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3.65 AVERAGE
3.65 AVERAGE
adventurous
informative
mysterious
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
Bit mixed about this one. There were some very interesting ideas and elements in this (mainly around language) and some intensely boring bits for me - details of space ship battles and wrestling. Yawn. But that's me personally and I'm sure there's plenty of folk who enjoy a good old spaceship punch up. There's also an atmosphere in it which means all the characters wouldn't look out of place in a He-man cartoon. Many muscles, few clothes, wrestling in the nip. And wierd cosmetic surgery (I mean wierd) which is apparently ok because it's important to feel in control of your body. Anyone getting the vibe that I didn't love this? I didn't but it was an interesting one-off read.
So, the main character is Rhydra Wong who is just brilliant at everything. She's multi lingual, a captain and a worlds famous poet. She's just been enlisted to translate a very odd language, Babel-17, which has been associated with a number of terrorist attacks. Well, all the army folk think its a code, but she's the first to point out that it's actually a language. And as she starts to get her head around it, she travels to the next terrorist target, gets rescued by some kind of space pirate and... yeah, all that spaceman jazz.
The language elements are the most interesting. How Babel-17 is so utterley complex that a noun can explain how the thing works, or thoughts can explain what is coming next. She meets a beefcake man, The Butcher, who comes from a linguistic place that has no comprehension of 'you' and 'I'. So she has fun trying to explain those concepts to him. And it's about how language affects how you think (which to be fair, is very true. If you want to really get to know a culture, you have to learn the language) and how it can be used to program people. Interesting ideas but ultimately the story wasn't my bag.
So, the main character is Rhydra Wong who is just brilliant at everything. She's multi lingual, a captain and a worlds famous poet. She's just been enlisted to translate a very odd language, Babel-17, which has been associated with a number of terrorist attacks. Well, all the army folk think its a code, but she's the first to point out that it's actually a language. And as she starts to get her head around it, she travels to the next terrorist target, gets rescued by some kind of space pirate and... yeah, all that spaceman jazz.
The language elements are the most interesting. How Babel-17 is so utterley complex that a noun can explain how the thing works, or thoughts can explain what is coming next. She meets a beefcake man, The Butcher, who comes from a linguistic place that has no comprehension of 'you' and 'I'. So she has fun trying to explain those concepts to him. And it's about how language affects how you think (which to be fair, is very true. If you want to really get to know a culture, you have to learn the language) and how it can be used to program people. Interesting ideas but ultimately the story wasn't my bag.
Some really compelling ideas thrown around in a really bizarre plot.
I enjoyed this one, though I'm glad it wasn't longer. A very interesting premise and a great world. Maybe Delany isn't the author for me. I would love to see this premise tackled by another author.
I wanted to like it, but found it dull. Were it not such a short book, I probably would not have made it to the end.
This was so much fun! Part of me wants to re-read it right away to figure out what things I may have missed the first time around.
There isn't a word out of place in this book. Delany created a whirlwind of a plot that is delightful in its strangeness but at the same time allows for quiet scenes that capture and vibrate with longing and sadness.
Anyone who loves books that play with language should absolutely read this.
There isn't a word out of place in this book. Delany created a whirlwind of a plot that is delightful in its strangeness but at the same time allows for quiet scenes that capture and vibrate with longing and sadness.
Anyone who loves books that play with language should absolutely read this.
adventurous
challenging
funny
mysterious
I enjoyed it at the time but it shows its workings too much. There's not enough linguistic SF out there though so that's a plus.
I have re-read this book several times over the years (decades).
In this interstellar exploration of the sapir-whorf hypothesis, the curse of Babel-17 is that its language-unifying efficiency is too suggestive to control and leads to self-sabatoge. In some ways a thematic precursor to Arrival, this story centres on a brilliant linguist who builds trust with a diverse crew of aliens who then help her to undermine the language's weaponization and begin to transform it. Unfortunately the book may be too smart for its own good: the prose is sometimes gripping, but too often impressionistic and hard to follow.