The Jewels of Aptor

The Jewels of Aptor is a 1962 science fantasy novel by Samuel R. Delany, his first published novel. It first appeared in shortened form as an Ace Double F-173 together with Second Ending by James White.

The Jewels of Aptor
First edition
AuthorSamuel R. Delany
Cover artistJack Gaughan
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
GenreScience Fantasy
PublisherAce Books
Publication date
1962
Media typePrint (Paperback)
Pages156 pp
OCLC1625608

From the 1968 edition onwards, Delany's original text has been restored, as the first edition was shortened by about fifteen pages for publication in the Ace Double format.[1][2][3][4]

Plot introduction

In a post-atomic future, when civilization has regressed to something near the Middle Ages or even before, a young student and poet, Geo, takes a job as a sailor on a boat. He travels with a strange passenger, a priestess of the goddess Argo, who is heading toward a mysterious land of mutants and high radiation, called Aptor. The journey is presumably made to recapture a young priestess of Argo: her daughter (her little sister in the Ace Double version), who has been kidnapped by the forces of the dark god Hama.

References
  1. "Afterword", A, B, C: Three Short Novels, Delany, 2015, section III. Although the later editions are often described as "revised", Delany did only routine copyediting to his original text. "My personal sense is that this was no sort of rewrite. There was no revising of incident, characters, setting, or structure."
  2. Barbour 1979, p. 163.
  3. Pringle 1990, p. 171.
  4. Clute and Nicholls 1995, p. 315.

Sources
  • Barbour, Douglas (1979). Worlds Out Of Worlds: The SF Novels of Samuel R. Delany. Frome, Somerset, UK: Bran's Head Books Ltd. ISBN 0-905220-13-7.
  • Clute, John; Nicholls, Peter (1995). The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction (2 ed.). New York: St. Martin's Griffin. ISBN 0-312-13486-X.
  • Pringle, David (1990). The Ultimate Guide to Science Fiction. London: Grafton Books. ISBN 0-246-13635-9.
  • Tuck, Donald H. (1974). The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction and Fantasy. Chicago: Advent. p. 137. ISBN 0-911682-20-1.


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