Welcome to Litsy!

Love an all-out nerdy scifi read about language and the things it does to your brain.

Maybe you‘re using Okorafor (yay #aam) or a classic like Delaney or Butler for the #booked2023 Afrofuturism prompt… but just in case here‘s some favorites and anthologies options that aren‘t hard sff🤗
-Brown Girl in the Ring, Hopkinson (Afrocaribbean fantasy)
-Lakewood, Giddings (medical experimentation)
-Library of the Dead, Huchu (new series)
Riot Baby + The Deep + Remote Control are novellas; & I found new authors to love in the 3 anthologies.

This 1967 Nebula Award winner felt dated and some of the linguistic ideas went over my head. However, I can appreciate how it would have influenced later works dealing with human/alien communications such as China Mieville's Embassytown.

#BookSpinBingo #JoysOfJune
@TheAromaofBooks @Andrew65

#2021Book92
There were maybe two exciting chapters in this book. The rest of it just felt like it was trying to copy every other science fiction novel, but not doing as good of a job.

3 ⭐
For me, I think this is a read and not a listen to book. This book was a co winner of the Nebula Award in 1966 for the best Sci-Fi book. It‘s co winner was Flowers for Algernon. I can see what Babel-17 isn‘t as talked about as Algbernon. It‘s harder to follow and understand.

See review on GR and LT and TSG - as it's way to long to explain the crazy here.

I liked the linguistics (despite the heavy reliance on the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis) and Rydra's recruiting of her crew and their interactions. The space battles left me cold apart from giggling at the strategy names. The ending seemed very perfunctory, as if the author had been having too much fun and suddenly realised he had now got to end it somehow. If I have to choose between a pick and a so-so, it will be a somewhat grudging pick.

Poolside reading

Love this whole passage of several pages where Rydra is trying to teach The Butcher the concept of “I” and “you” and he gets it backwards. Really makes one wonder how one‘s brain just seems to know the difference.

Enjoyed this Nebula winner. The writing wasn‘t perfect, but the author gives one a lot to contemplate about language. For instance, if there is not a word for an item in your language, how can you begin to think about it and how will that object be different to you than it is for one whose language has that word. Favorite passage is when Rydra tries to teach The Butcher the difference between “I” and “you” and he gets it backwards. 4/5⭐️ #2019

So this semester I‘ve had to read some good and not so good sci-fi classics, let me tell you this was FANTASTIC! The story is about Language and what it can do. I really fell in love with the characters and it held my interest the whole way through! The narrator was just great! #wouldrecommend

IT‘S A PORT CITY. Here fumes rust the sky, the General thought. Industrial gases flushed the evening with oranges, salmons, purples with too much red.

My quest to read all the great sci-fi classics continues! Hope this one lives up to the reputation! The premise certainly sounds interesting!!

Yet another #tbr book! #novemberbythenumbers #seventeen

I was tagged by @shawnmooney to do the #10AuthorRecommendations! No particular order, but I love everything I‘ve read from each of these authors. Thanks for the tag, Shawn!