Babel-17 cover art

Babel-17

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Babel-17

By: Samuel R. Delany
Narrated by: Stefan Rudnicki
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About this listen

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. Adventure Post-Apocalyptic Science Fiction Space Opera Fiction Space

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All stars
Most relevant  
One of my favourite SF novels. Listening at 0.8 speed was best. The audible app is great too.

A Science Fiction masterpiece

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Yes, it's the novel that brought the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis into the awareness of science fiction fans, paving way for thousands of stories about language altering our perceptions. As such it is a direct ancestor of such modern classics as Arrival.

Yes, it won loads of awards, and is widely seen as a genre classic. Yes, it has a wonderfully exotic (if sparsely described) setting.

But it hasn't aged all that well, and the linguistics in it are not that accurate or based on now largely discredited theories. And there are many things that date it badly. Punch cards program computers, recordings are made on tape reels. It feels very 1960s.

And it's a bit clumsy at times. A minor character with a role that should have put him regularly across the path of space travellers knows nothing about them, merely acting as an audience proxy for several exposition dumps and some wild world building.

But it's fun, crazy and it's central premise is engaging.

Enjoyable, but not brilliant.

interesting ideas, beautifully written.

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Love the premise of this story! That language can have such a profound affect on the world around us!

Interesting characters that I cared about and wanted to know better, and well developed ideas that were novel.

Felt a bit rushed at the end, but still a great book!

Story could have used another 5 hours, but happy!

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This is classic sci-if, born out of Saturday matinees, but with a twist. Here we have a female protagonists, and a mystery. It’s psychological. It’s sexy. It’s well populated, well crafted, and rips along at a fair pace.

Oh, and it’s free! This is well worth a listen, and Stefan Rudnicki’s performance makes for comfortable listening.

If you like Star Trek...

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I loved the exploration of language, and hope language shapes the thoughts of its speakers

I loved every single character (even the ones I hated)

I loved the world building, which was neat and evocative

vg narrator

Very entertaining with a great concept

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Like what I said in the title, just interesting enough for me not too return it, but it barely kept my attention

Not my cup of tea but interesting concept

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I couldn't stop listening to it. The attention to characters with uniqueness creating new perspectives that were impossible to imagine before.

Space opera where language becomes the space

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Reads like French ,in that it's a bit like having to understand masculine and feminine before getting the gist as the author is vague on context at times it's a clever and interesting take on sci-fi but has way to much dialogue that adds nothing to the plot and I found myself repeatedly having to listen to certain chapters as they miss out on context that dialog fails to correct

Good but missing context in some parts

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No problems with the story but the narrator is very difficult to understand. Listen to the full sample before purchasing.

Difficult to Hear

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Fascinating ideas around language amd a great sci fi romp... Found it a bit jumbled and chaotic however

Very Interesting & Full of Action

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