If you squint at the outdated technology and a reliance on a somewhat discredited hypothesis on linguistics*, Babel-17 could be published today. It’s that fresh and lively.

Delany takes us to the distant future, where the Alliance is at war with the Invaders.** Rydra Wong, a celebrated poet, linguist and starship captain, is brought in by the Alliance to translate the titular Babel-17, a new language or code used by the enemy. In solving the mystery of B-17, Rydra, with a crew of vivid, fascinating characters, travels to an Alliance outpost where the Invaders are next likely to strike. 

Babel-17 is that perfect mix of big ideas and action set pieces. It’s intellectual, but it’s also thrilling—there are terrorist attacks, space battles and acts of betrayal and sabotage. But unlike Infinity Gates (sorry, M. R. Carey), these highly charged moments don’t draw attention away from Delany’s spicy ideas and blazing imagination. Is Delany the first writer to have the undead—disparate consciousness—play a key role in a science fiction novel?*** The same goes for extreme body modification. Was anyone doing this before Delany?****Feel free to answer in the comments.

All the Sapir-Whorf stuff***** is fascinating, even if “linguistic determinism” has mostly been rejected. I can understand why the theory would get less traction today, especially in how it reinforces the concept of the other and the supremacy of one culture’s way of thinking. Delany, though, pushes the idea to its limits, envisaging a language that can physically rewire the synapses of a brain. In doing so, he foreshadows how Cyberpunk will frame language to define an individual’s reality.

You read Babel-17, clocking in at just over 60,000 words, and realise why Delany was viewed as the next big thing. Whether he ever reached those heights is for others to debate (did I mention this was my first dip in Delany’s work?). But if science fiction ever forms a Harold Bloom-style canon of science fiction—and I suggest we don’t—this book should be right up there, required reading for anyone who gives even the slightest shit about the genre.

*I’m no expert; I’m just going with what the internet tells me. (Though I’m told that some TikTok influencers have taken Sapir-Whorf).

**It was never clear to me whether this is a battle between two strains of humanity or humans vs aliens. Given this is a novel about language and forms of communication, it doesn’t much matter.

***They act as gophers for the crew, passing on messages. But they’re also handy as spies.

**** I know writers like Varley did something similar, but that was a little later.

*****Like me, you can Google it if you aren’t familiar with the hypothesis.