Empire Star

“The truth is always multiplex.”

Delany's New Wave novel is really good. It's bildungsroman, space opera and time travel. It's also about slavery told in a very clever way: you can own the slaves or be near them, but you will suffer from what it is known as “the sadness of the Lll” which is an overwhelming feeling of, well, sadness created by the Empire to protect the slaves. They are a unique workforce for building structures and terraforming planets. I liked the simplex/complex/multiplex concept and how it applies even to the reader to make sense out of the story. ⠀
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I must confess that it was a challenging read. I was kinda lost at times, just like the main character and then... boom! The last two chapters put all the pieces together, or almost. I got the feeling that there are some loose ends even at the end (if there is one at all). When was the message delivered? Is everything that happened, including war, a consequence of the message being delivered? I need to talk to someone about this book. Let me know if you've read it. I'd love to hear your thoughts.