In the far future, after human civilization has spread through the galaxy, communications begin to arrive in an apparently alien language. They appear to threaten invasion, but in order to counter the threat, the messages must first be understood.
Babel-17, winner of the Nebula Award for best novel of the year, is a fascinating tale of a famous poet bent on deciphering a secret language that is the key to the enemy’s deadly force, a task that requires she travel with a splendidly improbable crew to the site of the next attack. For the first time, Babel-17 is published as the author intended with the short novel Empire Star, the tale of Comet Jo, a simple-minded teen thrust into a complex galaxy when he’s entrusted to carry a vital message to a distant world. Spellbinding and smart, both novels are testimony to Delany’s vast and singular talent.
Please note: This meeting is now £5, which includes a buffet!
This will be the first meeting to include a BUFFET which given that over 95% of members voted in favour of, seems a pretty good bet. If for any reason we cannot go to the Bricklayers Arms, we will return to the Pendrells Oak and the money will be spent on a selection of foods there instead. This selection will include Vegetarian and some extra-solar (Vegan) foods. Places for this meeting without the Buffert are not available.
Here’s Amazon.co.uk’s most popular review of Babel-17
In 1967, Samuel R. Delany was young, gay, black and possibly the hippest person on the planet. He was to write no more perfect book than Babel-17, it is perhaps the most delightful, clever and sensual of his works. Its set pieces–an extended wander through space-dock bars as poetess and code-breaker Rydra Wong assembles a crew for desperate adventures; a high society dinner that turns into mayhem; Rydra’s subversion/seduction of the sinister Butcher, who cannot say, or think, I, me or mine–are glorious in their arrogant sense that no-one has ever been this smart before. Rydra is one of those protagonists whom the author loves because he identifies with her, whom we love because we are overwhelmed by his infatuation. And the plot? Invaders from another part of human space are using as code a language which cannot be broken, and Rydra must save the day. As a meditation on language and thought, this is as sharp as its decor. Most important, though, is the complex, polymorphous sexiness of the whole thing–its sense of surgical chimerahood, life after death, and clone assassins as just unbearably hot and really really cool.
50p from each RSVP will help pay for our full supporters membership of London’s bid for the 72nd World Science Fiction Convention in 2014.