Babel-17

I had been meaning to read something by Sam Delany for a looooong time. First, the book covers are awesome (yo, don't judge, design is important). Second, he's one of the few old school establishment sci-fi writers who isn't white and isn't straight. Third, apparently his writing was so psychedelically visionary that he inspired a lot of my sci-fi heroes in the New Wave generation of the 60s and 70s. Fourth, I thought his office looked awesome.

But, alas, the books would circle in and out of my life, unread. UNTIL NOW. I still don't know which Delany is the best (Dhalgren?), but I picked up Babel-17 and was thrilled. My thrill-feelings diminished somewhat towards the end, as I felt the conclusion was a bit thin, but I am so behind the ideas in this book, that that don't even matter.

The story follows ace superstar linguist/poet/spaceship-captain, Rydra Wong. We're dropped into a Far (?) Future universe where the Alliance (Earth + others?) is in an awful eternal war with the Invaders (aliens? not aliens? possibly human? I think human). Rydra Wong is called in by General Forrester (obviously Harrison Ford, or maybe Chris Cooper) to help decode this fancy code the Invaders are using. (Yay, allusions to Alan Turing and the Enigma machine! (Just me?)) Rydra's like, “No prob - but it's a language!”

And thus begins a rollicking space opera ride akin to Firefly, as Rydra becomes the captain of a spaceship full of misfits and, as BoingBoing would say, happy mutants. And off they go, in order to decode/translate the hyper-efficient and eerily-unknowable language of Babel-17, and prevent the next Invader sneak attack.

What I liked most about the story was that Delany discards with all your assumptions and substitutes them with his own, especially on the social sphere. I've been meaning to write some really mind-boggling social spec fic that presents radically different ways of organizing things like living and working arrangements. I guess it's speculative anthro? Or speculative econ? Anyway, Delany does just that, and I often found myself a little jarred - in a good way. There's also a very 1960s therapeutic vibe going on (foreshadowing some of Pohl's stuff).

Overall, I wish I had read this 10-15 years ago. The book is all about the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, which says that we can only know as much as we can say - so different languages = different mental filters through which to interpret reality. Dude, that was my JAM back in 2004. Also my jam are any stories driven by a misfit genius girl protagonist.

ALL THAT SAID, the book feels short and even thin at times - especially towards the end. The big reveal just felt meh to me, and, while I liked the urgency, I also felt like something denser and slower (a stately Le Guin-type pace) might have been more satisfying.