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In a futuristic thriller, a veteran of Sarajevo must escort a young woman pregnant with a mutant embryo, a genetically modified messiah whose birth may signal the end of human life as we know it. A cult novel in France, this sci-fi thriller is now being made into a movie by Mathieu Kassovitz. Set in the hidden "flesh and chip" breeding grounds of the first cyborg communities and peopled by Serbian Mafiosi, Babylon Babies has as its hero a hard-boiled leatherneck veteran of Sarajevo named Thoorop who is hired by a mysterious source to escort a young woman named Marie Zorn from Russia to Canada. A garden variety job, he figures. But when Thoorop is offered an even higher fee by another organization, he realizes Marie is no ordinary girl. A schizophrenic and the possible carrier of a new artificial virus, Marie is carrying a mutant embryo created by an American cult that dreams of producing a genetically modified messiah, a dream that spells out the end of human life as we know it. Inspired by Philip K. Dick, William S. Burroughs, Gilles Deleuze, and other extrapolationists of the future, Babylon Babies unfolds at breakneck speed as Thoorop risks his life to save Marie, whose brain--linking to the neuromatrix--loses all limits and becomes the universe itself. Exploring the symbiosis between organic matter and computer power to spin new forms of consciousness, Maurice Dantec rides Nietzsche's prophecy: "Man is something to be overcome."… (more)
I saw the movie for this (staring Vin Diesel) before I read the book. Suspect I may regret that. It had been on my to buy and add to my TBR pile, but I'm glad I got it from the library instead.
I got the Translated version, which I think I knew. The phrasing is ... interesting. It amplifies the translated feel.
I'm having all sorts of problems with this book. The beginning is a LOT of exposition, info dump syndrome. Stating outright, I realize this is supposed to be a Dystopian world and all things are crap, but really, if Canada and the US exist, don't cross the border with their various agencies. That takes very little research. Cut back on the exposition that really isn't needed. Reading all the news articles when you only need one headline of the group, just half a chapter later.
Six hours into the 20 hour audio book, I bailed. Just couldn't stomach the bad writing any more ( )
Che botta! Visionario e schizoide, peccato per alcune parti piuttosto noiose. L'idea di base è affascinante, diramata come un filamento di DNA. Lo stile è a tratti magnificamente psichedelico e si fa perdonare alcune cadute degne di una spy-story di serie B. Nonostante tutto è un ottimo romanzo. ( )
There were so many things about this book I wanted to like, and yet I couldn't even finish reading it. The writing was a mess of metaphors, clunky and hard to read sentences, characters that were only marginally interesting, and convoluted story lines. I trudged through almost three hundred pages before I realized I wasn't even interested in seeing how things ended. ( )
[W]hat makes the novel... so haunting is its vision of a near future in which society has fractured along every possible national, tribal and sectarian fault line.
Information from the French Common Knowledge. Edit to localize it to your language.
A Eva, à mon père, à ma mère, et aux enfants du futur.
First words
Information from the French Common Knowledge. Edit to localize it to your language.
Vivre était donc une expérience incroyable, où le plus beau jour de votre existence pouvait s'avérer le dernier, où coucher avec la mort vous garantissait de voir le matin suivant, et où quelque règles d'or s'imposaient avec constance : ne jamais marcher dans le sens du vent, ne jamais tourner le dos à une fenêtre, ne jamais dormir deux fois de suite au même endroit, rester toujours dans l'axe du soleil, n'avoir confiance en rien ni en personne, suspendre son souffle avec la perfection du mort vivant à l'instant de libérer le métal salvateur.
Quotations
Last words
Information from the French Common Knowledge. Edit to localize it to your language.
Joe-Jane le savait, Sata et Ieva Zorn étaient, sont , seront cette nouvelle limite, tout autant que son franchissement, elles sont là, aux portes de cet univers dont tout indique qu'il est comestible pour leur ventre-cerveau affamé, dévoreuses d'astres, suceuses de photons, baiseuses d'hydrogène en fusion thermonucléaire, pétroleuses du carré de la lumière, liquidatrices somptueuses de la faillite humaine, ravage crucial, terminal tout autant qu'originel, cardinal et plastiquement inédit, ondes de choc en attente autour d'un point d'impact qui a déjà explosé, et qui pour le moment suspendu dans le temps gelé du Caméscope historique, se délecte de l'effet à venir, lorsque toute l'énergie ainsi contenue viendra à s'actualiser brutalement, délivrant une secousse, un séisme, un cyclone, dont nul encore ne peut vraiment deviner l'amplitude ni la forme.
In a futuristic thriller, a veteran of Sarajevo must escort a young woman pregnant with a mutant embryo, a genetically modified messiah whose birth may signal the end of human life as we know it. A cult novel in France, this sci-fi thriller is now being made into a movie by Mathieu Kassovitz. Set in the hidden "flesh and chip" breeding grounds of the first cyborg communities and peopled by Serbian Mafiosi, Babylon Babies has as its hero a hard-boiled leatherneck veteran of Sarajevo named Thoorop who is hired by a mysterious source to escort a young woman named Marie Zorn from Russia to Canada. A garden variety job, he figures. But when Thoorop is offered an even higher fee by another organization, he realizes Marie is no ordinary girl. A schizophrenic and the possible carrier of a new artificial virus, Marie is carrying a mutant embryo created by an American cult that dreams of producing a genetically modified messiah, a dream that spells out the end of human life as we know it. Inspired by Philip K. Dick, William S. Burroughs, Gilles Deleuze, and other extrapolationists of the future, Babylon Babies unfolds at breakneck speed as Thoorop risks his life to save Marie, whose brain--linking to the neuromatrix--loses all limits and becomes the universe itself. Exploring the symbiosis between organic matter and computer power to spin new forms of consciousness, Maurice Dantec rides Nietzsche's prophecy: "Man is something to be overcome."
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I got the Translated version, which I think I knew. The phrasing is ... interesting. It amplifies the translated feel.
I'm having all sorts of problems with this book. The beginning is a LOT of exposition, info dump syndrome. Stating outright, I realize this is supposed to be a Dystopian world and all things are crap, but really, if Canada and the US exist, don't cross the border with their various agencies. That takes very little research. Cut back on the exposition that really isn't needed. Reading all the news articles when you only need one headline of the group, just half a chapter later.
Six hours into the 20 hour audio book, I bailed. Just couldn't stomach the bad writing any more (