The Embedding

by Ian Watson

Ian Watsons brilliant debut novel was one of the most significant publications in British sf in the 1970s. Intellectually bracing and grippingly written, it is the story of three experiments in linguistics, and is driven by a searching analysis of the nature of communication. Fiercely intelligent, energetic and challenging, it immediately established Watson as a writer of rare power and vision, and is now recognized as a modern classic.

Genres: Science Fiction, Fiction, Linguistics, Speculative Fiction, Science Fiction Fantasy, Language, Classics

252 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1973

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author by this name in the Goodreads database.

Reviews

[Manny · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not really science-fiction, more linguistics-fiction - if you're a linguist who is the least bit interested in SF, this is a must, whether or not it happens to make sense. Super-intelligent aliens arrive on Earth in a giant spaceship. Their mission is find visitors from another dimension ("The Change Speakers"), who visited them long ago and then suddenly disappeared. They have some deep mystical significance for the aliens, which is never properly explained.

Somehow, the search for the Change Speakers is connected to the way in which we use language. If the aliens could learn to speak in the right way, they would be able to move into the other dimension. They have been travelling the Galaxy for thousands of years, collecting a vast array of languages and the brains of the various intelligent beings who use those languages. It transpires that the thing the aliens most want to find out about here is an obscure Amazonian tribe, who have a drug they take during religious ceremonies. When under its influence, they speak in a language which has very unusual formal properties, in terms of allowing unlimited center-embedding. (Look it up if necessary...)

Ian Watson enjoys shocking you, and the ending is par for the course. The drug is dangerous, and people are normally careful not to overindulge. But a young woman, who has become pregnant, starts taking it regularly during her pregnancy. The aliens find out about her and are intensely interested. They offer untold riches, including practical interstellar travel, if they can have the baby; they think it will help them to find the Change Speakers.

The child is born. It's immediately clear that that the drug has had a horrifying effect: its head is bizarrely deformed, with the brain half inside and half outside the skull. It's barely alive. The anthropologist who is managing contact with the tribe hopes it will survive until it can be handed over to the aliens. A helicopter is on its way, and will shortly arrive.

The witch doctor picks up the baby and says some phrases in the sacred language. Then he suddenly bends his head down and starts eating the child's exposed brain.

The anthropologist can't stop vomiting. I don't blame him. I read this book 35 years ago, and I still feel a little queasy.

[Pablo Bueno · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Empotrados" No es una novela sencilla ni fácil de leer, entre otras cosas porque está llena de ideas capaces de hacer estallar la cabeza de los incautos lectores. Ian Watson tiene párrafos enteros que merecen ser subrayados para posterior digestión y análisis o, simplemente, para ser colocados en marcos como citas impresionantes.

Esa "lingüística-ficción" (más que ciencia ficción) que mencionaba alguien, desborda todos los escenarios de la novela y contiene ecos y retazos de verosimilitud no solo de la propia teoría lingüística, sino que resuena también en otras obras de la talla de Hyperion. Ese "lo importante es la verdad, no las palabras que luego la visten" del poeta se convierte en "Empotrados" en eje fundamental de la novela.

No solo es la propia idea generadora, o el desarrollo de la misma, lo que brilla: la propia concepción, motivación y forma de tratar con esos alienígenas extraños (extraños incluso para ser alienígenas) destaca también en la novela.

En general me quedo con la sensación de estar ante una obra inmensa a la que no he sido capaz de extraer todo el jugo por falta de conocimiento o referentes, pero que he disfrutado mucho. Recomendada especialmente para aquellos lectores de CF que disfrutan especialmente con la especulación en torno al languaje.

[Anna · Rating 4 out of 5]

I discovered The Embedding while searching through the list of SF masterworks for books I hadn't read. It is Ian Watson's debut novel, first published in 1973. As soon as I began reading, it reminded me that there's nothing quite like the particular cynicism of 1970s mid-Cold War sci-fi. The legacy of the sixties is chewed over in fascinating ways by seventies sci-fi; I think the seventies were one of the strongest decades for the genre. The Embedding contains a lot of what can only only be described as really bleak shit about US war crimes in Vietnam, violent interventions in South America, and utter disregard for human rights or ethics in pursuit of 'progress'. Specifically, one of the protagonists is conducting totally unethical linguistic experiments on children. This reminded me of Native Tongue, although the experiments are not as immediately deadly.

The narrative is largely preoccupied by ideas of how language shapes reality and whether human languages could be restructured to bring us closer to the Real. There's a lot going on in 250 pages, more than I expected. At first I assumed the plot would revolve around linguistic experimentation on children, but it shifted to the Brazilian rainforest where an anthropologist is investigating the extraordinary Xemahoa language of an indigenous tribe. Their community is being inundated as a huge dam floods the rainforest, a concept that I found viscerally horrifying. There is clearly a link between the experiments and the Xemahoa language, and then an unexpected twist: aliens show up! The protagonists, all morally compromised white men, respond like this:

Now that he'd partially absorbed it, the news exhilarated Sole rather than scared him. It seemed to absolve him from his petty worries about Pierre and Eileen and his guilt in the face of Dorothy. His experiments with the children took on a purer, clearer complexion, the sort of exhilarated mood he imagined the realisation of the 'Death of God' had filled Nietzsche with. Anything was possible in a world where God was dead; likewise with a world about to be visited from the Stars. Then he realised that he was using the news as an anaesthetic - and the pain returned.

I found the aliens' mercenary approach to first contact original, interesting, and witty; their concept of free trade makes America look altruistic. Their opening gambit is iconic: "Nice planet you have here. How many languages are spoken?" They proceed to bargain hard for a set of human brains encoded with various languages and are willing to offer interstellar travel in return for a brain that speaks Xemahoa, a so-called 'self-embedding' language. I will not pretend to totally understand what Watson is getting at with this embedding stuff. The way the aliens talk about it is deliberately mysterious. I think the reader gets closest to it at the very end, via the description of total boundary collapse between the self and sensory reality.

The chaos unleashed by attempts to secretly bargain with aliens nearly results in a third world war, after the US government is caught using nuclear weapons to blow up the Brazilian dam. This culminates in a very depressing ending: after handing over human brains to the aliens, their spaceship is then blown up. The US and USSR have agreed to publicly announce that the aliens are hostile in order to divert attention from their failures. So Earth gets no alien technology and it's hard to see the language experiments improving anything at all. The morally compromised white men all complain about the stupid wastefulness of this, but the people who've actually suffered are not white and/or women. The Embedding is definitely more interesting than enjoyable to read, as there's a lot of brutal violence (notably a horrific cannibalism scene). I found it a striking contribution to linguistics-focused sci-fi, as well as revealing of early 1970s anxieties.

[Olethros · Rating 3 out of 5]

-Prevalencia del estilo sobre una trama sin tensión convencional.-

Género. Ciencia-Ficción.

Lo que nos cuenta. Chris Sole trabaja en un centro secreto que experimenta lenguajes especiales en niños tratados con fármacos avanzados. Pierre Darriand trabaja en la Amazonia y descubre a una tribu que parece usar un lenguaje extraño que sólo se puede interpretar bajo los efectos alucinógenos de un hongo local. Pero la Amazonia es el objetivo de un ambicioso plan que creará un enorme mar interior con el auspicio de Estados Unidos y de la propia Brasil, aunque hay grupos ecoterroristas que tratan de evitarlo. La llegada de unos visitantes alienígenas dispuestos a negociar información y tecnología, pero con miedo al futuro y con interés en las formas de lenguaje, cambiará todo en la Tierra.

¿Quiere saber más de este libro, sin spoilers? Visite:

http://librosdeolethros.blogspot.com/...

[Jenne]

I got this because it sounded like it had interesting ideas about language, but I think I didn't finish it because it seemed really dated.
As a feminist, it's kind of hard to read older SF sometimes. It was what it was, we stand on the shoulders of giants and all that, but sometimes I just can't.

[Gala · Rating 4 out of 5]

Muy buena novela de ciencia ficción. Tal como dice la tapa, mezcla tres argumentos centrales: en primer lugar, un grupo de científicos que realiza experimentos de dudosa moral, en segundo lugar, una tribu en el corazón del Amazonas y, en tercer lugar, la aparición de alienígenas que vienen a buscar cosas que aparentemente tenemos acá, en la Tierra.

Incrustados conjuga bien las tres historias, pero sí es cierto que, a causa de esto, no siempre es fácil seguirle el ritmo, porque está constantemente cambiando de perspectiva y eso puede generar confusión en el lector. Hasta que uno se acostumbra, la lectura puede resultar compleja, y más teniendo en cuenta todo el trasfondo teórico que contiene la novela. Dice la cubierta que está basada en la gramática generativa chomskyana, y eso en parte es así. Si bien claramente no es un paper sobre la teoría de Chomsky, saber algunas cuestiones básicas sobre ella ayuda a amenizar la lectura; y no solo eso: puede también permitir pensar las cosas que van pasando de otra manera si es que más o menos conocemos los postulados teóricos. De todas formas, pocas veces la novela se vuelve muy teórica o explicativa; son solo algunas escenas que explican cosas sobre los experimentos, pero no es para nada una historia que sea imposible o muy aburrida de leer por el hecho de estar basada en teória lingüística.

Creo que decae un poco al final, pero aún así es una muy buena historia de ciencia ficción. Me habría gustado que enfocara o desarrollara un poco más sobre las características de la tribu del Amazonas (fue la parte que más me gustó). Todo el tema del lenguaje incrustado al que hace referencia constantemente me pareció fascinante; no así la historia de los alienígenas. Esta es, desde mi punto de vista, la parte más floja de la novela, y de hecho creo que es hasta un poco inverosímil. Rompe el clímax que se va generando a lo largo de la narración, y creo que podría no haber estado y el libro habría sido igual de bueno (o mejor).

En conclusión, Incrustados es una muy buena novela, considerada una de las mejores obras del género del siglo XX. Puede costar un poco en algunas partes, pero en su totalidad se disfruta mucho (no la recomendaría para quien no guste de la ciencia ficción).

[Ira (SF Words of Wonder) · Rating 3 out of 5]

Check out my full, spoiler light, video review HERE.
This one had promise and even though the beginning was slightly confusing, it still had me hooked. Unfortunately, the novel seems to slowly drift downhill from there. This is science fiction with language as a central theme, oh, and aliens. Multiple plotlines sort of come together for a let down ending.
Chris is involved in a secret experiment in the UK, giving a hyper-intelligent drug to orphans, who weren’t exposed to any language. They isolate these children and see how they react to unconventional languages. Piere is in Brazil trying to save a tribe from an American/Brazilian project to flood the Amazon basin. Piere befriends a local ‘shaman’ and finds out they have their own thing going on with language. Aliens come to earth on a pit stop and try and trade some of their technology and information for access to many different human languages. But it is very disturbing how the aliens want to take the language back with them.
I liked some of the ideas and really wanted to like this one but it seemed all over the place. I rarely say a book is too short but maybe everything could have been tied together better with some additional length. There are also some disturbing scenes that didn’t seem to fit in the book. This one didn’t really work for me but I still want to read some other works from Watson.

[RG · Rating 2 out of 5]

Concept was cool but just found it went nowhere. Probably would have worked better as a short story

[Carol Mola · Rating 3 out of 5]

Me ha parecido un libro de lo más interesante en cuanto a ideas propuestas. Bien construido en lo que respecta a la manera de intercalar puntos de vista y escenas de "acción" para contrarestar todo el flujo conceptual y más dificil de asimilar del resto de la narrativa. El estilo de escritura se me ha hecho un poco complicado al principio, pero una vez he conseguido acostumbrarme le he cogido el gusto. En definitiva me parece un buen libro a recomendar a todo aquel que le interesen los temas del lenguaje, la mente y los alienígenas.

Dentro de poco reseña en Dune's Jedi.

Edit: Ya está la reseña completa

https://wp.me/pa5FgN-dA

[Libros Prohibidos · Rating 4 out of 5]

'Incrustados' parece una novela con raíces políticas. Crítica con el capitalismo y su proverbial voracidad, se lee con asombro en nuestra realidad actual en la que ya apenas quedan pedazos que morder casi cincuenta años después de la primera edición de esta obra. Es una obra ética y crítica que se plantea los límites de la ciencia y de la propia humanidad, que no deja en buen lugar a los avaros y a los que se sientan en los sillones donde parece decidirse el futuro del planeta.

Reseña completa: https://libros-prohibidos.com/ian-wat...

[Marco · Rating 3 out of 5]

Es gibt eine Hypothese aus der Linguistik, die besagt, dass das Erlernen einer Sprache auch das Denken verändert.

Darum geht es im Ian Watson's "das Babel-Syndrom".

Das Buch ist aus den Siebzigern; spielt aber in einer möglichen nahen Zukunft.
Zwei Schauplätze sind zentral für die Handlung. Im Amazonas lebt ein Volk von Eingeborenen, welches durch Konsum eines Pilzes eine neue Bewusstseinsebene und Sprache erreicht.
In England forscht der Linguist Sole an Kindern. Diese werden isoliert und einer Droge ausgesetzt. Dadurch entwickeln sie eine neuartige Sprache und telepathische Fähigkeiten. Eines Tages taucht eine außerirdische Rasse auf. Diese handeln mit Sprachen und bieten im Gegenzug großes Wissen für die Menschheit.
Es kommt, wie es kommen muss. Beide Handlungsstränge laufen am Ende zusammen und es kommt zur Katastrophe.

Das Buch war nicht einfach zu lesen. Die Wissenschaftsbezüge sind sehr komplex. Watson scheint großes Wissen in Linguistik zu besitzen und teilt dies dem Leser mit.
Die Handlung erinnert Anfangs an Ted Chiangs "Die Geschichte deines Lebens", auch als "Arrival" verfilmt. Nimmt dann aber am Ende eine andere Wendung. Das Ende ist brutal, aber im Gesamtkontext des Romas, welcher sehr sarkastisch ist, nur konsequent.
Ohne zu spoilern; es gibt kein Happy End und die Außerirdischen haben ein dunkles Geheimnis.

Trotz der 50 Jahre alter liest sich das Buch frisch und durch eine springende Handlung schnell weg. Stellenweise wird aber mehr der Fokus auf Wissenschaft, denn auf Handlung gelegt. Die Charaktere sind allesamt unsympathisch. Die Verwerfungen am Ende des Buches wirken irgendwie zu krampfhaft um den Leser zu schockieren.
Ohne zu spoilern fällt dies schwer zu beschreiben.

[Nτρεηκ · Rating 1 out of 5]

No sé cómo sacarlo de mi lista, así q he puesto q me lo he leío cuando en verdad me quedé por algo más de la mitad.

Empieza bien, interesante aunque avanza regular, no sé cómo acaba xD

En general el estilo no me ha gustao demasiao y, a pesar de q la temática me atraiga especialmente ha conseguido hacérmela parecer aburrida. No lo recomendaría, la verdad.

[Mark Harding · Rating 4 out of 5]

To be honest, I’m not sure I get it. Great fun. What is especially impressive is the way the long passages on living with the tribe of the Xemahoa in Brazil, pull you into their way of thinking so that we Westerners are the ones that feel alien. Though not as much as the aliens themselves, who are really weird.

In the end, Kayapi brings ambition and corruption to the mythos-language of the Xemahoa. Does it matter? In the end, the language brain-boosting drugs of Sole create insanity. (It’s claimed: though Vidya seems sane to me, under the circumstances). And while we are on the tide of glorious cynicism, in the end, the vastly superior technology of the aliens is defeated by the mendacity of the humans.

But the great thing about this novel is it’s scale — not in breadth, like a space opera — but in depth, in the ultimate questions the novel seriously deals with. The cynicism doesn’t matter on the depth this novel is dealing with. So what if mankind steals to the key to FTL travel? So what if we colonise the Universe? Will we simply end up on a mystical holy quest like the aliens. As Ludwig W pointed out, ‘When all the facts of the Universe are known, there is still the mystical.’

A book for re-reading.

[Temucano · Rating 3 out of 5]

Al principio cuesta enganchar, es fácil perderse o languidecer en su lectura, por lo que es mejor asirse a las ideas que expone Watson, toda aquella teoría del lenguaje, la percepción y las diferentes formas que tiene el cerebro para seguir aprehendiendo nuevos conceptos con mayor significado, son temas fascinantes. Luego mejora al cambiar a escenarios con más acción y sobre el final deja imágenes perdurables, como la visita de Pierre a la tribu de los Xemahoa. De hecho creo el final es lo que más me gustó del libro.

Me recordó mucho a Antonin Artaud en su viaje en busca de "Los Tarahumara", tiene más de una semejanza.

[Jose Gaona · Rating 4 out of 5]

http://conclusionirrelevante.blogspot...

(...) Uno tiene la sensación al leer Empotrados de encontrarse ante algo especial, algo diferente, algo único. De encontrarse ante un autor en estado pletórico, rebosante de ideas, tantas que se le escapan de las manos, y que pese a sus errores, consigue atrapar al lector en una trama de profundas implicaciones, desplegando un complejo entramado de poleas y engranajes que, al final, y con las últimas páginas, cierra con la elegancia y la precisión de un reloj suizo.

[Stephen · Rating 3 out of 5]

I wanted to like this a lot more than I did. I picked it up looking for linguistic scifi not based on out of date science (I'm looking at you Sapir-Worf). And this fulfilled that, but I need really got into the plot. I thought it might conclude well, but it felt too open ended, too unsatisfying--perhaps it was trying really hard to be 'realistic'?) There were lots of plot elements that I never felt the author offered a reasonable explanation for (say, flooding Brazil).

[Chip · Rating 2 out of 5]

The first third of the book is horrible - lacking in context and shifting abruptly. Not till the aliens show up that the story has any meaning. The ending (if you call it an ending) finishes with a fizzle - doesn't make any sense to why things are happening. Story has many people on weird drugs - the children, the Amazon Indians. Would have been better as a short story.

[Minifig · Rating 3 out of 5]

La novela comienza con varios hilos que se van entretejiendo.

Por una parte tenemos a Chris Sole, un científico que trabaja en un instituto donde se realizan experimentos poco éticos sobre niños a los que se aísla y se les hace vivir en entornos artificiales acordes a los lenguajes diseñados que se les enseña para conocer cómo aprende el cerebro y cómo modela su entorno a partir del lenguaje. Por otra parte tenemos a Charlie Faith, in ingeniero que trabaja en la construcción de una descomunal presa en Brasil que anegará buena parte de la Amazonia. Por último tenemos a Pierre, un francés, padre del hijo de la mujer de Sole, que vive en la Amazonia, investigando a los xemahoa, un grupo de indios que viven en una región que será inundada por el embalse formado por la presa de Faith.

La situación se complica cuando Cole es requerido como experto en lenguajes de cara a negociar con unos visitantes extraterrestres.

Sobre estas premisas Watson elabora una novela correcta, con una trama hábilmente tejida y personajes creíbles que, sin embargo, no sabe rematar, con un final que parece precipitado y poco plausible.

[+] Reseña completa de "Empotrados" en Alt+64 wiki: http://alt64.org/wiki/index.php?title...

[Marcos Ibáñez Gordillo · Rating 1 out of 5]

No es un libro fácil de leer, sobre todo porque está muy pero que muy bien documentado. No obstante está muy mal ejecutado.
He leído muchas reseñas que excusan no haber entendido nada porque va de "lingüística-ficción" y tiene mucha información política. Personalmente, no me perdí con la política y creo que entendí los entresijos lingüísticos, eran profundos pero no complejos, ¿entonces por qué me ha resultado tan malo?
-Abre muchas posibilidades que explora a medias sin cerrarlas, o que "cierra" insatisfactoriamente.
-Un estilo que exige mucho para lo poco que da a cambio. Es abrupto y presentando hechos mediante figuras retóricas ocurrentes pero pesadas si lo que buscas es información que te llega a cuenta gotas. Cosa rara, porque en ocasiones (todos los pasajes de los indios, por ejemplo) hace todo lo contrario y la narración se vuelve muy literal.
-Da muchas vueltas para no llegar a ningún sitio.
-Extiende el clímax demasiadas páginas - al final ya aburre - todo para limpiarse el culo con lo que te ha hecho esperar con ansia.

Conclusión: Me estoy hartando de leer historias que deliberadamente no van a ningún sitio, ¿cuál es el objeto de escribir entonces?

[Jack · Rating 3 out of 5]

An ambitious exploration of linguistic theory through a science fiction lens. It follows three distinct plot threads in alternating chapters, which culminate in some pretty shocking events.

While Ian Watson's writing doesn't quite work for me, I appreciate his efforts to deliver something unique and interesting. I should make a point of saying that it does feature some of the best first contact that I've ever read.

[Ubik · Rating 3 out of 5]

Well...I just read it...and my initial review is thus: I think that it started out great, but it went in too many directions at once and never really developed ay of them all that well. Im left assuming a lot of things, filling in the gaps, and things were sort of rushed at the end. I wanted there to be more about language; examples, more explanations, outcomes, etc. I also think that the characters could have been drawn better as well; I never really got to know any of them. That all said, it kept my attention til the end which is always good and maybe someday Ill read it again.

[Stephen Rowland · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is one hell of a science fiction novel, a big surprise for me. I was not expecting much. Watson, who I've never read before, takes seemingly endless, disparate ideas, throwing them together in what at first appears a reckless manner, and magically ends up with something coherent. And intelligent.

[Taueret · Rating 3 out of 5]

I don't think I am smart enough to really understand or appreciate this book? I think it probably belongs in the 4 stars category (good and Good) but my lack of ability to make the leap between the said and the unsaid probably rendered it less comprehensible than it ought to have done.

[Cesar Leon · Rating 3 out of 5]

Este libro me gusto pero se que no pude comprender Todo lo que Ian Watson quiere trasmitir con su ficcion linguistica ya que quisiera o no acaba confundido por toda la informacion que se nos brinda. Sin duda alguna esta obra debe ser El deleite de todos los amantes de los lenguajes.

[Eddie Watkins · Rating 4 out of 5]

The only science fiction book I know that references Raymond Roussel.

[Rodrigo Medina · Rating 5 out of 5]

Un libro interesantisimo. De las mejores obras de la cfi-hard, pero que no pienso releer en mi puta vida. Para eso mejor cojo Los lenguajes de Pao.

[Walter Figueiredo De Simoni · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fascinating read, definitely doesn't feel like it was written 50 years ago.
Mix between linguistics and sci-fi, some good mind-blowing (perhaps literally) concepts between languages, indigenous knowledge and thought as a gatekeeper to reality.
Part of the book takes place near Santarém around the construction of a dam and the threat they pose to a local tribe and the ecosystem. That part could have been written pretty much last week...

[Philip · Rating 3 out of 5]

2025 Book #17:
The Embedding (1973) by Ian Watson

A strange, sometimes thought-provoking, sometimes frustrating book. This was Watson’s first novel, so it’s bursting with a kind of youthful ebullience paired with occasionally sloppy pacing. The Embedding is sort of like Delany’s Babel-17: an SF novel about language and politics. It even takes a similar speculation as its starting point: What would happen if radically different grammars actually expanded the reality that one is able to perceive? I’ve been skeptical of this Whorfianism for a long time (and to be clear, Watson seems ultimately skeptical of it as well), but it seems to always make for fascinating SF. The musings on language are certainly the most enthralling parts of the novel. But about halfway through, Watson flippantly introduces an alien first-contact plot that feels forced and unconvincing. From this point on, the novel becomes confusing as character motivations are murky at best. While the imagery from the latter half of the novel is memorable (and even disturbing), the plot is borderline nonsensical, involving aliens, revolutionaries in Brazil, US propaganda, etc. There are too many moving parts written too thinly for my taste. Despite all of this, I couldn’t help but enjoy the reading experience in the end. The Embedding becomes a cautionary tale about the human quest for knowledge, the lengths we’re willing to go and the ethical barriers we’re willing to skirt. Watson’s prose – while mostly unmarked – is sure-footed with an occasionally daring, beautiful turn of phrase. I look forward to checking out more of his writing in the future. (high 3/5)

[Steve Joyce · Rating 3 out of 5]

Hit some moments of real interest when the aliens arrive on Earth (hey, what self-respecting science fiction story couldn't say the same?). Said aliens by the way are prototypical Ferengi. I.e. they live to trade.

But the whole things goes into the "meh" category with plot points and dialogue like this:

We buy a stinking little peace by sacrificing the stars, when we could have bought the stars with half a dozen brains. It's so STUPID. Stupid!

Yes it is. Quite often. And yes, human brains are the currency here!

But the most confounding thing to me is that, apparently, The Embedding was considered in several award discussions back in the mid 1970s. I found it to be potboiler material.

[Brant · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book had some interesting moments, but I think Watson's arrangement of the story ruined it in the long run. The first half of the book is a bunch of linguistic mumbo-jumbo...you're forced to read ahead without any hints as to what the true story is. Then there's an abrupt transition, followed by an OK ending. Too many weird political things were going on, too. Didn't work for me.