To get the obvious out of the way, it's hard to recommend the first part of a two part series which will never be finished. Unfortunately, Stars in My Pocket... does not feel finished. There is clearly a lot being set up for resolution in the sequel, which simply won't come.

That said, the book is a fascinating experience. It's wonderfully creative. I was reminded often of The Left Hand of Darkness in part because (like Le Guin in that book) Delany uses gender in interesting ways. But also because of the way Delany uses his far-future multi-planetary setting to play with culture in really unusual ways.

On the one hand, if you don't enjoy novels heavy on world-building then this is almost certainly not for you. The book is dense with unusual cultural and technological concepts. It's introducing new ideas pretty much all the way up until the epilogue, and doesn't tend to explain them directly. This is another thing that makes more sense considering it was meant to be a part one. But as an exploration of culture, totally aside from its use as world-building, this is one of the novel's strengths. I never found myself bored or disappointed with Delany's ideas. Thick as the world-building comes, it's always inventive and unusual enough that I found it thought-provoking, even when it did little to advance the plot.

Partway through, I looked up the book, and learned not only that the sequel was never written, but that Stars in My Pocket was written before the AIDS crisis. The sequel was abandoned in part because AIDS changed how Delany felt he could write about queerness. My first thought though was, "Oh, that explains something about the tone of the book". There is a tone to the novel that is hard to place, and which tends to be absent from other older queer writing. I wouldn't call it "optimism" or "naivete", because neither one fits. But there is a kind of uncomplicated, queer hope which in other early queer writing tends to be understandably overshadowed by a tragedy like the AIDS pandemic. The uniqueness of the book is really something though. For all that it's hard to recommend, Stars in My Pocket is a unique and fascinating experience. I found the ending particularly moving, despite it being clearly a set up for more to come, and I can certainly say that I've never read anything quite like it.

If you would like something more complete though, and which touches on at least some of the same themes, The Left Hand of Darkness will scratch some of that same itch.