A few years ago I read Nova (1968) by Samuel R. Delany, and was thoroughly disappointed. I no longer own my copy, and don't remember the story very well, so I've had to use Wikipedia to jog my memory: in the far future, the galaxy is split between two human factions - Draco and the Pleiades Federation - who compete over the power source Illyrium. To shift the balance of power between the factions, two space captains - Lorq Von Ray with his ragtag band of misfits from the Pleiades, and Prince Red with his corporate crew from Draco - race to the heart of an erupting nova to secure a vast quantity of Illyrium. It's a nautical adventure story... in space!
This is what I remember about Nova:
About halfway through one of the characters drops a massive hint about how the book is going to end, and I felt like Delany was sat next to me, watching me read, elbowing me in the side, saying "Can you guess what I'm going to do at the end? Can you guess? I'm really clever. I doubt you'll guess what I'm going to do. I'm really clever."
"You better not do what I think you're going to do," I thought-spoke to the imaginary Delany.
"I'm really clever. You'll be really impressed with what I'm going to do at the end," imaginary Delany assured me.
I reached the end.
"Oh, for fuck's sake."
Delany had done exactly what I thought he would; I closed the book and stormed off, hoping to vent my frustration on a housemate. Imaginary Delany followed me, poking me in the side, saying, "Did you see what I did there? I'm so clever. I mean, do you now understand what I did earlier? Aren't I really clever? Isn't that a really clever ending? Did you like the little hint I gave you earlier? I'm so clever."
From that first impression of Delany's work, I wasn't too keen on reading more of it, but I'm giving every SF Masterwork a chance: if Martian Time-Slip (1964) had been my first Philip K Dick novel, rather than my eighth, it would've been a terrible first impression of Dick's work. I'm giving Delany two more chances: Babel-17 (1966) and Dhalgren (1975), his two other Masterworks titles. I picked up a charmingly trashy 1978 Ace edition of Babel-17 in Powell's City of Books back in 2013, and have only just got round to reading it.
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| Masterworks Cover |
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| Ace Cover |
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| Ace Blurb |
Babel-17, like Nova, is very much a nautical adventure story... in space!
'The pilot sailed the ship through those currents as sailing ships winded the liquid ocean.'
Wong wanders around the planet's poorer areas to assemble her crew. To find her pilot, she watches a wrestling match. Because:
"In the ship, the pilot's nervous system is connected directly with the controls. The whole hyperstasis transit consists of him literally wrestling the stasis shifts."
Wong & Co travel around, chatting to people, having action sequences, and learning about Babel-17. It's a fast-paced, well-written space adventure with some fun speculation about language. Wikipedia informs me that 'Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis', that language influences thought and perception, is the inspiration for the story:
'The blue room was round and warm and smooth. No way to say warm in French. There was only hot and tepid. If there's no word for it, how do you think about it?'
Babel-17 has a very dramatic impact on thought and perception:
'She didn't "look at the room."
She "something at the something." The first something was a tiny vocable that implied an immediate, but passive, perception that could be aural or olfactory as well as visual. The second something was three equally tiny phonemes that blended at different musical pitches: one an indicator that fixed the size of the chamber at roughly twenty-five feet long and cubical, the second identifying the colour and probable substance of the walls - some blue metal - while the third was... a place holder for particles that should denote the room's function when she discovered it... All four sounds took less time on her tongue and in her mind than the one clumsy diphthong in 'room'. Babel-17; she had felt it before with other languages, the opening, the widening, the mind forced to sudden growth. But this, this was like the sudden focusing of a lens blurry for years.'
It's not a great book; it feels more deserving of the trashy Ace cover than a Masterworks edition, but it is entertaining. The final ~50 pages felt like the anticlimax of a disappointing Doctor Who episode, and the language speculation, while fun, is inconsistent and rather shallow. As dated 60s SF goes, you could do a lot worse (you could also do better). Give it a read if you happen to have a copy lying around, but don't have high expectations.
'The blue room was round and warm and smooth. No way to say warm in French. There was only hot and tepid. If there's no word for it, how do you think about it?'
Babel-17 has a very dramatic impact on thought and perception:
'She didn't "look at the room."
She "something at the something." The first something was a tiny vocable that implied an immediate, but passive, perception that could be aural or olfactory as well as visual. The second something was three equally tiny phonemes that blended at different musical pitches: one an indicator that fixed the size of the chamber at roughly twenty-five feet long and cubical, the second identifying the colour and probable substance of the walls - some blue metal - while the third was... a place holder for particles that should denote the room's function when she discovered it... All four sounds took less time on her tongue and in her mind than the one clumsy diphthong in 'room'. Babel-17; she had felt it before with other languages, the opening, the widening, the mind forced to sudden growth. But this, this was like the sudden focusing of a lens blurry for years.'
It's not a great book; it feels more deserving of the trashy Ace cover than a Masterworks edition, but it is entertaining. The final ~50 pages felt like the anticlimax of a disappointing Doctor Who episode, and the language speculation, while fun, is inconsistent and rather shallow. As dated 60s SF goes, you could do a lot worse (you could also do better). Give it a read if you happen to have a copy lying around, but don't have high expectations.
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