Richard Calder

The heroes (?) are a human male and his CGI girlfriend, who can occasionally penetrate our reality via The Wound. Together they hatch a plan to upload their intelligences to nano-construction units in the asteroid belt to build "new flesh" for them, and by so doing escape the oppression of the Censors and the Stepfathers. A complex (but ultimately unsatisfying) plot then unfolds, engaging all the usual Calder tropes from the sex industry displayed in the previous books, and involving a show more transsexual with her own agenda...

The book only really falls down at the end, which gives the impression of being bolted on quickly at the last minute, leaving you a bit shocked that it's all over. This will not put me off of reading Calder's next offering, but I think I will look forward to it with less anticipation than I did this one. show less

Madeleine Fell is a rebellious, romantic teenage girl in Victorian London, a familiar setting except that, in this London's universe, the ancient cult of Ishtar survived the overthrow of the Chaldean Empire, flourished underground for millennia as the true power behind the world's thrones, and was exposed a century ago by Adam Weishaupt, founder of the Illuminati.

The locus of Ishtar's power is "Modern Babylon", a gigantic city located on another planet and reachable only through show more "transdimensional gates". Every year, Britain and other nations send a tribute of young virgins to Babylon, where they are trained as whores, eventually to return to Earth Prime, ensnare susceptible males, and serve the purposes of the Herr Weishaupt's successors.

The story follows Madeleine, a willing tribute maiden, as she travels (not by the conventional route) to Babylon, learns of the secret war between the Illuminati and the mysterious, murderous "Black Order", chooses a side in the conflict, and proceeds to a strange simulacrum of immortality. Readers will probably divine the motives and goals of Lord Azrael, her aspired for lover, long before the heroine does, but they have the advantage of having lived through the 20th Century.

While far from perfect - the political situation is muddled at times, and Madeleine occasionally has to act stupidly to keep the plot on track - Babylon is an imaginative and evocative picture of a bizarre variation on the universe. show less

This started off well, with a different premise to normal, with a human being infested with demons and being pulled into a demonic world being threatened with destruction by God and his angels. The newly infested demon and his controller are set up to kill their demonic superparents, and take their place as the new progenitors of the demon space[return][return]Got about half way through and I flagged, skimming the rest of the way. Agree with other Amazon reviews in that it was overwritten show more and if only it had been streamlined a little, then it would have perked up and been easier to complete show less

I really didn't like this much. There were some things about it which were quite engaging - the whole demon-world/earth/heaven thing worked quite well. The language however was far far far too flowery for my taste, and to be honest I found the whole thing a bit too blatantly objectifying of women - whenever it had anything to do with them it made me cringe. Definitely not one for the keep pile.