in 1964 at the tender age of 22. I was really floored by many of the futuristic flourishes that Delany included nearly 50 years ago: retina scanning, fingerprint-lock recognition, phone tele-viewing and of course, uber-sophisticated computer technology. Lots of great characters that are human, animal, robotic and/or a combination of those traits. It's ultimately a tale of a few good folks who strike out to save the land of Toromon from evil forces led by The Lord of the Flames.

I was captivated by Delany's writing when I first read the fantastic Dhalgren many years ago. I look forward to reading more of his epic works such as Tales from Neveryon, Babel-17, Stars in My Pocket and Nova later this year.

[Genevieve · Rating 4 out of 5]

Samuel R. Delany keeps blowing my mind, and all I've read so far is his early stuff--practically juvenilia. I can't wait to get my hands on some of the later works. This trilogy is peculiar in having a pretty straightforward adventure-story plot, with telepaths and aliens and a kingdom at war, but not being written at all like a summary of its plot would suggest, not moving according to any of the expected beats. It's not without flaws, but ... the writing! so good! It's evocative and beautiful and weird. I think the best way to go into it is probably as I did--without any idea what the plot is about.

[Seth Tisue · Rating 4 out of 5]

I ended up having more affection than I expected for this wild mess. Much of book one feels stiff and schematic, but later the characters became real to me, and the quality of the writing keeps improving as the trilogy progresses. The forest scenes in book two are vivid and memorable. Then, in book three (and intermittently along the way), the young writer pulls out all the stops and does his best to blow your mind with all the poetry and profundity he can summon, and then some. Does it work? Not really! Did I mind? No! Three stars for quality (after the first third), fourth star for sheer headlong ambition.

[Guido Eekhaut · Rating 4 out of 5]

Written more than 60 years ago, this book still entertains, thanks to Delany's temperament and creativity. Some of it may seem dated to new readers, because Delany had such an influence on later writers.

[Maria Zakruchenko · Rating 5 out of 5]

Так же прекрасно, как было в детстве.

[Roxane · Rating 3 out of 5]

The galaxy suffered from a great fire centuries before, which caused the destruction of the transfering device (I've read this in French so I don't know the exact term used in English for this) humans' only access to the stars, cutting off all the planets from one another. At the planets' surface, the great fire also caused the emergence of a barrier of radiations which prevents humans from settling beyond a certain point.
The Empire of Toromon on Earth has therefore been forced to grow and develop isolated for several centuries; cut off from part of its own continent by the radiations and cutt off from the rest of the galaxy. But lately, the barrier of radiations has expanded and the dead city of Telphar is now beyond human reach. Toron's government sees this, as well as the shooting down of several of its aircrafts on recognition missions as the act of an invisible enemy... invisible and unknown enemy upon which it decides to declare war.
In this political, economical and technological mess, lifetime-sentenced Jon Koshar manages to escape from the mines of tetron and makes his way back to Toron. Trouble is, no one has ever managed to escape the terrible guardians of the forest (once again, not sure the translation is correct). The thing is, Jon's not exactly alone and free. He's been contacted by an extraterrestrial triple life form and so have two other humans. This triple being warns them of the intrusion of the Lord of the Flames in their world.
Is the Lord of the Flames responsible for the expansion of the radiations? Who are the other two humans selected by the triple being and how is Jon with their help supposed to counteract the irresponsible actions of his government?

While I've taken my time reading this trilogy (yeah... two weeks. Hey, I've been busy, 'k?), I must say that I've greatly enjoyed this space opera. The intervention of two extraterrestrial life forms never draws the reader's attention away from Delany's first concern, human reactions and interactions. Supported by strong characterization, Delany introduces us to a world full of diversity (the radiations have had some interesting effects on parts of the human population).

The only thing that bothered me at times were the transitions and the conveniency of some situations... this may be because none of the books are very long (count about 500 pages for the whole trilogy). Some things just happened too quickly in my taste, decision taking, change of minds that I would've liked to have a little bit more time and pages to consider and understand... but maybe I'm just slow on the uptake... but like I said, this was one of his earlier pieces of work... some young writers have done far worse and let's not give out names ;-). Same went for certain situations, for example Jon and Alter witness an explosion and they decide to alert Arkor and Petra about it. They take refuge into some kind of bar and ta-da here come Arkor and Petra in the very same bar, saying they know about the explosion and want Jon and Alter to go on some sort of expedition... there were similar types of shortcuts throughout the book, nothing big, but without them, the plot would have appeared more solid and real.

There are plenty more things that I could say on this trilogy though... invisible enemy, unjustified war... does it ring any bell? While this was probably written to criticize the Vietnam War, it can easily be applied to current war in Irak. I'll also say fall of towers? *ahem* where have I heard that before? Ok, so either Delany's forty year old work is still current event or humans haven't learned from their forty year old mistakes... you pick. ;-)

[Tina · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm quite entranced with this novel/novella trilogy. Delaney as an author is often more focused on his ideas/concepts than his plot or characters. This one, while it still contains his customary focus on the former, is much more plot-based and easier to follow. Granted, the plot wasn't overly complex or, dare I say it, interesting, but it's the rest of the novels that give this collection punch and gravitas. As usual, Delaney isn't just telling a story. His writing is highly stylized, with extraordinary scenes of heightened emotion or violence (or both) that jar you quite heavily for their unexpectedness or tragedy (Vol's wife's death, Tel's death, the shark tank scene). While his style isn't for everyone, I adore his writing (which was how I managed to make it through Dhalgren). I find it lyrical, poetic and enjoy when he takes a moment to focus on something mundane yet beautiful, like dusk settling on a city. Yet, he also leaves a lot to the imagination in terms of what things look like. It's a perfect balance for me at least.

Delaney was also a pioneer in terms of representation. His female characters are always realistic and complex and the diversity of his people in terms of culture and race is to be lauded. Especially for a novel set 500 years after an apocalyptic event, he takes care to note that amalgamation of skin tones and the cultural diversity that is apparent. The cast of characters in most science fiction written at the same time as The Fall of the Towers resembles a Fortune 500 boards room, by contrast. Granted, it's hard to blame those writers, but Delaney always gives us realistic women, which is refreshing in older science fiction novels.

Unfortunately there are aspects of this novel that fall a bit short. Certain characters are dealt with too easily and others appear and then drift away. The romances in this novel feel a bit lacking. The ones that were the less focused on I cared about the most, like Clea and Tomar and Vol Nonik and his wife, perhaps because they were abstract and easier to identify with. The "major" relationship in the novel was a little boring. Same with the climax - while it was a proper climax, it just wasn't that interesting.

Overall, for a 21 year old this novel is a fantastic endeavor. I enjoyed it very much.

[Chris · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've always like Delaney for his incredibly complex, creative plots, including the aspects of politics and morality encompassed therein, but the true heart of this novel is the emotional weight each character experiences in times of death. Much like in dhalgren, characters die so unexpectedly, it seems quite real. It is also somewhat painful, even when the character has not been all that important to the story, to watch the other characters react to this death. This, and Delaney's poetic sensibility here, make this novel pretty great.
Its weaknesses lie, somewhat ironically, in the science fictiony parts. Not all of them really make that much sense or are, strictly speaking, necessary, except in that it reminds us of the novel's genre. The transit ribbon, for instance, near the beginning of the novel, seems a little contrived. Too, the ability of certain characters to be invisible in the dark. But these things can be forgiven here as a vehicle, not the point of the novel.

[Matt Ward · Rating 3 out of 5]

I absolutely loved Dhalgren, so maybe I came to The Fall of the Towers with some incorrect hopes for what it would be (I really need to stop doing that).

This trilogy must be appreciated in the time of its creation. Delany took many tropes of the time and pushed them in new directions. But the books felt unsatisfying in the modern scene. I could appreciate it, but I never got into it.

It felt a slog to read, and I had to keep pushing myself to pick it back up. I'm not one to look for hand holding in literature, but it has to be for the right reason.

The story was pretty solid, but mostly forgettable. I wouldn't consider this one of Delany's greatest works, but he is still a master, so you can't really go wrong with it.

[Andrew · Rating 3 out of 5]

I would give it 3.5, if Goodreads had half stars. Amazing, considering he wrote all three volumes before he was even 22 years old. It suffers slightly structurally, perhaps from that inexperience, but is still a non-linear quest that will not fall the way you think it will, ever. And that's what I love about Delany, nothing is straight-forward. The action doesn't go from A to B to predictable heroic climax C. Rather A will happen, then we see vignettes of our characters' lives, then B will have happened off-page, and it alls ends up at F, somehow, and it's still a satisfying story. Perhaps because you never quite know where it's going.

[Kathy · Rating 4 out of 5]

An extraordinary journey through time and across the universe ... or is that "universes"? Delany's prose is full of brilliant colors, ambiguous landscapes, exotic but attractive characters, opposing narratives oddly interwoven. His complex yet relevant images are reminiscent in a fleeting way of Bob Dylan's, especially Dylan's work of the 1960s. Delany's book is contemporaneous with Dylan's early work, so perhaps it was something in the very air.

[Charles Wilson · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this trilogy as a teenager. It's the book that introduced me to Delany, one of the most poetic and socially conscientious writers in science fiction. I'm not sure I understood all of it, but I loved it, especially Delany's trademark dazzling experimental prose. I'm currently re-reading it after convincing my library to get a copy (I sold off my SF library years ago during a financial crisis).

[Anne Gray · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a fascinating if sometimes frustrating book in which various technical or telepathic powers are used in an intergalactic war that for some not entirely understood reason boils down to a local conflict on a post-apocalyptic Earth.

Lots of social psychology and mental manipulation inherent in the depicted events.

Does not pull its blows as to what people are willing to tolerate to support an economically "stable" society. In that way, it is highly relevant to current events.

[Rowan · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was interesting. It was my introduction to Delany, and there were many things I liked about this book, but there were also many things I did not. I never felt any true connection to any of the characters, though the world was fabulous. The resolution left a bit of a sour taste in my mouth, as well.

[Derek · Rating 3 out of 5]

I kept falling in and out of like with this one. On one hand, it's unevenly plotted, with the occasional rough edge to the writing. On the other, the scenes of the cosmic battle against The Lord of the Flames were brilliant and gripping.

It had a Viriconium vibe to it in parts, and the overall effect was unsettling.

[Brendan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Re-read, 01/2019: A stunningly gorgeous trilogy of novels about the illusions we sell ourselves as reality. Just as powerful the second time through.



so good it could persuade me from ever attempting to write anything.

[k.]

The basic problem of the story is fairly simple. The goal is to work out how a society beset by isolation and economic contradictions generates cohesion; the answer the powers that be decide upon, with a helpful dose of Historical Necessity, is war. War is invoked as a binding agent to glue together the Empire of Toromon, and the story works out the consequences.

The issues I have then are as follows.

Toromon is an ancient post apocalyptic empire ruled by a monarchy and founded on the production of fish.

However, the characters really don't feel like they inhabit a hierarchy. The central problem of the novel revolves around reconciling the contradictions between the mode of production and the social hierarchy: namely the industrial production of foodstuffs as managed by an industrial bourgeoisie, and the interests of the centralised monarchic system. As is stated, "'[b]etween matter-transmission, tetron power, hydroponics, and aquatics, Toromon has enough scientific potential to provide food, housing, rewarding and creative labour for its whole population, and as well to reach out and touch the stars'" (377). If this is as big a problem as the story makes out, then we would expect a tension around rigidly hierarchical social relations, and the abundance of resources (of overproduction), but seemingly everyone in the story feels free to flit between and amongst all the differing classes, and there is only meagre nods to code switching or any discomfort. Its hard to even really to hold the characters at the same time as their supposed social standing (royalty, to wealthy, to destitute, to slaves).

"'And the second thing I thought was, she comes from the Pot, I come from the hub, and there's a whole set of morals and customs that keeps us apart from one another...' " (324).

"'You know,' Jon said, 'I guess I have to be hit over the head with something before it takes.'
'How do you mean.'
'I was thinking about what I said to you about customs and morals keeping people apart, making them different from one another. People are so much more alike than different. So much more'" (331).

As per the above quotes, the ease of translation does seem to be a deliberate choice, but its not one I agree with.

Fundamentally I don't think the narrative earns its conspicuous lack of labour organisation, its lack of even a hint of genuine, conscious class struggle. The issue with Toromon is the overproduction of food and people, the immiseration of the worker, the stratification of society. Fertile ground for a communist analysis. I think it's fairly infantilising to presume nobody had thought about the shape of society before (the empire is supposedly ancient), or had done quasi-Marxist inquiries into political economy and the nature of value (the industrial system responsible for the accelerated contradictions is decades old). The malcontents in the novel are largely incoherent, and driven by atavistic urge to destruction, all until the last part of the final book, at which point some members of the malcontents engage in a dropout fantasy. Its fairly obvious that the distribution of wealth is the contradiction plaguing Toromon; that is to say, a problem of alienation actively produced to preserve its hierarchy. A communal system of working the needs of society would have no such fatal tension, but this could not preserve the monarchy. To preserve the monarchy it is necessary to expunge superfluous people and resources, that is to keep people trapped withing the social relations that constitute the actual body of the monarchy. Hence the war.

The extraterrestrial Manichean metaplot is strained, probably mostly due to its inherent weaknesses, even considering its hedging at the end. Its not really much to work with nor does it add anything to the story but disorientation, which I experienced throughout, but especially in the opening chapters. Around the war this disorientation is to good effect, but as a way to structure the plot it really just comes across as schlocky. It undercuts the themes of social contradictions elaborated above, and for little payoff.

Finally,

"Ultimately, the social traumas that cause war are those which promote the greatest isolation of the greatest number of individuals that still keep them in physical proximity. Disaster, famine, insupportable distribution of goods, exploitation, increased population till enough individuals are denied the opportunity of being together, fulfilling their yearning towards oneness with all other individuals" (402).

The above is a neat theory, but not one that really holds up, I don't think, to examples of communal violence. It is not Othering that is called out here, but isolation, and I feel that misses the mark.

That all being said, this is Delany, so the language itself is worthy of reflection. No one writes quite like him, and I'd say this was a worthwhile read given my researches into SciFi at present. It's definitely tensions like the ones explored here that I too want to explore, though with a different sensibility: I am uninterested in early Delany schlock, and probably incapable of late Delany headiness. I admire his ability to draw upon a colourful cast of characters, something I am at the moment incapable of doing.