Babel-17 by Samuel R. Delany

During an interstellar war one side develops a language, Babel-17, that can be used as a weapon. Learning it turns one into an unwilling traitor as it alters perception and thought. This is discovered by the starship captain Rydra Wong. She is recruited to discover how the enemy are infiltrating and sabotaging strategic sites.

I refuse to have an opinion at the moment. My reading slump really hurt the experience, I think, and I feel I couldn't understand or enjoy it as I should. Will probably give it another shot in the future! :)

TL;DR – Five stars for ideas, but fewer because of writing that doesn't gel for me.

I want to love Delany's writing–I think he's an amazing person with wonderful ideas, and anybody who has written a banned book (Hogg, which I think I'll read next) and also semi-mainstream books must have a lot to offer. After being stymied by Dhalgren, I thought I'd take on an early novella. Babel-17 has fascinating elements (fast-food-style plastic surgery, sci-fi ghosts), an interesting protagonist(female! in 1966! a poet warrior), philosophy of language in action–all things that would make this a great read for me.

And yet, this feels clunky for me. Delany is often cited as being a “literary sci-fi writer”–perhaps THE literary sci-fi writer–but most of the plot feels ad hoc to me, and the exploration of the power of language on thinking feels heavy-handed. Lots of interesting science fiction elements are crammed into too few pages (this is the way I feel about many of Philip K Dick's books)–an embarrassment of riches, perhaps, but still makes it not as readable for me.

I'm going to keep trying, though, because I do get the sense that I may just not be understanding him enough, just don't ‘get' his writing on some level.