sdlotu
5/29/2024
Clearly deserving of the award it received, but still has some disturbing flaws, nost notably that the heroine is a master at nearly everything, making her unbelievable and the story weaker as a result.
In the core idea, that language determines knowlege, Delaney completely misunderstands what a computer "language" is (which is nothing more than an instruction set) and tries to create a nonexistent parallel between computer languages and alien lanugages, based almost solely on the idea that a computer instruction set has no "I" in it. Of course it doesn't. This is not an instruction term. There is also no you, me we, thay, them and so on.
Fortunately, while this is purportedly a central defining feature of the narrative, it is possible to ignore it and just ride with the old-school space opera story. Which it is pretty clear that is exactly what the award committee did.