Yes I have been catching up on my Ye Olde Booke Club TBR list. Babel-17 is by far my favorite book from this list so far. This was my first book by Samuel R. Delaney, but will not be my last. Rydra Wong is a linguist, a cryptologist, and a poet. The setting is a populated universe with multiple sentient, space-traveling species. There is also a war on between The Invaders and The Alliance. Rydra is handed a transcript by the Alliance military; they believe it to be some verbal code used by The Invaders. Rydra soon identifies it as a language, which is why the military cryptologists couldn’t crack it. But what does the language say?
Delaney created an interesting Universe where body modification is common and healthy, you can go on living long after your body dies, and close multi-person relationships are integral to a competent flight crew. And yes, there is also poetry.
