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3.65 AVERAGE
3.65 AVERAGE
adventurous
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
N/A
adventurous
challenging
mysterious
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
there's a lot to love about this book, and only a few things i dislike.
first of all, go off with the polyamory and self-insert, that's awesome. i liked the discorporate world-building and how much it wasn't elaborated on -- particularly this customs vs. transport dichotomy. i love minimal exposition.
it did feel like it ended very abruptly, and i didn't love the reveal ofthe butcher as the baron's son , but it does make some sense in retrospect? i just wish that had been given more room to breathe.
i'm also curious what my linguistics friends would think about this book.
first of all, go off with the polyamory and self-insert, that's awesome. i liked the discorporate world-building and how much it wasn't elaborated on -- particularly this customs vs. transport dichotomy. i love minimal exposition.
it did feel like it ended very abruptly, and i didn't love the reveal of
i'm also curious what my linguistics friends would think about this book.
Delany is one of the most interesting writers I've ever read. This book focuses almost entirely on language, wrapped up inside a sci-fi spy plot. He fuses sexuality, the myth of the Tower of Babel, poetry, Cold War style spy plots, and space pirates together seamlessly. This is some of the best science fiction I've read.
GOD I LOVE GAY PEOPLE. I LOVE SCIENCE FICTION. I LOVE LANGUAGE. I LOVE A BOOK THAT IS A GODDAMN BOOOOOOOOOKKKKKKKKKKKK
Either ahead of it’s time (representation, sexuality, development of strong female characters in sci-fi, etc) or it just shows that the genre could have been doing better at the time but didn’t want to.
Just not very good. Disjointed and meandering without a particularly interesting idea.
Vintage science fiction, which means the plot is more idea driven than character driven. Which I don't mind, in small doses. The idea of this book, language as tool to program the mind, is interesting. Reminded me a bit of [b:Snow Crash|877977|Snow Crash|Neal Stephenson|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1218546088s/877977.jpg|493634]. I would be curious to see what authors like [a:Catherine Asaro|34854|Catherine Asaro|http://photo.goodreads.com/authors/1246654947p2/34854.jpg] or [a:Dan Simmons|2687|Dan Simmons|http://photo.goodreads.com/authors/1202439650p2/2687.jpg] or the Snowcrash author [a:Neal Stephenson|545|Neal Stephenson|http://photo.goodreads.com/authors/1192826259p2/545.jpg] would do with this story.
So after reading [b:Stardust|16793|Stardust|Neil Gaiman|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1266451583s/16793.jpg|3166179] and then this one in a row, I need me something more emo to read now.
So after reading [b:Stardust|16793|Stardust|Neil Gaiman|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1266451583s/16793.jpg|3166179] and then this one in a row, I need me something more emo to read now.
adventurous
challenging
mysterious
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
A poet that has to save the day? I was ready to love this but I did not. It was mostly fun but managed to lag and be too abrupt. It felt like there should be more ti come. The characters were kind of flat. World building and the idea of language as power is where the book excels. Some of the writing really falls into the pitfalls of its time
Content Warnings
Graphic: Fatphobia, Violence, War
Moderate: Murder
Minor: Suicide, Torture, Grief
This book had a little bit of everything: scifi, humour, linguistic theory, a good thriller plot element, good characters/world building and yes, the whole was greater than the sum of the parts.
The humour was quite dry, such as spacecraft navigators having to show their skills in the wrestling ring, since flying hyperspace demands great physical dexterity. There was also a scene were an assassin was shooting up a dinner party and in between descriptions of his assault, were descriptions of the automated serving of the meal going crazy as its control mechanism had been destroyed in the shoot out. It was a glorious updated version of the old western bar room brawl and hilarious.
The book is pretty episodic or perhaps set-piece scenes, but many of them were really strong. The whole first part of the novel on the quest to recruit the crew was fabulous, with visits to the morgue to revive a navigator, (who work in teams of three, as navigators and menage-a-trois lovers), visits to the wrestling to recruit the pilot, visits to the discorporate zone to find disembodied eyes, ears and nose to help with detection of the non-verbal cues out in space etc. The battle scenes were maybe over a bit too quickly, but personally I'm not a big one for protracted descriptions of battle scenes.
On the linguistics, the story is the attempt of a poet to decode a strange language Babel-17 that seems to be behind terrorist acts from an invading force, and in doing so probes the differing types and functioning of different languages. There is a nomadic space language which has no word for 'home', but only requires 9 words to describe the technical specifications that would demand of us a whole manual, so precise & honed is their language. Babel 17 itself has no words for I/Me/Myself/Mine/You/Yours/Yourself and you realise that at the heart of this book is a study in isolation and loneliness. The character of "Butcher" despite the brutality of his name and actions, is an utterly sympathetic one you really feel for. The scene where the poet tries to introduce and teach Butcher the words I & you is hilarious, because Butcher keeps reversing the two and refers to himself as 'you' and to the poet as 'I' so that agency and ownership are completely awry.
Great stuff. Straight into my SF pantheon of great books about language along with [bc:The Embedding|941146|The Embedding|Ian Watson|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1305136769s/941146.jpg|926101] [b:The Embedding|941146|The Embedding|Ian Watson|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1305136769s/941146.jpg|926101] and [bc:Embassytown|9265453|Embassytown|China Miéville|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1320470326s/9265453.jpg|14146240] [b:Embassytown|9265453|Embassytown|China Miéville|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1320470326s/9265453.jpg|14146240]
The humour was quite dry, such as spacecraft navigators having to show their skills in the wrestling ring, since flying hyperspace demands great physical dexterity. There was also a scene were an assassin was shooting up a dinner party and in between descriptions of his assault, were descriptions of the automated serving of the meal going crazy as its control mechanism had been destroyed in the shoot out. It was a glorious updated version of the old western bar room brawl and hilarious.
The book is pretty episodic or perhaps set-piece scenes, but many of them were really strong. The whole first part of the novel on the quest to recruit the crew was fabulous, with visits to the morgue to revive a navigator, (who work in teams of three, as navigators and menage-a-trois lovers), visits to the wrestling to recruit the pilot, visits to the discorporate zone to find disembodied eyes, ears and nose to help with detection of the non-verbal cues out in space etc. The battle scenes were maybe over a bit too quickly, but personally I'm not a big one for protracted descriptions of battle scenes.
On the linguistics, the story is the attempt of a poet to decode a strange language Babel-17 that seems to be behind terrorist acts from an invading force, and in doing so probes the differing types and functioning of different languages. There is a nomadic space language which has no word for 'home', but only requires 9 words to describe the technical specifications that would demand of us a whole manual, so precise & honed is their language. Babel 17 itself has no words for I/Me/Myself/Mine/You/Yours/Yourself and you realise that at the heart of this book is a study in isolation and loneliness. The character of "Butcher" despite the brutality of his name and actions, is an utterly sympathetic one you really feel for. The scene where the poet tries to introduce and teach Butcher the words I & you is hilarious, because Butcher keeps reversing the two and refers to himself as 'you' and to the poet as 'I' so that agency and ownership are completely awry.
Great stuff. Straight into my SF pantheon of great books about language along with [bc:The Embedding|941146|The Embedding|Ian Watson|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1305136769s/941146.jpg|926101] [b:The Embedding|941146|The Embedding|Ian Watson|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1305136769s/941146.jpg|926101] and [bc:Embassytown|9265453|Embassytown|China Miéville|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1320470326s/9265453.jpg|14146240] [b:Embassytown|9265453|Embassytown|China Miéville|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1320470326s/9265453.jpg|14146240]
adventurous
challenging
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated