Customer Reviews

Babylon Babies

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Originally written in French several years ago, this novel does seem just a bit dated as it is finally released in English in 2005. Many of the flashbacks are to time periods that have already passed and that serves to break the reader out of the illusion at a few points. Other than that this was an enjoyable read.

The cloak and dagger form of other cyberpunk is evident here except it is metted out at a more measured pace. Dantec creates a unique cast of characters who evolve over the life of the story. The unusual locations (at least for most American fiction) like ex-Russian states and China set the novel apart from similar titles.

The central mystery slowly builds to a satisfying conclusion wrapping up the major plot points while leaving open the otion for a sequel. It would be interesting to see what the author would do in a sequel further expanding on the fascinating philosophy of evolution just touched on at the end of the novel.

I read this book after seeing the movie Babylon A.D. I knew it was going to be a "different" read after getting it through interlibrary loan and finding it published by semiotext(e) under the MIT Press. Just Google semiotext and have a look at their eclectic offerings.

The movie is only okay - it really seemed to be lacking in story and character development. I happen to like Vin Diesel and can be satisfied sometimes with mediocre sci-fi movies so it was fine for me.

As a fast-paced tome of more than 500 pages employing a high-level vocabulary, I quickly found that the book has a lot more to say than the movie, which is only a shadow of the book and deviates from it quite a bit.

As for the book, I was drawn in instantly even though I had no prior conception that I'd actually like the book - unlike some books where it takes me a few chapters to decide if I'm going to like it or not. With this one, you'll probably know right away, and your reaction will probably be pretty strong one way or the other.

I found Cornelius Hugo Toorop to be an interesting and engaging character, and I'd be happy to read a whole series of books about him - an aging dope-smoking almost-Muslim intellectual mercenary killer of Central Asian wars with the strategic brain of a general but without the ambition or coldness of a warlord, who is drawn into a vision quest that leads him to improbable yet sentimental fatherhood.

As for the big plot, even though you can tell what's coming if you pay any attention, it draws you along and keeps you turning pages to find out how things will play out to their conclusion. The level of drama and revolution in the climax for the characters doesn't translate fully to the reader - but it remains satisfying. The most satisfying element for me was the evolution of the main character to his next stage of life, coinciding with the next stage of human evolution itself, although I felt somewhat dissatisfied with the psychotropic vision quest of Toorop - it fits well in the world created by Dantec, but it seemed a bit stunted and slightly artificial as a vehicle for Toorop's evolution.

And while some people surely hate it, I liked Dantec's technobabble acid-trip-esque writing style, to a point - it carried me into another strange parallel world that was sci-fi, cyberpunk, and tripped-out. The impatient, conventional, or fledgling reader will likely find it indigestible. If you liked Anthony Burgess' A Clockwork Orange, you might like this.

There were too many pages spent on characters too strange or flat to connect to, although they seemed to exist only as vehicles for advancement of story and not so much in interest for them. Also a bit too much writing was spent in trying to explain or describe the inexplicable/indescribable just so you get a sense of how inexplicable/indescribable it is supposed to be without really believing it.

Sexuality is a central theme, as is post-apocalyptic destruction by religious sects, motorcycle gangs and other strange chaotic denizens of Dantec's weird creation. Oh, and graphic language exists throughout - so this is probably not the best choice for a junior high reading circle.

I saw the movie a few days after Hurricane Ike came through Houston leaving power out of commission for just about everybody in the city except for a movie theater nearby. I had no big expectations for this movie since Vin Diesel was playing "Mister Toorop" and the name changed to Babylon A.D. Instead, I left the theater sort of scratching my head thinking, "okay, that was pretty good". While being a typical Sci-Fi movie with explosions and one-liners flowing from Vin D's mouth the movie did leave me wanting to know more about how his world came to be, what's the story behind the girl, and what's so special about the Babies. The Babylon Babies that is. So I bought the book. Still reading it, so far so good. Most of my questions were answered. In reflection though, the book is far more graphically detailed than the movie. Vin D. should not have played Toorop. More attention should have been given to the end of the movie instead of their journey from the Mountains because that's where the reading is non-stop. I must be reading chapters each night without noticing. Yes, this is a book worth reading. After all, it's only about $6. I paid more than that for an hour and a half at the movies. This book will last you a few days.

I'm writing a review, but still feel like I'm reserving judgment of this book somewhat. I just finished it. I really like the ideas and themes presented in the book. Other reviewers keep calling this a cyberpunk book, and I guess that's accurate enough, but cyberpunk always seemed to have as much an emphasis on style as it did on substance. Babylon Babies is a meaty book. It packs a lot of ideas into what could otherwise be a run-of-the-mill action/spy/science fiction thriller. I liked how the author linked together shamanism and near-future tech in a pretty believable way. There were a lot of dream sequences, particularly towards the end, but dreams are central to the book's theme (as they are also to any form of shamanism that I've ever heard of.)

However, the book's greatest weakness seems to be the translation, particularly the dialogue. Many of the quips or glib one-liners by the characters really didn't make a lot of sense. Often I felt like I was forced to sort of extrapolate out from the context just exactly what the author was trying to convey with a particularly line of dialogue. Outside of the dialogue though, the prose flows pretty well and the author and translator do a good job of explaining a very fantastic and certainly complicated fusion of spiritual and technological ideas.

This is an action, science fiction, futuristic, thriller with hardly any letup in action. It may have been called Babylon because of the association with the chaos in the biblical Babylon story when people decided to thwart God's will and were punished with confusion and an inability to communicate, and perhaps because of the correlation with current Babylon, Iran, which is a threat to civilization. The ending AD suggests both the futuristic aspect of the film and its involvement of religion.

A highly accomplished mercenary is hired to deliver a girl to America, with a promised huge payment upon delivery. The girl is accompanied with a nun from a convent where the girl had been staying. The nun is an expert in hand-to hand combat. The mercenary discovers that the girl is unusual; she seems to know things before they happen and she is sensitive to harm inflicted on anyone. The mercenary has many unusual difficulties during his trip and needs to fight and kill people frequently. He is confronted by many previously unknown people who want to take the girl from him.

Viewers who like action films and who enjoy seeing strange futuristic items will enjoy this movie. They will be drawn into the tale to find out who is the girl, why is she being taken to the United States, who is trying to abduct her, will the mercenary succeed in his mission, and what are the consequences.

Call me old-fashioned, but breathlessness, incoherence and a hectic pace do not a novel make. Characters are introduced almost every page, and the author seems to take pride in the fact that they are totally one-dimensional and generally disposable. Dantec has lots of ideas - so many, in fact, that none wind up being important, and few are developed beyond a sentence or two. If the author paid a bit more attention to narrative coherence and character development, he would be interesting. But as is it, I'd suggest skipping this and reading someone who makes this kind of technique work - Steve Erickson.

For anyone that might think this book has anything to do with the movie Babylon AD, the movie merely borrows some names of characters. The writing style - or maybe I should say the translation style - is a mess. All these phrases that add up to little more than nothing. There are good guys and bad guys, there is mysticism, there is an almost empty mystery at its core. But, it is a page turner. But let's be clear: the center of this world is Canada and the girl/woman that is the "package" is anything but an innocent angel. The male character whose journey we follow is a mercenary with a heart of gold.

A Sun Tzu-quoting mercenary.
A beautiful schizophrenic carrying a genetically modified fetus.
Battling biotech cults.
The Russian mob, the Hell's Angels, and a rebellion in western China.
An artificial intelligence named Joe-Jane who thinks like Deleuze.

Basically what you have here is a sharp, stylish near-future adventure, with a style somewhere between a standard sci-fi thriller and a postmodern novel. It's a beautiful perfusion of weirdness. It's more style than substance -- Dantec isn't really interested in science or plausibility, and if you read with a critical eye it shows. A lot of the technology is just plugged in as convenient magic, and very little of it is truly innovative. If you're used to science fiction that actually goes to new places, you'll be disappointed. But if you suspend disbelief, it's a hell of a ride, and it makes Montreal look like easily the coolest city in the world.

Babylon Babbies has gotten a lot of bad press because people want it to be more than it is. I think the movie did a better job of dealing with some of teh underlying themes the book tries to get a cross, though if you read the book you gain insight into some of the details in the movie. It's an ok science fiction novel, though it tends to be a bit verbose. It tries to be overly technical at times, punctuated with periods of crude language to keep you on your toes. As with all translated works, you need to give it a little credit. It's nothing profound, but if you have a few hours to kill on a plane or before bed, it's worth a read.

I enjoyed this book, makes you do some thinking, even if it's an action/adventure book.