Babel-17 vs Blindsight: Which Should You Read?
Both live on shelves: Linguists, Life on other planets, Science Fiction, Fiction
Babel-17
During an interstellar war one side develops a language, Babel-17, that can be used as a weapon. Learning it turns one into an unwilling traitor as it alters perception and thought. This is discovered by the starship…
vs
Blindsight
Two months since the stars fell... Two months since sixty-five thousand alien objects clenched around the Earth like a luminous fist, screaming to the heavens as the atmosphere burned them to ash. Two months since that…
The verdict
- Ratings are close across the board — any is a safe pick by score.
- Babel-17 is the quickest read — about 4 hours vs 7 for Blindsight.
- Blindsight has the widest readership — 720 ratings behind its score.
Scores by source
| Babel-17 | Blindsight | |
|---|---|---|
| Hardcover | 4.0 (1) | 3.9 (720) |
| Google Books | — | 4.0 (13) |
| Apple Books | 4.0 (61) | 4.0 (364) |
Reception
| Babel-17 | Blindsight | |
|---|---|---|
| Ratings | 61 | 720 |
| Editions | 45 | 20 |
| Film adaptations | 1 | 1 |
| Wikipedia attention | 3117 | 21882 |
| Pages | 226 | 384 |