Book List: Language Sci-Fi (October 2018)

[Anna]

Our October 2018 theme is scifi with language/linguistics. These are the books that were mentioned in the nomination thread, please continue recommending any works that fit this theme. Nomination rules do not apply, so short fiction is also very welcome!

GR: Scifi using languages
SFE: Linguistics

Babel-17
Lexicon
Native Tongue
Remnant Population
Amatka
Anathem
The Embedding
Damocles
Contact
The Book of Strange New Things
Embassytown
Stories of Your Life and Others / Story of Your Life

[Anna]

I love John Chu's short fiction, his works often have elements of language. All of these (and many more) are available online for free. Listed in order of how much language there is. The first one would have fit the nomination theme, the other two aren't about language, but include some interesting things about translation, English vs. Chinese, and simplified vs. traditional Chinese. The third one is beautiful, and I highly recommend it to everyone.

"Repairing The World" (Apex April 2014 / LeVar Burton audio)

"Restore the Heart into Love" (Uncanny May/June 2015)

The Water That Falls on You from Nowhere (Tor.com / audio)

[Karl]

Omnilingual by H. Beam Piper
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/19445/...

[Cheryl]

Dark Orbit by Carolyn Ives Gilman discusses the communication problems between humans and truly alien beings... who just happen to also be human. If the worlds that the two groups know are very different, their languages may seem similar but in actuality they have become widely divergent.

[Benjamin]

There's The Guild of Xenolinguists by Sheila Finch, a collection of short stories. Been a while since I read it, but I remember enjoying it.

[Sarah]

I just finished a book that would have fit this prompt wonderfully: A Memory Called Empire by Arkady Martine. It hasn't actually been released yet (I won it in a GR giveaway) but it talked a lot about language.

Some words had double meanings, which could make for interesting conversation when speaking, like the word for terrified could also mean awed, the word for emperor could also mean world. There was some poetry, glyphs, codes, etc. The language piece was pretty interesting. Just wanted to add it to the list.

[Anna]

That one's on my TBR, as well as on the mod shelf, waiting to be used in a mod poll once it's properly out and in libraries!

[Cheryl]

I'd not heard of it, but am interested, ty Sarah.

[Sarah]

Anna wrote: "That one's on my TBR, as well as on the mod shelf, waiting to be used in a mod poll once it's properly out and in libraries!"

I think it would be a great potential read for this group and likely has a broad appeal. As an added bonus it's own-voices.

Cheryl wrote: "I'd not heard of it, but am interested, ty Sarah."

You're welcome!

[Cheryl]

Nation by Terry Pratchett and Enemy Mine by Barry B. Longyear are about communication & translation difficulties, at least at the beginning of each. And, imo, they're both excellent.

[a.g.e. montagner]

I was sure that this group already had the topic I needed!
As a language geek, I'm interested in speculative fiction with a focus on language(s) and linguists.

A few examples have been mentioned already, such as Babel-17 and Embassytown, obviously "Story of Your Life", but I wonder if more come to mind.
... and if it's legal to use this thread for fantasy as well.