In the second half, once Pryn travels into the south, she is taken up by the powerful Jue Gruten family, who represent the far more lethal and aristocratic forces of the nation who want to end this rebellion. In the first half of the novel, Pryn finds herself in Neveryóna, an upper class suburb of Port Kolhari, an uneasy guest in the emotionally embattled gardens of a wealthy merchant woman, Madame Keyne, whom we first met in the third story, “The Tale of Potters and Dragons,” and who is now actively financing a crackpot group of counter rebels who want to put an end to Gorgik’s project. Pryn’s travels take her (and the reader) not only to explore the revolutionary forces of Gorgik’s campaign-and some of its internal squabbles-but also through the homes of several wealthy conservatives. Because she did not have the good fortune also to discover that wool made the best and strongest cloth, however, all the credit for her work tends to be given to other people. Pryn is the great niece of an unsung genius of Nevèrÿon, a woman who invented both the loom and the spindle. Neveryóna (a full-length novel), the sixth and longest tale of the Return to Nevèrÿon series, focuses on fifteen-year-old Pryn, who is extraordinary in this culture because she can read and write.

Discussions of overall plot, setting, characters, themes, structure, and style of the series are found in the main series article. It is the second of the four-volume Return to Nevèrÿon series. Neveryóna, or: The Tale of Signs and Cities is a sword and sorcery novel by Samuel R.

Tales of Nevèrÿon by Samuel R. Delany