Tag: Samuel R Delany

Classic Sci-Fi Book Cover: “Babel-17”

I know, I know. This cover is a bit out-there. Not every sci-fi book cover, after all, has a spaceship hovering in a night sky over a plus-size female model in a metal bikini, go-go boots, and mail headdress. (But I kind of wish they did.)

Even so, this cover for Babel-17 by Samuel R. Delany is a bonafide classic by the great Spanish illustrator Vicente Segrelles, who has created a ton of great covers throughout his long and brilliant career. It was done for a series of Delany’s novels that were re-released by Bantam in the 1980s, all of which had great, subtle, off-beat covers.

Now, I’ve read a lot of snark about this cover on various chat-boards. Younger guys, especially, find it hilariously bad (and perhaps a lot of girls, too). I think this is because the woman depicted is not the usual, skinny, spandex-clad sci-fi babe. Personally, that’s one reason I like her. I think she’s mysterious, regal, and (yes) sexy.

More importantly, she captures the essence of the novel’s main character, Rydra Wong, who is not only the captain of a spaceship but also a master linguist. When government operatives seek her help in cracking an enemy, alien code called Babel-17, she discovers that it is not just a code—it’s an entire language. She promptly sets-off on a space-adventure to decipher the language, a quest that leads her into a war zone on the edge of the galaxy.

One of the things I love about Babel-17 is the way Delany, even way back in 1966, managed to push a message of tolerance and multi-culturalism. Wong’s spaceship is crewed by a rag-tag group of mercenaries, some of whom are not only transsexual but transhuman, opting for synthetically altered bodies that make them resemble wild animals or fairy tale creatures, and so on. Moreover, Wong’s desire to find the source of Babel-17—and, thus, better understand the aliens who are attacking humanity—suggests a deeper response to the usual fear and xenophobia that was so endemic in America at the time (and is again now, alas).

Babel-17 a classic sci-novel with a classic cover. Check it out…

Classic Sci-Fi Book Cover

The only time I ever got in trouble with my parents over a book was when I was thirteen. The book was Nova by Samuel R. Delany, and was reading while nested in the back of the family car on a long trip. My stepmom read the back-jacket copy, which made the book sound a lot racier than it really was, and freaked out. However, she was (and is) a great reader herself, and she and my dad knew better than to try to keep me from reading the book. (You can’t keep kids from reading what they want, not even back then, in the pre-Internet days.) 

So, yeah, I read the book, and I loved it. And not for the prurient reasons my parents might have expected. Rather, Nova is classic Delany—literary science fiction that somehow feels gritty and realistic despite being set in a far future environment. I had never read Delany before, and I was blown away by his ability to write a “hard” sci-fi novel, full of fresh ideas and plausible technologies, that also kept my interest as a work of fiction. That is, it’s about believable characters with believable agendas and distinct personalities. It felt more like Stephen Crane than Isaac Asimov.

I probably picked up the book because I was drawn to the great cover art, one of a fine series of Delany works that Ballantine published in the 1970s. Its cover, which is still my favorite of any Delany novel, was done by fan-artist-turned-pro Eddie Jones. It might seem dated, but for me it still captures the surreal, distant-future vibe that Delany managed to bring to his best books. 

I still have it on my bookshelf, lo these many years later…