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Babel-17/Empire Star

Vintage

List price: $13.95
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Lowest used price: $5.70

Average customer rating: 4 stars

Mediocre

Some sci-fi just ages poorly. Babel 17 is clearly the future of the 60's, with easy love and extreme body art mixed in with pseudo-linguistic technobabble. I'd really only suggest picking it up if it's used, or if you really liked it when it was modern.

Empire Star was a better story, if much shorter, but has some of the same feel applied to a recursive narrative. Without the novella, this would only be a two star book.

Great stories

I like the both novels. LUMP's my favorite.

I liked Babel-17 and Empire Star better than Dhalgren, the book I enjoyed but felt it was a little too ambitious to package the story completely. I liked them better than Nova that was entertaining but lacked a depth.

Babel-17 and Empire Star are still SciFi and primarily for entertainment, but there are a certain depth in the book as you may expect from Delany.

A Very Interesting Concept - Diluted

The first disappointment I had with this novel was receiving it from Amazon and discovering that the cover was different from the one shown above (which, I am unashamed to admit, constituted about 30% of my interest in purchasing this book).
From there, things improved as I began to read, and then slumped towards the end. Without giving any plot elements away, the ideas behind Babel-17 and the very apparent research Mr. Delany exhibits throughout are formidable and truly engaging. However, they are somewhat compromised by the campier trappings of the time period during which the book was written - Babel-17's vision of the future is complete with groovy furniture that inflates from the floor tiles - so its potential seems squandered. However, it also reflects a form of sci-fi that rarely rears its head nowadays; thought-provoking without having to be ironic, dramatic without having to be dystopian, Babel-17 is an undeniably unique and entertaining read.

Excellent thought-provoking sketches

These are incredibly entertaining and thought-provoking stories, but they're not pure entertainment. While they are not quite as abstruse as something like Philip Dick, they do require some work on the part of the reader in order to be appreciated fully. Readers who want a pure fun sci-fi adventure will likely find these somewhat disappointing, as will those who prefer a thoroughly fleshed out and minutely detailed universe. That isn't the purpose of these stories. These are short sketches, intended to investigate ideas about perception and existence. Taken for what they are, they are wonderful gems, both of them.

Not Free SF Reader

Linguistic heroine saves the day.

One of those books where the author comes up with something a bit strange and different, especially as far as the crewing of Rydra's ship goes.

A brilliant young woman's help is needed to deal with communicate with aliens, otherwise much bloodshed.

Along with this she has to deal with military politics into the bargain.

A very cool book.

4.5 out of 5