The protagonist, Lo Lobey, is loosely based on the character of Orpheus.
Synopsis
In a post-transcendent Earth, intelligent anthropoids deal with genetic mutation from ancient radiation. The beings emulate early human civilization and retell stories from "our ghosts called Man".[3] Lobey, a herder from a small village, sets out on a quest to avenge the death of Friza.
Algis Budrys, after noting that Delany "has about as little discipline as any writer who has tried his hand" at science fiction and that The Einstein Intersection was a book "whose structure and purpose on its own terms are not realized", declared that the author "simply operates on a plane which Robert Heinlein never dreamed of, nor John W. Campbell, nor – take a deep breath – Ted Sturgeon, Ray Bradbury, nor anyone else we could have put forward as being a poet" before 1960 and "urgently recommended" the novel".[6] In February 1968 he named the book the best novel of 1967.[7]
