Babel-17 Audiobook By Samuel R. Delany cover art

Babel-17

 Preview
Get this deal Try for $0.00
Offer ends December 16, 2025 11:59pm PT.
Prime logo Prime members: New to Audible? Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Just $0.99/mo for your first 3 months of Audible.
1 audiobook per month of your choice from our unparalleled catalog.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, podcasts, and Originals.
Auto-renews at $14.95/mo after 3 months. Cancel anytime.
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
Premium Plus auto-renews for $14.95/mo after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Babel-17

By: Samuel R. Delany
Narrated by: Stefan Rudnicki
Get this deal Try for $0.00

$14.95/mo after 3 months. Cancel anytime. Offers ends December 16, 2025 11:59pm PT.

$14.95/month after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Buy for $14.58

Buy for $14.58

LIMITED TIME OFFER. Get 3 months for $0.99 a month. Get this deal.

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.

©2015 Samuel R. Delaney (P)2015 Blackstone Audio, Inc., and Skyboat Media, Inc. Adventure Nebula Award Post-Apocalyptic Science Fiction Space Opera
Innovative Concepts • Thought-provoking Ideas • Smooth Voice • Interesting Protagonist • Linguistic Exploration

Highly rated for:

All stars
Most relevant
Samuel Delany wrote a masterpiece. Lots of things to make you think about language and meaning. Good work on how creating a future society, and what it would look like, and how folks would get along with one another. Normalized being in a threesome sexually.

Performance of both male and female parts was extraordinarily well done.

Wonderful performance

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
I was amazed by Delany's creativity and inventiveness, especially in 1966. Any techno-geek will love it.

An incredible story

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Gawdz, I love this book. And I love Samuel Delaney’s brain. I first read this book almost 50 years ago, and revisiting it now as an audiobook, I swooned, and fell in love again, if you love sweeping ideas presented in the midst of a adventure narrative that make you suddenly think in Brand New expanded ways, you will love just about anything Delaney writes.

Decent story with mind blowing ideas

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Delany is one of the first sci-fi authors to think deeply about language and culture. He's also one of the first (perhaps the first) to explore alternative notions of sexuality within a sci-fi framework. He's not always easy to follow, but usually that's because he's exploring complicated ideas. I found it helped to listen at 0.85 speed. He's also very good as a prose writer and storyteller. This is one of his first books. It's simpler than what's to come, but it's already packed with interesting thoughts within the framework of a somewhat classic narrative that's told well.

Classic from a master

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Enjoyable, listened all the way through. Made a quick road trip fly by for me!

Great book!

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
See more reviews