Babel-17

Nebula award winning Babel-17 is one of the “densest” books I've read in quite some time; the sheer amount of information and concepts that are packed layer-by-layer into such a small space made for slow going at times, but it was not so tough as to make it not enjoyable. The use of language as a central theme was intriguing, and was used quite effectively. The secondary tale, Empire Star, was not quite as “dense” but still it contained some mind-twisting parts which stopped it from being a quick read (although I did not regret any of the time spent).