Samuel R. Delany

Babel-17

Brandon Liew

want to read more of his work, really gorgeous words, neat worldbuilding, i would get a flower implant

August Stone

Lindy

this is everything Snow Crash tries to be.

Rydra Wong, a poet and code expert, is asked to break a code used by an enemy government, but discovers that the code is really a super-sophisticated language

Justin Jerome Price

Babel-17 by Samuel R. Delaney is a confounding book. In many ways, this book is a masterwork of world and character building. Characters feel alive, vivid; Delany does a good job in making characters memorable even when they make a brief appearance in the story. The world is also one in which, in spite of a few anachronisms due to the book being written in the 1960s, feels like a lived-in future world with a culture and history. The novel makes some poignant remarks about its main theme: communication and language. Yet the biggest flaw of the story is the fact that the plot is middling. The story at times lacks urgency given the events that has happened in the plot. At times, the plot takes a back seat to the exploration of the theme. And while the characters do feel vivid, at times it does not feel like they react appropriately to the events around them. Not to mention that some of the characters do not play a big role in the story. Given all this, the story can feel somewhat cluttered. Furthermore, given the fact that the story was written in the 1960s, there are story elements and descriptors that feel somewhat antiquated. Even with these flaws, the overall story is well constructed and deserves a closer look.

The premise of the story is very traditional for a science fiction story. Almost cliched. A group of allied planets known as “the Alliance, ” finds themselves in an interstellar war with another group of planets known as “the Invaders.” A string of incidents throughout the Alliance top secret military facilities along with indecipherable codes intercepted and transcribed moments after the incidents has the Alliance believing that there is a saboteur in their midst. These transcripts, nicknamed Babel-17, the Alliance believes holds the key to defeating the Invaders. Attempts to decode the transcripts by official ciphers fail. This leads to the Alliance to contact the main protagonist, Rydra Wong. 
Now as one can see, the story is quite pedestrian and spartan in its overall approach to its premise. 
The good guys are called “The Alliance.” The bad guys are called “the Invaders.” As aforementioned, the plot does at times feel somewhat like an afterthought, albeit there are still interesting conclusions from the story in terms of war. How war can distort and corrupt the imaginative forces of a population, creating greater and greater atrocities in order to win against their enemy. How war can rob one of their past and thus their future, turning soldiers from people to merely cogs. How third parties can profit from war. And how war obscures similarities between the combatants and plays up differences both artificial and natural to ensure that the fighting continues. And yet, this is not really a heavy focus of the story beyond the larger theme of communication and miscommunication. Thus if one is expecting a heavy treatise on the nature of war, they would be sorely disappointed. Yet it is serviceable with enough action segments and conversational moments to be interesting at least.

The character of Rydra Wong does not feel adequately explored and on the surface cliched. In many ways, she definitely feels like a classic science fiction protagonist. Due to events in her childhood caused by the war, she has a unique condition that allows her to understand intuitively languages and people to such a degree she can read a person’s mind, a form of telepathic empathy. Because of this ability, she had found success as a code breaker for the “Alliance” before deciding to become a poet and freelance pilot. And often times, the surrounding characters feel much more interesting than her. But this is more due to the focus on the theme than anything else; for there are moments where the character feels deeper than she had been written. 

In short, the story is enjoyable. And was groundbreaking for its time, but do not expect it to be an immersive saga. Instead read it for what it is, an enjoyable plot.

Babel 17

Jeremy Sheridan Wells

A very interesting mix of linguistic theory of Delany's time with a colorful, almost Star Wars-ian cast of characters. 

Imane

This is one of those "big idea" sci-fi stories that should've given me a book hangover from how many tightly-packed ideas there were and how eager I would have been to ponder upon them, but I am actually writing this with my left eye throbbing from how much of a headache it gave me from poor story-telling and a massive info-dump session at the end of it. This reading experience gave me ugly flashbacks from how unintelligible my linguistics textbook was, and I thought this book would give me a healing experience with the field of linguistics, but I am back to square one. I guess the theory this story hinges upon, namely the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, will remain an interesting abstract concept in my mind for a bit longer, since this book made poor use of it by jamming it into a too on-the-nose story by the end of it all when the tangled mess of threads was finally unraveled, massive exposition-style.

Most chapters seemed to start off-kilter, deliberately using opaque language and obtuse narration to keep me confused for about two-thirds of the chapter until things clicked into place. The dialogues are generally "better" than the framing narrative but that truly isn't saying much... And all of this obfuscation came to a head with a cliché ending that made me realise that the language used in this story was deliberately confusing to mask how thin of a plot it was. 

I was also kind of disappointed by how poorly this novel aged. And I'm not talking about space kids playing with marbles or the use of punch-cards. I feel like a lot of people give this book a pass for having been published in the 60s by a relatively young author but the 60s and the 70s were decades of great debates and theory building, so let us not "dumb down" our comprehension of the world built in this novel when people like Frantz Fanon, Edward Said and Angela Y. Davis were entirely capable of challenging the colonialist status quo that pervades the language of this book. And while this was published very early in Delany's career, a poorly executed book is a poorly executed book, period!

Moreover, the fatphobia truly shone brightly in this book and reading fat characters being consistently and relentlessly being described in derogatory terms whenever they made an appearance when non-fat characters didn't get their looks described in so many synonyms, was extremely grating.

All in all, this was an irritating reading experience. There are some good ideas and some good moments in this book but they were barely intelligible to begin with. Good concept, poor execution, you know the story. Whatever. I'll gladly give the author more chances but I'll definitely steer clear from his earlier works from now on and hope he hit his stride later on in his career!

In "Babel-17," Rydra Wong, a poet and code expert, must break an enemy government's code, but discovers that the code is really a supersophisticated language, while in "Empire Star," a simple-minded teenager is entrusted to carry a vital message to a distant world.

Empire Star

Shea Newton

Babel-17 was fantastic and Empire Star was fun. Really though Babel-17, soooooo good.

Anna Walder

Incredible novel, read it in one sitting, wonderful depiction of the power of language and the outsider

Ben Nathan

This was a really cool idea and executed really well. The characters didn't do much for me, but that didn't really matter. I think a whole lot of people could use this book as a lesson in how to execute the impossible to explain in a story.

Lucas Melin

Rick Powell

Elena Kuran

In the far future, after human civilization has spread through the galaxy, communications begin to arrive in an apparently alien language. They appear to threaten invasion, but in order to counter the threat, the messages must first be understood. Joint winner of the Nebula Award for best novel, 1966

Babel-17

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