Listen free for 30 days

Listen with offer

Offer ends May 1st, 2024 11:59PM GMT. Terms and conditions apply.
£7.99/month after 3 months. Renews automatically.
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection - including bestsellers and new releases.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, celeb exclusives, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
£7.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection - including bestsellers and new releases.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, celeb exclusives, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
Stars in My Pocket Like Grains of Sand cover art

Stars in My Pocket Like Grains of Sand

By: Samuel R. Delany
Narrated by: Stefan Rudnicki
Get this deal Try for £0.00

Pay £99p/month. After 3 months pay £7.99/month. Renews automatically. See terms for eligibility.

£7.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically.

Buy Now for £16.99

Buy Now for £16.99

Pay using card ending in
By completing your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and authorise Audible to charge your designated card or any other card on file. Please see our Privacy Notice, Cookies Notice and Interest-based Ads Notice.

Listeners also enjoyed...

The Motion of Light in Water cover art
Dhalgren cover art
Nova cover art
Babel-17 cover art
The Man in the Maze cover art
Dorsai! cover art
The End of the Matter cover art
Dancing with Eternity cover art
Heliotrope cover art
This Immortal cover art
Barsk: The Elephants' Graveyard cover art
End of an Era cover art
Hyperion cover art
Meeting Infinity cover art
Old Venus cover art
The Road cover art

Summary

The story of a truly galactic civilization with more than 6,000 inhabited worlds. 

Stars in My Pocket Like Grains of Sand is a science-fiction masterpiece, an essay on the inexplicability of sexual attractiveness, and an examination of interstellar politics among far-flung worlds. First published in 1984, the novel's central issues - technology, globalization, gender, sexuality, and multiculturalism - have only become more pressing with the passage of time. 

The novel's topic is information itself: What are the repercussions, once it has been made public, that two individuals have been found to be each other's perfect erotic object out to "point nine-nine-nine and several nines percent more"? What will it do to the individuals involved, to the city they inhabit, to their geosector, to their entire world society, especially when one is an illiterate worker, the sole survivor of a world destroyed by "cultural fugue", and the other is - you!

©2019 Samuel R. Delany (P)2019 Skyboat Media, Inc.
  • Unabridged Audiobook
  • Categories: LGBTQ+

What listeners say about Stars in My Pocket Like Grains of Sand

Average customer ratings
Overall
  • 4 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    5
  • 4 Stars
    1
  • 3 Stars
    0
  • 2 Stars
    0
  • 1 Stars
    2
Performance
  • 4 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    6
  • 4 Stars
    0
  • 3 Stars
    1
  • 2 Stars
    0
  • 1 Stars
    1
Story
  • 4 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    5
  • 4 Stars
    1
  • 3 Stars
    0
  • 2 Stars
    0
  • 1 Stars
    2

Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.

Sort by:
Filter by:
  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Pop Rocks for the Gender Binary

“Stars in my Pocket Like Grains of Sand” is a major work of twentieth-century science fiction and as such repays a degree of open-minded attention. It entertains the reader, but also prompts us to reconsider some of our assumptions. Some reviewers here apparently find it inaccessible and might want to work up through some of Delany’s easier (and also very entertaining) works like “The Einstein Intersection” or “Babel-17”. People who are not sure what to expect could track down the review on the “Hugo, Girl!” podcast, or Jo Walton’s review “Like Pop Rocks for the Brain”.

One detail that confuses me is that Delany adds a numeric suffix to words like “work” and “job” to hint at distinctions like those between career, hobby, and civic duty. The otherwise excellent narrator just leaves them out, so we end up with confusing sentences like “I like my work as well as my work”. It’s not a big deal, but I wonder why this choice was made.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    1 out of 5 stars

Push a little harder and Delany might see daylight

Good lord, what pompous drivel.

I'm sure Delany is proud of this because by God does he make sure you know it.

Meandering doesn't describe this, even the most wayward river eventually goes somewhere.

As the title points out, I think he got a bit too carried away sniffing his own gaseous excretions and slipped. The desparate manner in which he scrabbles upwards through his own vast caverns does make one pity him, I only hope he reaches the sunlight again soon.

Pretty good voice actor though

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!