The tales themselves are discussed in the articles devoted to each individual volume. At the end of the fourth book, Return to Nevèrÿon (1996), the first tale is reprinted, to emphasize the cyclic nature of the series.

But all take a greater or lesser part in recounting an overall story running through the whole series, the history of a man called Gorgik the Liberator.Ĭurrently the eleven stories are collected in four volumes, put out by Wesleyan University Press.

Many of the stories have different protagonists and, indeed, different sets of foreground characters. But the barbarians were for many years the slaves of the dominant brown-skinned culture, especially for mining and agriculture (as we learn in both “The Tale of Gorgik” and Neveryóna) -and in many places still are. By the time the stories start, clearly some amount of racial mixing has occurred. Barbarian tribes live to the south: a people with pale skin, yellow hair, and light eyes. The men and women of the reigning civilization have brown to black skin. The modern-day geographical location of Nevèrÿon is never made clear. Nevèrÿon (pronounced 'Ne-VER-y-on' according to the preface to 'Tales of Nevèrÿon') is the land the stories are set in, a name derived from the aristocratic neighborhood of Neveryóna (pronounced 'Ne-ver-y-O-na') in the capital city Kolhari. The eleven tales that make up Return to Nevèrÿon are set before the dawn of history.

Tales of Nevèrÿon by Samuel R. Delany