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A review by sydsnot71
Babel-17 by Samuel R. Delany
5.0
I loved this. Old school SF. A meditation of language wrapped up inside a space opera. The discussion of language and meaning reminded me, oddly, of George Orwell's 1984.
Our hero is Rydra Wong, poet, starship captain, and linguist. She's on the track of Babel-17, which is language that has been detected around a series of sabotage incidents that may be coming from The Invaders.
I loved the way the book does old school SF stuff whilst philosophising about language and meaning. I fell a little in love with Rydra Wong. Also the general world building is rather interesting.
The writing is full of energy and drive as if Delany was as excited to tell this story as we might be to read it. It may also be no coincidence that his wife at the time was a poet/translator. But it is always dangerous to trust in an author's biography as an influence too much.
This is the first Delany I've read and I really enjoyed it so I'm definitely going to try and read some more. His Wikipedia page makes him sound like an interesting guy.
Our hero is Rydra Wong, poet, starship captain, and linguist. She's on the track of Babel-17, which is language that has been detected around a series of sabotage incidents that may be coming from The Invaders.
I loved the way the book does old school SF stuff whilst philosophising about language and meaning. I fell a little in love with Rydra Wong. Also the general world building is rather interesting.
The writing is full of energy and drive as if Delany was as excited to tell this story as we might be to read it. It may also be no coincidence that his wife at the time was a poet/translator. But it is always dangerous to trust in an author's biography as an influence too much.
This is the first Delany I've read and I really enjoyed it so I'm definitely going to try and read some more. His Wikipedia page makes him sound like an interesting guy.