Babel-17

De: Samuel R. Delany

Narrado por: Stefan Rudnicki

Babel-17, winner of the Nebula Award for best novel of the year, is a fascinating tale of a famous poet bent on deciphering a secret language that is the key to the enemy's deadly force, a task that requires she travel with a splendidly improbable crew to the site of the next attack.

©2015 Samuel R. Delaney (P)2015 Blackstone Audio, Inc., and Skyboat Media, Inc.

Wonderful performance

Samuel Delany wrote a masterpiece. Lots of things to make you think about language and meaning. Good work on how creating a future society, and what it would look like, and how folks would get along with one another. Normalized being in a threesome sexually.

Performance of both male and female parts was extraordinarily well done.

An incredible story

I was amazed by Delany's creativity and inventiveness, especially in 1966. Any techno-geek will love it.

Great book!

Enjoyable, listened all the way through. Made a quick road trip fly by for me!

Just kept getting weirder and more hard to follow.

The final act was such a left turn, I'm still not sure what happened.

Decent story with mind blowing ideas

Gawdz, I love this book. And I love Samuel Delaney’s brain. I first read this book almost 50 years ago, and revisiting it now as an audiobook, I swooned, and fell in love again, if you love sweeping ideas presented in the midst of a adventure narrative that make you suddenly think in Brand New expanded ways, you will love just about anything Delaney writes.

Classic from a master

Delany is one of the first sci-fi authors to think deeply about language and culture. He's also one of the first (perhaps the first) to explore alternative notions of sexuality within a sci-fi framework. He's not always easy to follow, but usually that's because he's exploring complicated ideas. I found it helped to listen at 0.85 speed. He's also very good as a prose writer and storyteller. This is one of his first books. It's simpler than what's to come, but it's already packed with interesting thoughts within the framework of a somewhat classic narrative that's told well.

Recommended for first time Delany readers

If you're widely read in SF, this is probably your best introduction to Delany. It's one of the most conventional novels that he has written. It has a plot! Wow. And a bunch of SF troupes. Stick with it.

I've read most of Delaney. It's always a little off. The books got better once I learned something about the author's life and epoch.

The vagaries of language

Given when this was written, it was ahead of its time by some distance. It is an engaging story, told well and narrated well. Some of the questions raised about the nature of language endure.

intriguing

To me the story is unique, but a bit ambiguous at times. I feel like I should listen to it again, or read the book for clarification.

Enjoyed it

The swahili was a little off but aside from that it was enjoyable, it's a book that works well at a slower pace.