Babel-17 / Empire Star

Rydra Wong is a poet - the poet of her generation, though only in her twenties, with a readership spanning five galaxies. Her readership also spans two sides of an interstellar war. Because of her past skills at decryption and current skills in many human languages, her help is asked in decoding messages that precede devastating acts of sabotage against our side.

Rydra discovers that codename Babel-17 is no mere cipher. It's a language instead, with its own words, grammar, and lethal internal logic. Rydra chases Bable-17 in a trail of sabotage across the star-streams, learning bits and pieces of the language as she goes. Every fact that sheds light on the language only darkens the real mystery: who speaks this language? And why?

It's a slim book, but dense. Fast-paced adventure pulls the reader along, with plenty of worthwhile characters along the way. Delany's writing is so good that we really care about that mousy little bureaucrat who approves Rydra's star flight. We also get a genuinely sick chill from the head of the weapons lab - as well we should, from the hypocritical genteelness of a man so dedicated to death en masse.

Babel-17 instantly became one of my favorites when I first read it. A new reading, years later, shows why. I never know whether an old favorite will live up to my memory of it, but this one certainly does.

//wiredweird

Fairly early Delay and like the later works very much concerned with language(s) as shapers of reality. Nice, fast-moving plot: the opening chapter is a textbook model of how to introduce and develop a protagonist and send her off on her quest. Very readable, very enjoyable, although not as dark and complex as the later, greater Delany of Dahlgren and the Neveryon series.

Delaney explores the influence of language on thoughts en indentity. Would we be who we are when we had grown up, using a language with no word for me or I or, for that matter, you? Would we be able to think better or faster when we used another language for our thoughts? Is that a way to define intelligence? Can language be used to manipulate so sharply that it becoms a weapon?
A must-read SF classic, not only because of the theme, but also because of the vivid new (1966!) universe he created, and the way he sees our future. Delaney avoids the trap of (some) older SF-writers: to focus on the theme instead of the plot. It's an excellent read.
Babel-17 won the Nebula Award in 1966.

This recent pairing of Samuel R. Delany's early classics is a wonderful piece of publication, as the two novellas together make yet a third window on the combined story. Babel 17, The longer of the two, is a narrative of mayhem, murder, mystery, madness, and metaphor. Though shorter (sort of), Empire Star gets in its LUMPs (Linguistic Ubiquitous Multiplex Computers) as well.
Delany, anagramatically AKA Muels Aranlyde, writes sagely about the joy of linguistics (in a Whorf-ian sense), the anguish and sadness of slavery, the questing journey, non-standard sexual proclivities, and a whole new slant on death being no excuse to stop working. (Although both treks are aesthetically closer to Road Warrior than Star Wars, George Lucas does seem to have picked up a couple of ideas here, including the famous alien bar scene.) There is one disclaimer: The topologies of Delany's writing are not for everyone. I first discovered his works while I was in college, and found them opaque and self-absorbed. But I would have pored over them earlier, and much later have come to enjoy them all the more, in spite of the flaws. Intensely self-referential long before fractals, chaos theory, and literary necessity made the technique fashionable, this is the thinking person' science fiction at its finest.

A funny title, considering that we are talking about a scifi book, and I read a lot of them. This was not a bad read. I enjoyed the linguistic angle, but I did not fully embrace her discoveries once they were in hand. I am not sure I would read the next one if there is one, as the ending implies.

This is the kind of science fiction novel that no one writes anymore. It plunges you into a bizarre and brilliant world, against the backdrop of a war against an enemy known only as The Invaders. It is fully of colorful images and characters: cosmetically altered space crews with claws, fangs, wings, and horns; straight-laced Customs officers and military men; the spirits of "discorporated" (dead) crewmen; freewheeling privateers, and incomprehensible aliens. The heroine is larger than life, a poet, linguist, cryptographer and space captain. And Babel-17 itself, a strange alien language engineered to enhance logical thought. Nowadays, authors feel a greater need to explain the background of their worlds, producing thicker novels with fewer off-the-wall ideas. In Babel-17, Delany spins ideas so thick and fast that you just have to relax and let them whip past you. A great read for anyone who loves classic science fiction.

A proto-cyberpunk blend of romantic space opera, high technology and street grunge. Interstellar defense forces fighting a devastating war ask Rydra Wong, genius, beauty, and "the most famous poet in five explored galaxies" to decode encrypted enemy communications linked to a series of damaging stealth attacks. Entertaining and edifying exploration of linguistic concepts. Good local color includes interstellar barrooms, decadent high tech banquets, and body modification that goes way beyond piercings. Rollicking adventure combined with intellectual challenge and poetry. Great fun, and highly recommended.

Samuel Delaney changed my life. His writings are genius from Babel 17, a novel built around language as programming for the brain to dhalgren, one of the most controversial and stunning novels of its time. The man is an incredible write, well worth your time. His gift is the power to challenge and make us better.

Linguistic heroine saves the day.

One of those books where the author comes up with something a bit strange and different, especially as far as the crewing of Rydra's ship goes.

A brilliant young woman's help is needed to deal with communicate with aliens, otherwise much bloodshed.

Along with this she has to deal with military politics into the bargain.

A very cool book.

4.5 out of 5

A solid novel. Mostly easy to read, if not always easy to follow. Lots of solid science fiction ideas here. My most significant complaint is that the ending is a bit anti-climatic and abrupt. Still, it is good enough, I am likely to read it again at some point.

well written book. The structure is complex but at the same time straight forward. The characters are well developed and although fairly single demeaned, they are what they need to be to fit the story.

This book is simply amazing. All science fiction fans should read this! This is Delany's finest work (in my opinion), and should absolutely not be missed. The story is about language, identity, meaning. Ahead of its time, I don't know why this book isn't lauded by all, instead of being hard to find. I'm not going to spoil the story. If you like science fiction in general, you're going to like this.

What an amazing little book. Very nicely put together language and the story was fun. I found the ending to be a little I satisfying in regards to the rest of the book, but I would still recommend it to anyone that is a SF fan.

Samuel R. Delany won the Nebula award for this novel and it is easy to see why. He manages to write an engaging adventure while incorporating many fascinating science fiction ideas and creating engaging characters. His most interesting idea is his exploration of the use of language and it makes you think and view language in a new way. Along with this are exciting weapons, characters and drama which combine to provide exciting action scenes. A novel that has a bit for everyone, adventure, thought provoking ideas and absorbing characters.

Delany's writing has an elusively baroque, almost florid quality to it, and at times the style really seemed to overpower the characters and plot. The ruminations about linguistics and their relationship to reality might seem a bit dated, though when it was published almost 50 years ago, I doubt most science fiction writers were willing to plunge to completely into such a large thematic concern. Babel-17 has a weirdly sensual quality to it, and the book is best when Delany is elucidating some erotic connection between different characters. This is probably the first and only sci-fi book I've ever encountered where I wanted to really learn about the sex lives of the characters .(less)

1 great segment -- the heroine, poet & linguist Rydra Wong, watches a space battle on a giant screen -- very vivid, very flashy. But the rest is just 2 much detail, 2 much happens, 2 much is crammed in2 200 pages. I've read it 2wice, & still think Delany needed more room -- which he wasn't gonna get from the original publishers back in '66. EMPIRE STAR and EINSTEIN INTERSECTION R better, tho this won Delany his 1st Nebula Award....

Linguistics has always been of interest to me so I was happy to see it play such a large roll in the story. I read the book with no previous idea of its contents and was thoroughly pleased. Lovely read

Some sci-fi just ages poorly. Babel 17 is clearly the future of the 60's, with easy love and extreme body art mixed in with pseudo-linguistic technobabble. I'd really only suggest picking it up if it's used, or if you really liked it when it was modern.

Empire Star was a better story, if much shorter, but has some of the same feel applied to a recursive narrative. Without the novella, this would only be a two star book.