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Babylon A.D.

by Maurice G. Dantec

3.35 · rating details · 149 ratings · 29 reviews

“What 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.”
–The New York Times Book Review

In the hidden “flesh and chip” breeding grounds of the first cyborg communities, Toorop, a hard-boiled Special Forces veteran of Sarajevo, is hired by a shadow organization to escort a...more

Mass Market Paperback, 544 pages

Published July 29th 2008 by Del Rey

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Feb 02, 2011

Paul rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: science-fiction

Dantec is a French writer, and I suspect his novel is poorly translated. Why else would "smoked meat" be italicized? Not one but twice, a character purchases smoked meat. Everyone says "gonna," as in "I'm gonna do this or that," but there are no other contractions or slang -- never a "we're" or "I'll," always "we are" or "I will." I tripped on repeated references to the XXth and XXIst centuries. And while I might use "...moreDantec is a French writer, and I suspect his novel is poorly translated. Why else would "smoked meat" be italicized? Not one but twice, a character purchases smoked meat. Everyone says "gonna," as in "I'm gonna do this or that," but there are no other contractions or slang -- never a "we're" or "I'll," always "we are" or "I will." I tripped on repeated references to the XXth and XXIst centuries. And while I might use "Dr." when addressing a check to my dermatologist, I would never write a sentence like "The dr. sat down on a chair." Babylon Babies starts out as a good war story, focused on a mercenary soldier fighting in a war-torn region between China, Mongolia, and Russia. The conflict is based on current realities, projected only a little into the future. Dantec quickly introduces science fiction elements, a la the near-future fiction of William Gibson -- cyberpunks, mafia figures, artificial intelligence, secretive labs manipulating DNA, and an interesting plot line where the mercenary is hired by the Russian mafia to transport a pregnant girl carrying genetically-modified babies out of harm's way, then protect her to term. All good so far. Then, halfway through the novel, Dantec lays on a bunch of New Age nonsense about the wisdom of primitive peyote-smoking native shamans and cosmic snakes, a frankly unbelievable war between outlaw motorcycle gang militias with military capabilities approaching those of First World nation states, and two rival religious groups modeled on the Heaven's Gate cult (remember the group that committed mass suicide during the transit of Comet Hale-Bopp?), complete with male and female Do and Ti figures. We go from a conceivable, reality-founded near future to mere fantasy, mumbo-jumbo fantasy at that. At first I thought Dantec was joking, but as the plot became more and more ridiculous I began to think he must actually believe all this UFO cult conspiratorial horseshit, and I lost my grip on the story, flipping past page after page of self-indulgent drug-addled nonsense, looking for the threads I'd lost -- the soldier of fortune, the woman he's supposed to be guarding, the babies. The threads were still there, buried under a thick layer of distracting, repetitive verbiage, and I had to hunt for them. Can the novel's progression from solid near-future sci-fi to Weekly World News Bat Boy fantasy also be a result of poor translation? Somehow I doubt it, and I doubt I'll be reading any more work by Maurice Dantec.(less)

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Jan 19, 2009

Robert rated it

This is a fascinating look at a fractured world. This world is not set hundreds of years into the future but rather just around the corner. It is very well-translated with very believable characters and realistic scenarios. There's lot of action and interesting characters.

Huge governments are falling apart. Science "progresses" without regard to morality or government. People are stealing everything everywhere. The struggles: person vs. person, individual vs. collective gr...more

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Apr 03, 2009

Lucky rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: sci-fi

I liked the movie Babylon AD(well up until the last 15 minutes) and so I picked up the book. I liked the book a whole lot more, while the story is similar, the book of course is much deeper. The cast is larger and it doesn't have the "WTF where did the kids come from" moment.

I would have rated it higher, unfortunately though some of the descriptions were awful. I think it was a combination translation from the original French novel, and what I interpret as an artificial eff...more

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Dec 28, 2011

Editor B rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: octavia-sf

I got about a quarter of the way through Babylon Babies before giving up. The first chapter was a brutally boring account of one man's love affair with his AK-47, but I slogged through it. I waded through faux hardboiled lines like:

It was fucking hot.

and

Romanenko scanned his screen with fucking intensity...

I don't mind the f-bombs, but this just seems poorly written. Still I slogged on. Here’s the passage that did me in:

She wa

...more

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Sep 22, 2008

Yune rated it

· review of another edition

"So living was an incredible experience, where the most beautiful day of your entire existence could be your last, where sleeping with death guaranteed seeing the next morning, and where a few golden rules were constant. Never walk in the direction of the wind, never turn your back to a window, never sleep in the same place twice, always stay in the sun's axis, trust in nothing and no one, suspend your breath with the perfection of the living dead on the point of freeing the metal's salvat...more

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Aug 20, 2008

Joshua rated it

· review of another edition

Recommends it for: Any fan of hard cyberpunk sci-fi. Are there many out there?

Shelves: sci-fi-and-fantasy

This book is both brilliant and infuriating at the same time. The story, the concept, the imagery are simply stunning. The descriptions, the same imagery's, the execution are head-scratchingly numbing-- like grabbing a handful of M&M's, throwing them into your mouth and finding out they're rocks.

This is cyberpunk at its most faithful. And like most cyberpunk, this book deals with the Adam and Eve motif-- rebirth/birth of mankind through the shedding of flesh and the accepting of tech...moreThis book is both brilliant and infuriating at the same time. The story, the concept, the imagery are simply stunning. The descriptions, the same imagery's, the execution are head-scratchingly numbing-- like grabbing a handful of M&M's, throwing them into your mouth and finding out they're rocks.

This is cyberpunk at its most faithful. And like most cyberpunk, this book deals with the Adam and Eve motif-- rebirth/birth of mankind through the shedding of flesh and the accepting of technological take-over. This is the story of a world at odds: mafia vs. military, water vs. food, killing vs. starvation. This is the story of a man who has shed his humanity, becoming a machine, and longs to reclaim it. This is the story of a woman who seeks to live long enough to give birth to a being/virus which can bridge the gap between humanity and machine, creating a messiah untold in our scriptures. This is a story on how through computers and drugs can someone access streams of consciousness unheard of-- much like the info dumps in Warren Ellis's Transmetropolitan series.

This is the first book to be translated and released here in the States from the French writer Maurice G. Dantec. The translator deserves a world of credit because I can't imagine translating a French cyber-punk story into English to have been easy. Maurice's military and war knowledge is great and I loved how this is more a book on a man trying to fight a war through planning and not with guns a-blazzing.

Brilliant and flawed. I enjoyed this but cannot recommend this to many because it's just so hard to digest with all its cyberpunk symbolism. However, if the reader is well versed in this sub-genre they will be greatly rewarded with a hard fought reading.

-- this has been made into a movie starring Vin Diesel. If you had asked me what books I thought could never be made into movies, this book would be one of them. I imagine that all deapth and insight have been taken making the movie a hollywood actionair. Great. Why Diesel? Why? Stop making movies!!(less)

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Sep 25, 2008

Nicolas rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: cyberpunk, guerilla, mutants, guerre, rayon-fantasy-et-sf

Ce roman nous raconte les aventures presque communes de Toorop, mercenaire désabusé revenu de tous les conflits européano-asiatiques, et de Marie Zorn, une jeune psycho-quelque chose, qui transporte quelque chose. Babylon Babies est à ranger pour moi dans les grands romans du cyberpunk. Si il débute comme uen espèce de banal roman de guerre, et continue pendant un bon moment (à peu près jusqu’à la moitié) comme une bête histoire de gangs digne d’une partie de Shadowrun pré-éveil (1).
Mais ...moreCe roman nous raconte les aventures presque communes de Toorop, mercenaire désabusé revenu de tous les conflits européano-asiatiques, et de Marie Zorn, une jeune psycho-quelque chose, qui transporte quelque chose. Babylon Babies est à ranger pour moi dans les grands romans du cyberpunk. Si il débute comme uen espèce de banal roman de guerre, et continue pendant un bon moment (à peu près jusqu’à la moitié) comme une bête histoire de gangs digne d’une partie de Shadowrun pré-éveil (1).
Mais passée cette première moitié, le récit décolle dans les hautes strates d’un mysticisme étrangement ancré dans le réel, où les shamans sont censés voir des hélices d’ADN lors de leurs trips hallucinogènes, et où l’humanité est appelée à être remplacée par une version future de l’homme où l’ADN, "vibrante antenne", permet de connecter en réseau l’ensemble de la biosphère. Dit comme ça, ça paraît délirant. En fait, ça l’est, mais Dantec a un don pour faire passer la pilule, et faire de ce récit une chose hautement crédible. A tel point que je me suis surpris, à plusieurs moments, à me dire que d’ici 10 ans, la réalité livresque qui y est décrite existera réellement. Et ça ne concerne pas que des points de détail : il y est décrit une Terre sur laquelle l’ONU a disparu, où la situation géopolitique a largement dépassé le stade du légèrement incontrôlé pour entrer de plein-pied dans le bourbier chaotique (guerre en Chine, guerre en Afrique, guerre en Amérique latine, guerre des gangs dans Montréal, ...).
Et si le clonage est officiellement interdit, rien n’empêche des sectes quelconques de se débrouiller pour obtenir des clones d’eux-mêmes qui seront envoyés dans l’espace. On sent clairement là-dedans un très fort ancrage dans la réalité contemporaine, réalité d’autant plus facilement compréhensible que le récit est censé se situer dix ou quinze ans dans l’avenir, ce qui donne toute sa crédibilité à la situation stratégique. Et puis il y a l’écriture coup de poing, le style terriblement efficace de Dantec, qui m’a pris aux tripes et m’a propulsé dans ce récit comme la balle que ne tire jamais Toorop. L’écriture est très fluide, et dynamise donc drôlement bien un récit dans lequel l’action est par ailleurs assez molle. Au final, il s’agit d’une forme de cyberpunk très différente des écrivains américains, mais en même temps très proche et très intéressante. Lisez-le, vous aimerez, si par exemple le Samouraï virtuel vous a plu.

(1) Shadowrun est un excellent jeu de rôle cyberpunk, où les humains cotoient des elfes, des nains, des esprits, le tout dans la matrice, et l’éveil y décrit le moment où les races y sont apparues(less)

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Sep 06, 2010

David rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: science-fiction, futurism

Well...the basic story was good, average at least, but it was lost in it's socio-political screed and techno babble and the prose were flat...not to mention the dialogue. The latter could have been the fault of an indifferent translator.

Best that could be said...it's okay.

Hope the movie is better....it wasn't -_-

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Jun 03, 2010

Motorcycle rated it

· review of another edition

This one really didn't do it for me either. Again, I didn't care about any of the characters. The author seemed to be lugubriously longwinded, and the plot was totally mono-tonal. I didn't even find the science interesting, which has been the saving grace of several sci-fi books I've read in this vein.

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Oct 25, 2010

Bionikchickens rated it

· review of another edition

I really really wanted to like this book. Alas, I think something was lost in translation (from French): the captivating part. I don't often abandon books - but after 150 pages - I couldn't finish this.

I did, however, really enjoy the movie that was based on this book - Babylon A.D.

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May 18, 2011

Nitachan rated it

Shelves: 2011, dystopia, political-fantasy, sci-fi

the book is rather difficult to read, due to all the descriptions of warfare, computer-technics, genetics, biology and the like... the story itself is good, but it takes some serious time to get behind all the workings of this version of our world. that's why I never got overly excited about the book and it's characters (which is sad, because all the characters were quite distinct, they just lacked in compelling, all consuming relationships with each other). I wouldn't actually recommend it to a...more

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Nov 28, 2008

Tim rated it

· review of another edition

This was a good but confusing story that takes place in a high tech near future. There is alot of technical descriptions and some paragraghs that seems a little incoherent, but the overall story is good if a but convulted.

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Jul 31, 2011

Nicolas rated it

· review of another edition

Pas révolutionnaire, pas polémique et pas même doucement raciste et conservateur comme son auteur.

Juste étonnamment chiant en fin de compte.

Très chiant quand même...

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Jul 22, 2010

Irongoonie rated it

· review of another edition

Sentiment mitigé à la fin de ce livre, non pas sur l'histoire en elle-même mais sur certains passages où il faut s'accrocher sérieusement pour suivre les pensées de l'auteur.

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Mar 01, 2010

Marc rated it

· review of another edition

http://bibliotheca.skynetblogs.be/post/7...

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Aug 13, 2008

Dawn rated it

· review of another edition

Stylistically, this was not an easy book to read. The author is frequently described as a "French cyberpunk," and there are good reasons for that. But, the story was so cool that I have to give it four stars. The concept sounds like X-Men (humanity as we know it is about to mutate into something different, and homo sapiens will soon go the way of the Neanderthals), but it plays out more like if Timothy Leary had given acid to a colony of Borg. I'm very curious how this will translate i...more

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Oct 24, 2008

Sandrine rated it

· review of another edition

I didn't really enjoy the style of this book (read it in french, and it made me think about those S.A.S novels, with some "techno-scientifico-new age" vocabulary that didn't always make sense to me). But the main character was very interesting to follow, and the development of the story was pretty brilliant.
I am not sure I will read another book by Maurice Dantec, but i will certainly not watch the film: I can't understand why a french director chose Vin Diesel to play Toorop, a...more

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Jul 25, 2011

Lapetitesteph added it · review of another edition

Excellent.

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Mar 14, 2010

Joseph Saborio rated it

An excellent translation (I think). I'm not sure how they got from this novel to the movie... Dantec combines a mastery of descriptive language and knowledge of recent events to weave several narratives into a read that had me mistaking his fiction for reality; even writing himself in (which I love, when done well).

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Dec 07, 2008

Chade66 rated it

Shelves: audio, science-fiction, read-2008

I read this to better understand the movie. After reading the book, I'm not sure what to think. I can't tell if the translation was just bizarre, or the original writing was just bizarre. But I do wonder why they thought they could make this into a movie. The story is so convoluted and such an attempt is made to pull you into the world of schizophrenia that I don't think would translate to screen no matter how you approached.

I wouldn't read it again, but it was interesting.

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Feb 24, 2009

Xox marked it as to-read · review of another edition

Shelves: to-buy

Just seen the movie on DVD. It wasn't release or I didn't notice.

What I saw was the 90 mins short version of the film. France is 101 mins, Director cut is 161 mins.

So, I watched the Special features and saw this book. Actually not bad for a sci fi book written by a French speaking Canadian 12 years ago (at the time of the interview). I would like to check out the book and see what kind of vision did the writer has for the future.

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Aug 23, 2008

JW rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: science-fiction

Someone needs an editor. Wow.

There's some awesome writing that peeks out from the pretentiousness, and a great story buried in the new age/ transhuman drivel. I'm kind of intrigued to see what they do with the movie. Pared down this book would kick major ass in the post-cyberpunk milieu. Hopefully Hollywood (snowmobile backflips over a missile?) and Vin Diesel's ego won't wreck it like Chronicles of Riddick.

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Sep 02, 2009

paul added it · review of another edition

Inspired to purchase and read by the forthcoming Vin Diesel flick (already roundly trashed by online critics), so far I'm enjoying it. Then again, it is French and, contrarian that I am, I like French things, especially the French concept of SF, which is far more fluid than the Anglophone.

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Sep 20, 2008

W34p0n rated it

· review of another edition

Recommends it for: myself

Recommended to W34p0n by: me

A bit of a kludgy translation, mostly visible in technical terms. Otherwise a whirlwind of metaphysics, genetics, science fiction, and social politics. Mildly reminiscent of early Gibson or Stephenson.

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Apr 26, 2007

Dan rated it

· review of another edition

Recommends it for: scifi fans

Shelves: sold-for-new-books

War-punk stretching from Central Asia to the mean streets of Canada. Gang battles, magic, and mystical postmodernism. Writing style is sketchy, and characterization is very light.

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Apr 15, 2007

Chris marked it as to-read · review of another edition

TTBRMMWTRT. A whole page in the book review on translated sci-fi? Sweet! This one sounded great, and its by a French punk-rocker turned novelist.

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Apr 22, 2009

Adrian rated it

· review of another edition

The story is interesting but the authors writing style makes it hard to process and digest.

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Feb 11, 2009

jeanette rated it

Shelves: must-reads

So far this cyber-punk novel is going great. Can't wait to see the movie

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Jan 24, 2008

Booba rated it

· review of another edition

Un bouquin de Dantec extraordinaire, prochainement adapté par Kassovitz

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Feb 08, 2012

Daniel is currently reading it

Shelves: cyberpunk, science-fiction

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About Maurice G. Dantec

(English version below) Maurice Georges Dantec naît à Grenoble le 13 juin 1959, au sein d'une famille communiste, d'un père journaliste scientifique et d'une mère couturière et employée de service de la Ville d'Ivry-sur-Seine. Il passe la majeure partie de sa prime enfance dans cette ville, en pleine banlieue « rouge ». À l'âge de 5 ans, de violentes crises d'asthme vont éveiller en lui « d’atroce...more(English version below) Maurice Georges Dantec naît à Grenoble le 13 juin 1959, au sein d'une famille communiste, d'un père journaliste scientifique et d'une mère couturière et employée de service de la Ville d'Ivry-sur-Seine. Il passe la majeure partie de sa prime enfance dans cette ville, en pleine banlieue « rouge ». À l'âge de 5 ans, de violentes crises d'asthme vont éveiller en lui « d’atroces angoisses de mort imminente », dont le souvenir va hanter son adolescence. Ces problèmes de santé et la séparation de ses parents vont le conduire à vivre avec sa mère et sa soeur durant plus de 5 ans dans les Alpes, près de Grenoble, sa ville natale.

Après une scolarité brillante, il entre en 1971 au lycée Romain-Rolland, où il rencontre Jean-Bernard Pouy, futur créateur du Poulpe, qui amplifie son attirance déjà bien ancrée envers les littératures "marginales" américaines de l'époque (roman noir, écrits psychédéliques, science-fiction). Très tôt, il devient également un fervent lecteur de Nietzsche et Gilles Deleuze. À la fin des années 1970, une fois le bac en poche, il débute des études de lettres modernes qu'il abandonne rapidement pour fonder les groupes de rock « État d'Urgence », puis "Artefact" . Durant les années 1980, il continue ses aventures musicales tout en travaillant en tant que concepteur-rédacteur dans la publicité.

Après avoir créé, en 1991, sans succès, une société de communication multimédia, il décide de se « mettre à écrire sérieusement », tout en travaillant dans une agence de télémarketing. Sur recommandation de Jean-Bernard Pouy, il soumet en 1992 à Patrick Raynal, directeur de la collection Série Noire, un « volumineux et impubliable manuscrit de cinq cents feuillets de deux mille signes » : l’éditeur , qui voit en lui "les signes d'un phénomène littéraire", l’encourage alors vivement à lui livrer un autre ouvrage.

Maurice Georges Dantec was born in Grenoble, France on June 13th, 1959, within a communist family. His father was a scientific journalist and his mother a dressmaker, employees in the service of the City of Ivry-sur-Seine. He spent the majority of his childhood in the "red" suburbs. At the age of 5 years, a series of violent asthma attacks awakened his mind with the dreadful anxiety of imminent death, a memory that haunted him into adolescence. These health problems greatly affected him, along with the separation of his parents, and he lived with his mother and sister for more than 5 years in Alps, near Grenoble, his home town.

After primary schooling, Maurice entered the secondary school Romain-Rolland in 1971, where he met Jean-Bernard Pouy, future creator of the Octopus, who amplifies his growing attraction towards American "marginal" literature (black novel, mind-expanding writings, science fiction). Very early, he also became a fervent reader of Nietzsche and Giles Deleuze. At the end of 1970’s, once the receptacle in pocket, it starts studies of modern letters which he leaves fast to found the groups of rock " urgent State ", then "Artefact". During 1980s, it continues its musical adventures while working as concepteur-editor in advertising.

Having created unsuccessfully, a society of multimedia communication, while working in an agency of telemarketing , in 1991, he decided to write seriously. On recommendation of Jean-Bernard Pouy, he submitted some of his writing in 1992 to Patrick Raynal, manager of the collection Thriller. It was a huge, unpublishable handwritten manuscript of five hundred pages. Instead of rejection, the editor saw in Maurice "the signs of a literary phenomenon" strongly encouraging him to create other works.
(less)

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