Stars in My Pocket Like Grains of Sand - The Splendor and Misery of Bodies, of Cities

The Splendor and Misery of Bodies, of Cities

All editions of Stars contain an author's note stating that it is the first half of a diptych, the second half of which is the novel The Splendor and Misery of Bodies, of Cities. This latter novel is unfinished, and is unlikely to ever be finished. Delany has stated two reasons for this in various writings and public appearances. First, much of the creative impetus for Stars came from his relationship with his then-partner, Frank Romeo (to whom the novel is dedicated); this relationship ended soon after the novel was published, removing much of Delany's creative energy related to the project. Second, the novel was published just as AIDS was becoming an epidemic in the gay culture Delany was immersed in, and he found it difficult to continue to write about a setting which mirrored the sexual scene that gave rise to an epidemic that caused the deaths of many people close to him. An excerpt from The Splendor and Misery of Bodies, of Cities was printed in the Review of Contemporary Fiction in September, 1996.

In fact, Stars was the last of Delany's major science fiction projects until 2012's Through the Valley of the Nest of Spiders. As seen in 1984: Selected Letters, at the time Stars was published his relationship with his publisher, Bantam, underwent a major rupture, with Bantam declining to print the final volume of the Return to Nevèrÿon series, Return to Nevèrÿon (eventually published by Arbor House as The Bridge of Lost Desire). Delany's works largely went out of print in the immediately following years, and he turned to academia for his living, taking up the first of his professorial posts in 1988, at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.