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| I am, of course, partial to the cover with the "Think Galactic" tagline. |
The novel is a whirlwind of weird ideas and fantastic imagery, and is primarily fixated on language. In particular, it's an extrapolation from the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, which is that language directly affects the perception and ability of its speakers.
This hypothesis, and the idea of a new language changing/taking over the way you think and view the world, led us to comparisons with Stephenson's "Snow Crash" (1992) and Chiang's "Story of Your Life" (2000)--both excellent and often-discussed works, I should add, and the latter contains some call-backs to key scenes in Delany. We also talked about the language use in Leckie's (also frequently-discussed) "Ancillary" books, where, like the Invaders in "Babel-17", the Radch code "civility" vs. "barbarism" into the very structure of the language--and compared that to "connotation locking" in modern political terminology, for example how "pro-life" and "anti-abortion" refer to the same stance, but code the conversation very differently.
