At the command of the goddess Argo, the poet Geo and his companions Urson, Snake, and Iimmi travel to the island of Aptor to steal a powerful jewel from the god Hama. They contend with monsters, mystery, and the ruins of an earlier age—but their quest is not what it seems.

The Jewels of Aptor is Samuel R. Delany’s first published novel, written when he was a teenager. In it we see many of the concerns that occupied him in later work: language, poetry, myth, perception, and tensions between worldviews, wrapped in gorgeously poetic prose.