Babel-17

Samuel R. Delany (1942 - ) Samuel Ray 'Chip' Delany, Jr was born in Harlem in 1942, and published his first novel at the age of just 20. As author, critic and academic, his influence on the modern genre has been profound and he remains one of science fiction's most important and discussed writers. He has won the Hugo Award twice and the Nebula Award four times, including consecutive wins for Babel-17 and The Einstein Intersection. Since January 2001 he has been a professor of English and Creative Writing at Temple University in Philadelphia, where he is Director of the Graduate Creative Writing Program.For more information see www.sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/delany_samuel_r

The first of a remarkable series of vital and stunning masterpieces, a dazzlingly realised star-spanning epic populated with truly mysterious aliens and humans entirely believable yet gorgeously strange. After this, the future was never the same again. - Paul McAuley.