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Babel-17

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Babel-17

By: Samuel R. Delany
Narrated by: Stefan Rudnicki
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Summary

Babel-17, winner of the Nebula Award for best novel of the year, is a fascinating tale of a famous poet bent on deciphering a secret language that is the key to the enemy's deadly force, a task that requires she travel with a splendidly improbable crew to the site of the next attack.

©2015 Samuel R. Delaney (P)2015 Blackstone Audio, Inc., and Skyboat Media, Inc. Adventure Fiction Post-Apocalyptic Science Fiction Space Opera
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Reads like French ,in that it's a bit like having to understand masculine and feminine before getting the gist as the author is vague on context at times it's a clever and interesting take on sci-fi but has way to much dialogue that adds nothing to the plot and I found myself repeatedly having to listen to certain chapters as they miss out on context that dialog fails to correct

Good but missing context in some parts

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One of my favourite SF novels. Listening at 0.8 speed was best. The audible app is great too.

A Science Fiction masterpiece

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This is classic sci-if, born out of Saturday matinees, but with a twist. Here we have a female protagonists, and a mystery. It’s psychological. It’s sexy. It’s well populated, well crafted, and rips along at a fair pace.

Oh, and it’s free! This is well worth a listen, and Stefan Rudnicki’s performance makes for comfortable listening.

If you like Star Trek...

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A little confusing at points but that might just be me. The characters aren't deep enough. You don't get to know them too well. Stefan Rudnicki's performance made it easier, so many characters and you could tell each one by his voice.

It's okay, for a "classic"

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Yes, it's the novel that brought the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis into the awareness of science fiction fans, paving way for thousands of stories about language altering our perceptions. As such it is a direct ancestor of such modern classics as Arrival.

Yes, it won loads of awards, and is widely seen as a genre classic. Yes, it has a wonderfully exotic (if sparsely described) setting.

But it hasn't aged all that well, and the linguistics in it are not that accurate or based on now largely discredited theories. And there are many things that date it badly. Punch cards program computers, recordings are made on tape reels. It feels very 1960s.

And it's a bit clumsy at times. A minor character with a role that should have put him regularly across the path of space travellers knows nothing about them, merely acting as an audience proxy for several exposition dumps and some wild world building.

But it's fun, crazy and it's central premise is engaging.

Enjoyable, but not brilliant.

interesting ideas, beautifully written.

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