This novel is set in the same darkly-drawn baroque world as Swanwick's The Iron Dragon's Daughter. It is a compelling read, but the character development is not as strongly written as in most of Swanwick's other novel-length work. ( )

This is a strange and involving fantasy story in a different vein; it takes place in the land of Faerie in the machine age. Lots of the fantasy tropes here but with a twist that makes them real. Mostly because Swanwich is a very fine writer with a great imagination. Highly recommended. ( )

Pretty good fantasy novel except for come crude language and adult situations. Sort of a cross between Terry Pratchett and maybe Brandon Sanderson? Mostly a fun read. ( )

This has got to be one of the most original worlds I've read about in a long time. It took me quite a while to get used to--maybe as much as a quarter of the book--but it was well worth it in the end. What started out looking like a typical medieval-ish fantasy actually has a lot of very modern elements: refrigerators, subways, and motorcycles, to name a few.

But it's also a great melting pot of fantasy creatures and elements from all over the world. There's a definite favoring of the Fertile Crescent mythology--this is Babel, after all--but there are also creatures from Chinese, Aztec, Norse, Greek, and Russian stories, among others. There was a great phrase..."the thousand races," I think.

And of course they all come together at Babel, a massive city carved out of and built on top of Mount Ararat (bless Swanwick for not ignoring the location--I was dying to know!). I recognized city sectors and streets from New York, London, Boston, and Rome, and the mesh was wonderful and creative.

I picked this book up entirely because of the short story I'm working on, which was inspired by dragons (and Battlestar Glactica). The dragons in the story have far too small a role--I could read a whole book about them.

On that note, I kept reading this book almost entirely for the world building. I couldn't really connect with the character, though I was certainly interested in a lot of the people he met. I don't know, he just seemed so detached from his own story, like nothing that happened before really influenced how he behaved later, even though the whole point of the book is dependent on a decision he makes based on his experiences. I also had a tough time figuring out and keeping track of his age. Always throws me when I don't know about how old a character is. I would far rather have read this book from the perspective of the last character introduced in the book than from Will's.

Alas, there was the usual dose of fantasy sexism. Main character sees love interest, falls in love with her immediately, pursues her and persuades her to love him despite the fact that doing so will risk her life. I'm not saying the women characters weren't pretty cool--they definitely were--I'm just sick of these stupid love-at-first-sight, being-a-pest-gets-you-the-girl story lines. They teach readers lessons that are potentially very dangerous.

Finally, as much as the plot didn't drive forward, I did have most of it figured out as I went a long. Almost every twist was predictable, at least to me (someone who has read a LOT of books).

So yeah, really cool book but the characters and the plot let me down.

Quote Roundup

p58:
--"All right, the male elders can leave now. We'll handle this as a lady-moot"
--"Be ye sure? Ye haven't the right of coercion without us."
--"He cried. So we'll do this by persuasion."
Yep. Because even in fantasy, only women handle emotion. Ugh.

p69: Will's taken in by a bunch of centaurs.
--"I . . . I have to take a leak."
--"Piss away," she said carelessly. "You don't need my permission." And then, when he started into the woods, "Hey! Where the fuck do you think you're going?"
--Again Will flushed, remembering how casually his companions had voided themselves during the night, dropping turds behind them even as they conversed. "My kind needs privacy," he said, and plunged into the bush.
--Behind him, he heard Cammpaspe say, "Well, la-de-da!"
I just loved this little detail. It's not something that ever gets mentioned in fantasy, but I'm sure it's one of those things we all wonder at some point. (C'mon, if you've read Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, you must've wondered how Firenze does his business.)

p84:
--"Someday the ancient war between the Ocean and the Land will be over, and the Moon will return to her mother's womb."
A great touch of detail hinting at a larger mythology.

--"Memento mori. It means 'remember to die.' It's on your list of things to do and if you haven't done it yet, you haven't led a full life."
An interesting take on this phrase that I've never heard before.

p111:
--"There's an old saying: Teach a man to fish, and he'll only eat when the fish are biting. Teach him a good scam, and the suckers will always bite."

p169:
--"It is easy to believe. It is hard, impossibly hard, to know."

p256:
--"Don't let's start passing judgement on an affair until we know how it comes out, eh? It ain't romantic till it's over."
[Side note: "Till" was used consistently throughout the text for "until." The former is rarely used in US English, so it threw me for a loop every time I saw it.]

p287:
--"A democracy is a bovine thing that wants nothing more than to be left alone to endlessly chew its cud and fertilize the fields. It has no taste for blood. Only in extremis, and at the urging of the elite, will it rise to greatness, and when the crisis is over it inevitably sinks back down into the muck of inaction and petty corruption." ( )

Well, I tried to read it. I just didn't connect with the writing style at all in the first 60 pages, so I'm not going to finish because I have approximately eleventybillion and twelve other books on my to read list. Give or take. Still, I will rec it for teens who are into steampunky sorts of things.