Set in a future where as the human race expanded into space, it came up against a psychological barrier that caused insanity in those who went further, except for a few who found to have psychological abnormalities that allow them to pass through. New York: Gregg Press, 1977. Book Club edition (Garden City, NY: Nelson Doubleday, 1971), 1-61 in his Driftglass/Starshards (London: Grafton, 1993), 17-93 and in his Aye and Gomorrah. Ten Tales of Speculative Fiction (New York: New American Library, 1971), 13-71. Isiah Lavender, III (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2014), 48-64.ġ967 Delany, Samuel R (b. Delany.” Black and Brown Planets: The Politics of Race in Science Fiction. Ī study of the story is Gerry Canavan, “Far Beyond the Star Pit: Samuel R. Stories (New York: Vintage Books, 2003), 91-101.įor a radio play first broadcast on WBAI (New York) in November 1967 and re-broadcast regularly for years, see Delany’s “Notes on The Star Pit.”. For a radio play first broadcast on WBAI (New York) in November 1967 and re-broadcast regularly for years, see Delany’s “Notes on The Star Pit.” The story makes an explicit connection between white supremacy and those who can pass through the barrier, but at the end, such people are being created by manipulating them so as to develop the needed abnormality for the benefit of those in power.
The story focuses of a man who feels excluded because he cannot pass through the barrier and deeply resents that fact.