Topic: Without revealing too much, what is your favorite scene in the book?
The Babel Apocalypse is set in a near-future when language is no longer learned, but streamed to neural implants in people’s head, controlled by powerful big tech corporations. When a cyberattack knocks out many of the language streaming serves in low-Earth orbit, there is a global language outage. At a stroke vast swathes of the world’s population can no longer communicate.
There are two main protagonists. The first is Emyr Morgan, a cybercrime detective, charged with investigating who’s behind the cyberattack, that is causing the imminent collapse of civilization.
The second is Professor Ebba Black, heiress, linguist and hacker extraordinaire, and the last native speaker in the automated world. In a desperate race against time, Emyr and Ebba have to figure out who is behind the outage and how to prevent a war between the great federations.
My favourite scene is the one in which Ebba Black meets the book’s narrator and lead investigator, Emyr Morgan, for the first time. This scene was tough to write not just for the emotional pathos, but also for the stakes involved. It is also the scene in which Ebba explains what is lost when humans give up and hence lose language to AI. In Ebba Black’s words: “They who control language control everything.”
In The Babel Apocalypse, as language is controlled by big tech, and policed by Unilanguage, a body in California, words and even languages can be “proscribed”—removed from streaming services.
One good example in the book is ‘Old Standard’, once the standard variety of English in the Old Kingdom (aka England), as that country has been downgraded to a ‘Tier Two’ state. The consequence is that in the story-world that Ebba Black addresses, it is no longer possible to stream the English variety once spoken in England. Hence, the North American Standard is adopted instead.
Of course, the fact that humans have hybridized or ‘smart’ brains, with language functions ‘enhanced’ by language chips, entails their brains can also be hacked. This leads to the language outage, caused by cyberterrorism, which is the catastrophic event described in the book. This results in a significant portion of the global population with permanently disabled language chips. These individuals can no longer function in society as they have become feral, and can no longer use language. And it is precisely because it is Ebba Black who is suspect number one, that Emyr Morgan pays her a visit.
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THE BABEL APOCALYPSE AUDIOBOOK
by Vyvyan Evans
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GENRE: Science Fiction
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BLURB
Language is no longer learned, but streamed to neural implants regulated by lang-laws. Those who can’t afford monthly language streaming services are feral, living on the fringes of society. Big tech corporations control language, the world’s most valuable commodity.
But when a massive cyberattack causes a global language outage, catastrophe looms.
Europol detective Emyr Morgan is assigned to the case. Suspect number one is Professor Ebba Black, the last native speaker of language in the automated world, and leader of the Babel cyberterrorist organization. But Emyr soon learns that in a world of corporate power, where those who control language control everything, all is not as it seems. After all, if the mysterious Ebba Black is to blame, why is the Russian Federation being framed for an outage it claims no responsibility for? And why is Ebba now a target for assassination?
As he and Ebba collide, Emyr faces an existential dilemma between loyalty and betrayal, when everything he once believed in is called into question. To prevent the imminent collapse of civilization and a deadly war between the great federations, he must figure out friend from foe—his life depends on it.
And with the odds stacked against him, he must find a way to stop the Babel Apocalypse.
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Ebba was all too aware that she was viewed as an anomaly by pretty much everyone; she was neither feral nor out-soc. So, some of her students—especially those from outside the Republic, such as the Grand Union, and other places too—thought she must be breaking the law. It was a common misconception. She had even once been reported to the authorities by one of those types. For being an unchipped ghost, as they called her. That made her laugh; a dark laugh at the irony of it. The mutes, she called them. Those who had been fitted with Universal Grammar tech.
But while she officially resided in the Nordic Republic, and as long as she remained there, Ebba wasn’t doing anything illegal. The Republic was something of a curiosity even among Tier One states, never having passed a lang-law. Yet this singular absence was offset by the special requirements of Nordic birth licenses. To have one granted, prospective parents had to consent to their newborn being fitted with Universal Grammar tech. So everyone got a language chip at birth anyway, together with an ear implant transceiver. Which meant that voice command tech was, for all intents and purposes, de rigueur even without a lang-law. But that was the Scandinavian way. In the Nordic Republic, they organized freedom.
For her part, Ebba knew it wasn’t her. It was everyone else who had the problem. “That’s what you would think,” her braver, typically male students told her. “You’re Ebba Black.” Ha! Whatever that means. How do they know what Ebba Black would think anyway?
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Dr. Vyvyan Evans is a native of Chester, England. He holds a PhD in linguistics from Georgetown University, Washington, D.C., and is a Professor of Linguistics. He has published numerous acclaimed popular science and technical books on language and linguistics. His popular science essays and articles have appeared in numerous venues including ‘The Guardian’, ‘Psychology Today’, ‘New York Post’, ‘New Scientist’, ‘Newsweek’ and ‘The New Republic’. His award-winning writing focuses, in one way or another, on the nature of language and mind, the impact of technology on language, and the future of communication. His science fiction work explores the status of language and digital communication technology as potential weapons of mass destruction.
Author website – Youtube Channel – Twitter – Facebook – Instagram
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Voucher for audiobook copy of the book.
What a thrilling book! Interesting excerpt. Thanks for sharing.
Sounds great, I like the cover.
Thank you so much for hosting and featuring this author today.
It was my pleasure.