Babel-17

Babel-17 by Samuel R. Delany

Babel-17 was an odd one. I found myself enjoying half the chapters, and being slightly lost in others. It’s a book about language and words, while wrapped in intergalactic Sci-fi. Rydra Wong is a a space-captain, linguist, poet, who is tasked with discovering what exactly Babel-17 is, a language that’s been used during several terrorist attacks against the Alliance from the Invaders.

We join her as she puts together an unlikely crew in some incredibly imaginative sci-fi as half of them have undergone strange body modifications, while others are dead, and therefore extremely useful in running certain aspects of the ship. From there the crew set off to unravel the mystery behind these attacks.

It’s this kind of creativity and imagination that really draws you into the book as you learn about the different look and behaviour of the various members. These chapters were fantastic, and I loved seeing the crew start to bond with Rydra and each other. Some of the relationship dynamics between the crew are pretty out there for the time this book was written as well, which is always interesting to see.

Then there’s the language side. Some times this is the stuff that lost me, other times it was some of my favourite moments. Rydra telling about an alien race that understands most things in the context of temperature really stood out. They have no word for home, so you’d have to describe a home to them using the temperature difference from outside and inside. Stuff like that was great fun.

But then there’d be things like the I and You conversation which while pivotal to the plot, can feel a little messy reading it. Although, I must say, I think that’s part of the point. I really couldn’t tell sometimes what was meant to be playful and what was meant to be serious, I guess it all depends how you interpret the language.

A lot of the plot was based around the mystery of Babel-17, and a saboteur within Rydra’s ranks, with some fun location hopping in-between. Whether you think the ending works or not is probably down to personal taste, I was a little disappointed, but it also kind of worked. Maybe a second read at some point will convince me.

It was my first Samuel R Delany book and there was enough in Babel-17 to make me want to read more of his work. The concept was pretty wacky and i’ve never read a book with so many discussions of language before so it was definitely something a little different. Not quite my thing all told, but kept me interested through-out and as mentioned, definitely had its own thing going on.