Delany created a whirlwind of a plot that is delightful in its strangeness but at the same time allows for quiet scenes that capture and vibrate with longing and sadness. There are some interesting ideas in the narrative around language and the way that the structure of language profoundly influence the way we see and interact with the world but I found myself constantly distracted by elements of the story and its execution that didn’t gel for me. A very precise language can be more informative and more concise than one where words have more than one meaning or aren’t exact. 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.

A knitted indigo dress, and her hair like fast water at night spilling one shoulder; he said, "That doesn't really surprise us, Miss Wong. Explanatory dialogue can be given in a natural way, and a larger emotional idea is conveyed as well. While that's not a new idea (probably not even in 1966 when this was published), I thought it was well done. A simplex person is a one-sided person, a simple person who accepts everything at face value, rarely asks questions or questions anything, and sits pat on firm conclusions; but a simplex can also be very intelligent, just not multifaceted (Dubya and others come to my mind). this kind of space opera is so much more fun than the heavy realistic dune-type stuff that kinda took over the genre soonafter.They wandered through the graveyard in evening, and we hovered over them while they taught each other who they were. Their ability to speak Babel-17 has altered their minds and we learn that it was Rydra who was the traitor on board the ship. Since the Invasion six ruinous embargoes for months apiece had strangled this city whose lifeline must pulse with interstellar commerce to survive. 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. Delany attended the Dalton School and the Bronx High School of Science, during which he was selected to attend Camp Rising Sun, the Louis August Jonas Foundation's international summer scholarship program.

In one of his non-fiction books, Times Square Red, Times Square Blue (1999), he draws on personal experience to examine the relationship between the effort to redevelop Times Square and the public sex lives of working-class men, gay and straight, in New York City. Characters refer to darkness as being like ‘the inside of a coal scuttle’ (a reference that was surely dated by the 60s, let alone in the distant future).The book has certainly been influential on the genre, and it would be nice for someone to do an in-depth study of the differences between this book and China Mieville's Embassytown, which I though was a much more mature and accomplished exploration of how language shapes our thoughts and minds. It's the name for a rather involved set of deterministic moral evaluations taken through a relativistic view of the dynamic moment. What I already know is only this: your name, and that some time ago you worked for Military Cryptography. I loved this book when I first read it as a teenager, funnily enough, translated into a different language than it was written in.

The story is good, and definitely different from most other SF (although I m sure I have read similar books in the past). Sometimes I read an author who is operating on a different level to me, and this definitely felt like one of those times.At the beginning of the book, Rydra has already determined that Babel-17 isn’t a code, it’s a language. Regardless of setting, however, Delany’s writing is inevitably thought-provoking, and Babel-17 is no exception. I needed to have my head and heart stirred and stimulated in precisely the way that this book did after reading a couple of stolid, predictable books recently.