Jorgen@bookrastinating.com reviewed Embassytown by China Miéville
i dont think i got it 10/10
5 stars
you heard me
Embassytown: a city of contradictions on the outskirts of the universe.
Avice is an immerser, a traveller on the immer, the sea of space and time below the everyday, now returned to her birth planet. Here on Arieka, Humans are not the only intelligent life, and Avice has a rare bond with the natives, the enigmatic Hosts - who cannot lie.
Only a tiny cadre of unique human Ambassadors can speak Language, and connect the two communities. But an unimaginable new arrival has come to Embassytown. And when this Ambassador speaks, everything changes.
Catastrophe looms. Avice knows the only hope is for her to speak directly to the alien Hosts.
And that is impossible.
you heard me
Once things got going, I couldn't put it down! I have a keen interest in language and how it relates to the mind and consciousness, so I found this book fascinating. The book revolves around the method humans have cobbled together to speak to a group of aliens who are drastically different from humans in the way they think and communicate. Their speech goes beyond sound, and in fact, simply creating the same sound artificially will not make words understandable to them. Highly recommended!
(safety rating: flexible thinking about what is appropriate sexual behavior, but nothing graphic, some language)
Solid science fiction imagining. A truly alien race and a riff on how language constrains thought, and what happens when the walls of language come tumbling down.