Babylon Babies
by Maurice G. Dantec
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Set in the hidden "flesh and Chip" breeding grounds of the first cyborg communities and peopled by Siberian Mafiosi, Babylon Babies has as its hero a hard-boiled leatherneck veteran of Sarajevo named Toorop. His latest assignment is to escort a young woman named Marie Zorn for Russia to Canada. But when Toorop is offered an even higher fee by another organization, he realizes Marie is no ordinary girl. A schizophrenic and a possible carrier of a new artificial virus, Marie is bearing a show more mutant embryo created by an American cult, the Cosmic Church of the New Resurrection. They dream of producing a genetically modified messiah, which will end all 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." show lessTags
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This is a novel with ambition, but underneath the gloss, I'm doubt there's anything there. Babylon Babies riffs on the usual cyberpunk tropes, mercenaries, mobsters, New Age cults, hackers and shamans, and it tries to transcend the genre by bringing in a bunch of abstruse theory, Deleuze and Guttari, Donna Harraway, Sun Tzu and Liddell Hart.
Instead of deepening the story, the philosophy about schizophrenia and the next evolutionary stage of mankind just overwhelms what could have been a tight, noirish cyberpunk thriller. In the incredibly fractured setting and plot, the inevitable betrayals and triple-crosses happen because they we all agree they're supposed to. Psyches break and go mad because the plot demands it, not because the show more characters have been pushed beyond their limits.
This novel consciously follows in the footsteps of Neuromancer. But while the novelty of its ideas at the time and the stark evocative force of Gibson's langauge made Neuromancer an instant classic, Babylon Babies just feels trite and forced. show less
Instead of deepening the story, the philosophy about schizophrenia and the next evolutionary stage of mankind just overwhelms what could have been a tight, noirish cyberpunk thriller. In the incredibly fractured setting and plot, the inevitable betrayals and triple-crosses happen because they we all agree they're supposed to. Psyches break and go mad because the plot demands it, not because the show more characters have been pushed beyond their limits.
This novel consciously follows in the footsteps of Neuromancer. But while the novelty of its ideas at the time and the stark evocative force of Gibson's langauge made Neuromancer an instant classic, Babylon Babies just feels trite and forced. show less
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.
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 show more 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 show less
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 show more 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 show less
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.
Impression mitigée sur ce livre. D'un côté, c'est du cyberpunk et j'adore ce genre. Un monde futuriste, noir, plein de complots et de trahisons, avec des implants cybernétiques et des Intelligences Artificielles. Le personnage principal est un mercenaire apparemment désillusionné engagé pour une mission dont il ne connait pas l'enjeu.
D'un autre côté, c'est fouilli, super-alambiqué avec des moments où on a l'impression que l'auteur se laisse aller à aligner des mots pour faire de l'effet mais qui ne veulent rien dire. J'ai donc aimé ce livre pour son ambiance et son univers mais je n'ai pas aimé le scénario trop abstrait.
D'un autre côté, c'est fouilli, super-alambiqué avec des moments où on a l'impression que l'auteur se laisse aller à aligner des mots pour faire de l'effet mais qui ne veulent rien dire. J'ai donc aimé ce livre pour son ambiance et son univers mais je n'ai pas aimé le scénario trop abstrait.
Aug 11, 2011French
Tout y est : l'Art de la Guerre de Sun Tzu appliqué aux conflits du Caucase par un Zorro des temps modernes; le dernier cri de la technologie, des virus, des Hells Angels, du terrorisme. Tout pour refaire un 11 septembre de science-fiction !
May 23, 2008French
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[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.
added by Shortride
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Best Science Fiction Originally Published in a Language Other Than English
449 works; 34 members
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18 Works 1,152 Members
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Common Knowledge
- Canonical title
- Babylon Babies
- Original title
- Babylon Babies
- Original publication date
- 1999
- People/Characters
- Toorop; Marie Zorn
- Related movies
- Babylon A.D. (2008 | IMDb)
- Dedication*
- A Eva,
à mon père, à ma mère,
et aux enfants du futur. - First words*
- 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'imposaien... (show all)t 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.
- Last words*
- (Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)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.
*Some information comes from Common Knowledge in other languages. Click "Edit" for more information.
Classifications
- Genres
- Fiction and Literature, Science Fiction
- DDC/MDS
- 843.914 — Literature & rhetoric French & related literatures French fiction 1900- 20th Century 1945-1999
- LCC
- PQ2664 .A4888 .B3313 — Language and Literature French, Italian, Spanish and Portuguese literatures French literature Modern literature 1961-2000
- BISAC
Statistics
- Members
- 338
- Popularity
- 93,244
- Reviews
- 6
- Rating
- (2.99)
- Languages
- English, French, Italian, Spanish
- Media
- Paper, Audiobook, Ebook
- ISBNs
- 21
- ASINs
- 4
