Fiction of Ideas

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“Babel-17” is a really cool book that was also ahead of its time. The story focuses on a female poet Rydra Wong, who is trying to decode a language that can shape the future. This story was really progressive due to the fact that people could modify themselves and seemed to be of different species. Someone on the ship is a hybrid tiger-like creature that Wong gets involved with. This story is very close to a space opera because of its themes of space travel, a female lead, romance, and espionage.

An aspect of this story that I found amazing was the building of the crew. The story really focuses on communication as a weapon and it explores this thoroughly. I love how characters have to strip to be able to fully understand each other and break “class” amongst each other. I love the part where they have to have a couple of three to properly navigate the trip. The whole sense of being honest, communicating, and understanding is outstandingly done.

With today’s age, this story is great because I feel the reason we are failing at a lot of things on both a macro and micro issues is, in fact communication. We also face people trying to take advantage of something to use it as a weapon. This was well done because, as the story progresses, we see how Wong becomes a traitor in a way.

I also loved to see a female character that was strong and well respected. It was great how Rydra connects with all the people on her ship and is able to tell stories of her own past to connect with people who also come from different backgrounds as well. I also thought Arrival gave a good nod to this book.

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