Rydra’s investigation into Babel-17 hinges on her ability to parse, comprehend, and eventually speak this alien language. From here, he further invokes tropes common to 1960s SF, including psychic and telepathic abilities.īut language remains the defining feature of this novel. They manifest strongly in Babel-17, where Delany suggests that language might in fact be enough to shape or split someone’s personality, to effectively disembody oneself within one’s body. I kind of wish Delany had explored or explained this more motifs of embodiment have long been something that fascinates me in science fiction. We quickly learn that death isn’t necessarily the end in this society: you can become discorporate, a kind of consciousness separate from corporeal form, and that discorporate crew are essential for some of the operations of a starship. Delany has a knack for imagining and telegraphing complex societies that are very different from our own without drowning us in exposition. Though a short book, it took me a week to read because, as always, Delany’s science fiction exemplifies the way in which this genre can be used to explore complex ideas. Perhaps more importantly for Delany’s themes, Rydra meets an enigmatic man whose incomprehension of I and you provides that final piece to her Babel-17 puzzle. In this process, she and her crew face terrible danger. Rydra decides she needs to take out a starship and crew and investigate the site of an upcoming attack by the Invaders, one that will help her understand the nature of Babel-17 once and for all. She has mastered so many languages that the military approaches her to decipher an Invader code called Babel-17. We are also at war with unspecified aliens called the Invaders. When a friend asked me if I had enjoyed it, I replied, “I respect it.” That’s perhaps the best way to sum up a lot of my feelings about Delany’s science fiction.īabel-17 takes place in a future where humanity has spread out across the stars. Delany, Babel-17 proved at various times frustrating, inscrutable, exceptional, and interesting. As with most of my experiences reading Samuel R. I recently rediscovered this book hiding in a crate in my home library, waiting several years to be read.
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