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Your Hero Sam's Reviews > Babel-17
Babel-17
by
by
Exploring language, the structure of it, how it used in life, thoughts, patterns, views on the universe and life in it etc etc etc, is great, fascinating, deep, but this book is poor in every other regard in terms of character, plot, story, worldbuilding, and the like.
Babel-17 is a mysterious language that does...something...somehow. Rydra Wong is tasked to figure this out, because she is the best linguist in the galaxies, fair enough.
What then follows is random stuff, that to some people may find it to be interesting, but it is so poorly explained, thought out, and written, that it is confusing. Sci-fi at this point in time seemed to be cramming as much sci-fi concepts into a book as possible, as is the case here. There are concepts in this book that could be a subject of one book, but in Babel-17 are passed off as nothing more than this is how the world is. Which is fine, but with no rhyme or reason, explanation, they are there clogging up the book. Disembodied people, smelling space, griffin pilots, slugs, Invaders, each could have been a book itself. Sure, it is worldbuilding, but the amount of stuff crammed into the book, it a confusing mess that takes you out of the book because you are constantly questioning what is going on, why is it going on and so on.
Rydra Wong is not only a linguist, but, surprise, a telepath, but she thinks she isn't one, but she is. Despite what Delany tried to explain about her powers. She is also a Captain, a master military strategist. And somehow, at some point learns the impossible language of Babel-17 with no explanation of how.
The other characters, are just there. All in support of Rydra, to the detriment of them actually being characters, even though some of them are quite interesting.
As already said, it is poorly written, and not the weird Babel-17 stuff that is intentional, but the general prose is lacking in vibrancy and voice.
I could go on, but needless to say this is a bad book. Yes, exploring language is great, it ties into the plot, it is insightful and deep, but that does not take away from the fact that even that becomes boring.
Babel-17 is a mysterious language that does...something...somehow. Rydra Wong is tasked to figure this out, because she is the best linguist in the galaxies, fair enough.
What then follows is random stuff, that to some people may find it to be interesting, but it is so poorly explained, thought out, and written, that it is confusing. Sci-fi at this point in time seemed to be cramming as much sci-fi concepts into a book as possible, as is the case here. There are concepts in this book that could be a subject of one book, but in Babel-17 are passed off as nothing more than this is how the world is. Which is fine, but with no rhyme or reason, explanation, they are there clogging up the book. Disembodied people, smelling space, griffin pilots, slugs, Invaders, each could have been a book itself. Sure, it is worldbuilding, but the amount of stuff crammed into the book, it a confusing mess that takes you out of the book because you are constantly questioning what is going on, why is it going on and so on.
Rydra Wong is not only a linguist, but, surprise, a telepath, but she thinks she isn't one, but she is. Despite what Delany tried to explain about her powers. She is also a Captain, a master military strategist. And somehow, at some point learns the impossible language of Babel-17 with no explanation of how.
The other characters, are just there. All in support of Rydra, to the detriment of them actually being characters, even though some of them are quite interesting.
As already said, it is poorly written, and not the weird Babel-17 stuff that is intentional, but the general prose is lacking in vibrancy and voice.
I could go on, but needless to say this is a bad book. Yes, exploring language is great, it ties into the plot, it is insightful and deep, but that does not take away from the fact that even that becomes boring.
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