Title: Babel-17Author: Samuel R. Delany (African-American, 1942- )
Originally published: 1966
Page count: 169
Dates read: 6/8/2020-6/15/2020
2020 book goal progress: 17 out of 20
Month category:
June - LGBT Pride Month
Back to the Classics category:
Genre Classic (Science-Fiction)
Read my other book reviews for my 2020 goal HERE.
Description on back of book:
The new weapon of the Invaders was Babel-17, a menacing hum clogging up Alliance space communications. Rydra Wong, the cosmic poetess whose words reached across space and whose mind could perceive the meaning of all the world's tongues, had to decipher the communications power of Babel-17 before it could lead to intergalactic defeat. To do that, she would place herself into the heart of the vile interstellar war between the Alliance and the Invaders, and be the target of the next outer-space attack.
First sentence:
"It's a port city."
CAWPILE Rating: Overall - 8.3 - ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Characters - 9
Atmosphere - 10
Writing Style - 7
Plot - 7
Intrigue - 9
Logic - 8
Enjoyment - 8
What is a CAWPILE Rating?
Review:
It is fitting to read this book by a gay African-American in the midst of Black Lives Matter during gay pride month. There is a common type of relationship in the world Delany built called being tripled. As you can guess, it's a relational commitment between three people. The relationships seemed equal between the three and not a 'husband-with-two-wives-and-the-wives-don't-have-a-sexual-relationship-with-each-other' type of scenario. (Actually, the two main triple relationships in the book both consist of one female and two males.) Since the book appears to contain only cis genders*, this means that a triple would either be gay (all 3 the same sex) or bi/straight (2 of the same gender and 1 of the other). There are also monogamous relationships, so there is still space for a fully straight relationship in this world, but being gay or bi is just as common. I'm not a supporter of polygamy, but it was an interesting and eye-opening way to bring about gay/bi relationships without it JUST being about being gay. The focus was much more on the polygamous interrelationship - and the sex of those in the relationship was secondary; It was subtle and normative instead of right in your face. Aaaand... topic change!
Just before starting this book, I finished up a college Phonetics class. Since this book had a lot to do with language and learning/understanding a new language, there were a good handful of terms in the book that I wouldn't have known without having taken that class. It was a lot of fun for me to be reading along and realize I already knew what was being said and didn't have to constantly look things up (which I tend to have to do with sci-fi).
The world was a lot of fun! For example: when people die, they end up as 'discorporates,' which are basically ghosts. Depending on how one died and for how long you had been dead, it's possible to be brought back to life again. Discorporates can control if they're visible to living people or not, though, even when they are, they never look fully solid. You also tend to not remember what they look like or what they said for more than a few seconds. There were many more aspects that made the book interesting, but I'm going to stop there.
I semi-predicted the ending and was a bit disappointed with the vague/abstract ending overall. I had hoped it would be a bit more finalized with more details given. I also would have loved to spend more time on the world itself and not as much time on the spaceship. It was still a great book, even if it pushed my views of sexuality a bit - and got a bit trippy in end. Definitely worth the read.
*'Cosmetisurgery,' body alterations that most often give humans animalistic-type features like claws or wings, is a highly common, accessible, and relatively simple practice/art almost on the level of getting a tattoo or piercing. It wouldn't be too difficult to stretch this to sex alterations as well, though this was never actually mentioned in the book.
Just before starting this book, I finished up a college Phonetics class. Since this book had a lot to do with language and learning/understanding a new language, there were a good handful of terms in the book that I wouldn't have known without having taken that class. It was a lot of fun for me to be reading along and realize I already knew what was being said and didn't have to constantly look things up (which I tend to have to do with sci-fi).
The world was a lot of fun! For example: when people die, they end up as 'discorporates,' which are basically ghosts. Depending on how one died and for how long you had been dead, it's possible to be brought back to life again. Discorporates can control if they're visible to living people or not, though, even when they are, they never look fully solid. You also tend to not remember what they look like or what they said for more than a few seconds. There were many more aspects that made the book interesting, but I'm going to stop there.
I semi-predicted the ending and was a bit disappointed with the vague/abstract ending overall. I had hoped it would be a bit more finalized with more details given. I also would have loved to spend more time on the world itself and not as much time on the spaceship. It was still a great book, even if it pushed my views of sexuality a bit - and got a bit trippy in end. Definitely worth the read.
*'Cosmetisurgery,' body alterations that most often give humans animalistic-type features like claws or wings, is a highly common, accessible, and relatively simple practice/art almost on the level of getting a tattoo or piercing. It wouldn't be too difficult to stretch this to sex alterations as well, though this was never actually mentioned in the book.
Now I'm off to read another book... but since a review should be more about the author of the book than about the writer of the blog, I will let Samuel R. Delany have the last words:
"Most textbooks say language is a mechanism for expressing thought. But language is thought. Thought is information given form. The form is language. When you learn another tongue, you learn the way another people see the world, the universe."
"Most textbooks say language is a mechanism for expressing thought. But language is thought. Thought is information given form. The form is language. When you learn another tongue, you learn the way another people see the world, the universe."
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