From the Publisher
Kirkus (starred review):
"A perfect fusion of SF, thriller, and mystery-smart speculative fiction at its very best."
"The novel is powered by a multitude of narrative elements: deeply considered and meticulously described worldbuilding, an impressively complex storyline with numerous bombshell plot twists, emotionally compelling characters, and weighty themes concerning the power of language and the danger of humankind's becoming overly dependent on technology. When the intriguingly complex elevated to another level; the pace becomes breakneck and the action nonstop, leading up to a stand-up-and-applaud conclusion that not only satisfies, but sets the stage for the next installment." Kirkus
"With a perfect blend of Sci-Fi, mystery, and thriller, its unique method of crashing a near-future Earth society had me hooked from start to finish." Reedsy
"The Babel Apocalypse by author Vyvyan Evans is one of the most creative Sci-Fi or speculative fiction novels I've encountered recently. The author uses a unique method to crash society in this vision of the future by destroying humanity's abilities to communicate with each other and with all the voice-reliant tech that makes the world work...I recommend THE BABEL APOCALYPSE to readers who enjoy speculative fiction or dystopian tales with a touch of romance." Reedsy Discovery review
SFbook.com:
"[The Babel Apocalypse] is what I call a high concept book. What would the world be like if we could all understand one another and then suddenly could not?"
"...a science fiction version of a Dan Brown book mixed with James Bond."
"...a high concept science fiction novel with good action and melodramatic characters."
Kirkus Reviews
★ 2023-04-12
The first installment of Evans’ Songs of the Sage SF series explores a near future in which language is a streamed commodity controlled by corporations.
In the early 22nd century, learned language is largely obsolete. The majority of the world’s populace is “chipped” at birth with a neural implant that streams “Unilanguage” technology, which is controlled by powerful mega-corporations. The language-streaming business is a highly lucrative and rapidly evolving industry—but when a catastrophic global language outage inexplicably sweeps much of the world, humankind quickly devolves into chaos. Emyr Morgan, head of the Europol Cybercrime Division, is tasked with investigating the outage. The grand-scale conspiracy that he uncovers is ingeniously intricate and involves the most powerful people on the planet. He soon finds himself on the run, with only one person in his corner: the enigmatic Ebba Black, a linguistics professor, heiress, hacker extraordinaire, and the world’s last natural speaker of multiple dead or proscribed languages. She also may head a terrorist organization; Morgan muses, “I had never in my whole life met anyone quite like her” in a moment of comic understatement. The novel is powered by a multitude of narrative elements: deeply considered and meticulously described worldbuilding, an impressively complex storyline with numerous bombshell plot twists, emotionally compelling characters, and weighty themes concerning the power of language and the danger of humankind’s becoming overly dependent on technology. The pace is breakneck and the action nonstop, leading up to a stand-up-and-applaud conclusion that not only satisfies, but sets the stage for the next installment.
A perfect fusion of SF, thriller, and mystery—smart speculative fiction at its very best.
