Stars In My Pocket Like Grains of Sand

I just finished this extraordinary novel by Samuel R. Delany. It takes place some unknown amount of time in the future when humans have left earth and are spread among 6000 different worlds and integrated into many different alien cultures. Every citizen, whether human or otherwise, is referred to as a woman; the word 'man', and it's variations, is an outdated term only used in poetry. The pronouns 'she' and 'her' are used exclusively, unless the person is speaking about someone to whom she is sexually attracted; in that case the pronouns 'he' and 'him' are used. People's gender is ignored, unless they are seen as a sexual object. The protagonist is a homosexual male, and any other characters with which he comes into contact in a sexual way (either propositioned by or had an encounter with or was attracted to) are identified by their biological gender at some point. Every one else is always referred to as a woman, so you, the reader, never know what sex they are. It was interesting for me because I found myself wondering about the sex of the characters and getting frustrated by not getting the answer and then having to ask myself why it mattered what gender that person was.

Besides very convincing details about sexual relationships, the novel is incredibly detailed about the differences between customs on the different worlds and even in different areas of the same world. For instance, as the main character talks to both humans and aliens, he is constantly aware of how something as simple as a nod could be interpreted differently by each person, depending on what world they come from. This makes the universe Delany has created as real and the characters as true as anything set in our present day world.