THE BABEL APOCALYPSE AUDIOBOOK
by Vyvyan Evans
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
GENRE: Science Fiction
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
EXCERPTS (Please choose only ONE to use
with your post):
Excerpt One:
It wasn’t her
cold beauty that marked out Ebba Black as unique—her chilling looks, as she
called them—although her looks invariably made an impression on all who met
her. Rather, it was the fact that she was the last nate in the automated world.
That made her famous. Undoubtedly she was celebrated for other things too—Ebba
Black the Babelist, the heiress, the conspiracy theorist, the charismatic
professor. Maybe even the oddity. After
all, Ebba was the last speaker of languages that would die with her. With
Elias’s passing five years prior, she had no one left to speak them with. And
Ebba Black would not marry. Commitment of that sort wasn’t her thing, and she
would certainly never have children. You could say she wasn’t the maternal
type.
Ebba knew she
was unique in other, ineffable ways, too. For one, she listed things to
herself, silently, in her head. Reasons to know me. Reasons not to know me.
Reasons to hate me, to admire me. But not reasons to love me. Never that. That
was forbidden. Ebba never allowed anyone to get that close.
Sometimes Ebba
even indulged in one of her trademark waspish grins. To no one in particular,
while she mentally scrolled through one list: reasons to kill. The list with
the names. Her list of lists. The grin was the only outward sign she was
performing a mental stock-take. It wasn’t good to be on that particular list.
Ebba Black was neither the forgiving nor the tolerant type.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
AUTHOR Bio and Links:
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.
Book
website (including ‘Buy’ links): http://www.songs-of-the-sage.com
Author
website: https://www.vyvevans.net/
Youtube
channel: https://www.youtube.com/@vyvevans
Twitter:
https://twitter.com/VyvEvans
Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/Vyvyan.Evans.Author
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nephilim_publishing/
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Author Interview
Today on Teatime and Books I’d love to welcome, Vyvyan Evans Ph.D.
We are so delighted you could join us today.
VE: Thank you for hosting me.
What or who inspired you to become an author?
VE: I first knew I wanted to be an author at the age of nine—when
I won a children’s poetry competition in a local newspaper celebrating the
UNESCO International Year of the Child. I had always devoured books as a child,
from the Roald Dahl books to C.S. Lewis’ Chronicles of Narnia, weaving
enchanting tales of talking animals reached through a surprisingly large
wardrobe.
And since then, that is what I set out to do via a somewhat
circuitous route. I found myself, in my early twenties, in Paris, France, with
qualifications as a teacher of English to adults of other languages. By a twist
of fate, I ended up in Florida doing a Masters degree in linguistics, and later
in Washington D.C., at Georgetown University where I completed a PhD. This led
to a research and teaching career in universities where I was able to combine
my insatiable curiosity about communication and others interact, with my desire
to communicate through writing.
My first books were technical in nature, focusing on the mechanics
of language and communication, written for other academics, before I branched
out in textbooks for students before authoring popular science books on
language and communication for lay readers.
But it was the non-fiction books in popular science, that led me
to write The Babel Apocalypse. This is a work of science fiction exploring the
nature and future of language, in the face of humanity’s increasing reliance on
AI and technology.
The Babel Apocalypse represents a natural evolution, in my
authorial life, as I continue to explore the power and significance of
language, and how it is the hallmark of what it means to be human.
What sort of research did you do to write this book?
VE: I have a background in linguistics and cognitive science, with a PhD from
Georgetown University and having worked for many years as a professor of
linguistics. In The Babel Apocalypse, I explore one possible future for
language, if the current research trajectory on neurotechnology continues. My
prediction is that by the beginning of the next century, the technology will
exist, to enable humans, in principle, to stream language direct to neural implants
in our heads. This would mean that, in principle, language need no longer be
learned.
I find science fiction to be appealing as a genre, as it really is
an advantage to be a subject matter expert. To write convincingly, especially
in so-called ‘hard’ science fiction, such as The Babel Apocalypse, which
strives for scientific accuracy, it is important to have relevant background in
the story and the ideas being conveyed. And it seems to me that this cannot be
adequately replicated without some meaningful level of expertise.
What are you working on now? Any chance of a sequel?
VE: The Babel Apocalypse is the first book in the ‘Songs of the
Sage’ sci-fi book series. There are six projected books which, in increasing
turns, examine the role and nature of language and communication. The thematic
premise is that, in the wrong hands, language can serve as a weapon of mass
destruction. This overarching motif is explored, across the six books, both
from Earth-bound and galaxies-wide bases.
As language involves symbol use and processing, the book series,
perhaps naturally, also dwells on other aspects of human imagination and
symbolic behaviour, including religious experience and belief systems,
themselves made possible by language.
The second book in the series, The Dark Court, is set five years
after the events of the great language outage depicted in The Babel Apocalypse.
It explores how the language chips in people’s heads can themselves be hacked,
leading to a global insomnia pandemic. The Dark Court will be published in May 2024,
as book 2 in the series.
Are you a pantser or a plotter? Or a mix of the two?
VE: I’m a bit of both. I plot and then pants within the outline
plot, reworking ideas many times, cutting, adding, revising. Basically, I plan,
then start writing, then change my plan! Every revision makes the story richer
and the writing better. The Babel Apocalypse first took form in 2019, but it
took a further four years of work to achieve the finished work that I wanted—resulting
in the book being published in May 2023.
Which type of genre do you love most, and why?
VE: My creative writing is
best suited to science fiction, the literary genre of ideas. Science fiction
has a long and illustrious habit of predicting the future. In 1940, with his
first in the Robot series of stories, Isaac Asimov predicted some of the
ethical issues that would arise as artificial intelligence comes to have a more
pervasive influence in our daily lives.
Today in the twentieth
first century, we are on the brink of a Fourth Industrial Revolution, sometimes
dubbed 4IR. This is where automation and connectivity, via the internet, will
dramatically alter the way in which we interact with each other, as well as
everything around us, in our increasingly joined-up technological environment.
And I predict, in less than one hundred years from now, this new technology
will transform many aspects of our daily lives that we currently take for
granted, including language itself.
Indeed, in 2015, many of
the world’s leading scientists warned, in an Open Letter and accompanying
report, against the new dangers of AI, as a consequence of 4IR. This Open
Letter was issued in response to new breakthroughs in AI that, without adequate
control, might pose short and long-term existential threats to humans.
But potential dangers come
not just from the use of AI, in the sense of, for instance, The Terminator
series of movies, in which AI seeks to wage war and destroy humans. New
implantable devices, that will enhance how we as humans can interact with our
new tech-landscape, will also give rise to potential dangers. Language is,
arguably, the single trait that is the hallmark of what it is to be human. And
yet, in the near-future, language-chipped humans, or ‘transhumans’, will have
enhanced abilities that bring new opportunities, as well as posing ethical
challenges and even threats.
These challenges and
dangers are what are predicted in my new book, The Babel Apocalypse. The novel
warns of the dangers of humans giving up on language, quite literally having
something akin to ChatGPT in our heads. When lose language, humanity loses.
What’s your favorite novel of all time, and why?
VE: Dune by Frank Herbert. The novel is an epic that provides a
perfect balance between science fiction and fantasy. It evokes Tolkien with
attention to the history, language and culture of the story-world, while also
providing detailed and well-worked out technical descriptions of advanced
scientific concepts.
What fellow author do you recommend reading, and why?
VE: There are two authors that stand
out for me, in terms of ingeniously exploring the impact of language on how we
think and experience (illustrated through the conceit of a protagonist learning
an entirely new, and alien, language).
The first is Samuel R. Delany who
wrote the novel: Babel-17. The book was first published in 1966 and was joint
winner of the Nebula Award for best science-fiction novel in 1967.
The eponymous Babel-17 is a language
that alters the perceptions and world-view of any who speak it. This is a
conceit that draws upon the principle of linguistic relativity.
Linguistic Relativity holds that
divergence in the grammatical organization and lexical structure of the
language we speak alters the habitual perception of the world around us, even
dramatically changing how we think. As an example, we now know that the brains
of Greek speakers perceive certain colours differently from speakers of English
because of how Greek labels for colour divide up the colour spectrum. This is
an unconscious consequence of speaking Greek versus English.
In the novel, Babel-17 is the language
spoken by Invaders, as they wage an interstellar war against the Alliance. The
novel’s protagonist, Rydra Wong, is a linguist and cryptographer who possesses
a rare ability to learn languages. She is recruited by the Alliance to try and
decode the language of the invaders, Babel-17, to uncover clues for attack
vectors.
Babel-17 is an exemplar of a very
high-concept conceit. When Delany was writing the novel, linguistic relativity
was still only a hypothesis, first dubbed the Spair-Whorf hypothesis in 1954.
Delany asks a classic ‘what if’
question: What if the language we speak fundamentally changes the way we see
the world, the way we feel, our belief systems, the way we act? Babel-17 then
explores the logical, and extreme consequences of this proposition.
In the novel, as Rydra Wong learns the
strange, alien tongue, she starts to see the world, and think as the invaders
do. And the consequence is that she starts to become one of them. She
ultimately betrays her own command and her government, acting as an agent of
the Invaders.
And in this way, Delany shows that in
the context of warfare, when the notion of linguistic relativity is taken to
its logical extreme, language can serve as the most powerful weapon of all.
The second writer is Ted Chiang,
author of the novella, ‘Story of Your Life, and first published in 1998. This
story was subsequently adapted as the major motion picture: Arrival.
Again, this story features a linguist
as its main protagonist, Dr. Louise Banks. The story involves Banks narrating
the events that led to the arrival of her new-born daughter. In so doing, she
explains how her work, translating the language of the alien Heptapod species,
led her to understanding time in a new way, where she could perceive her past
and future simultaneously.
The consequence is that as learning a
new (alien) language transforms thought, the novella explores issues relating
to linguistic relativity, determinism and freewill.
When you’re not writing, how do you spend your time?
VE: I enjoy sport (running, swimming), going to music and cultural
events, and travel.
Do you listen to music when writing? If so, what type?
VE: I do. I have eclectic tastes, and what I listen to needs to
fit my mood. And the music might range from Led Zeppelin, to Mike Oldfield, to
Beethoven.
Any advice you have for a blossoming author?
VE: Keep practicing your craft. Write what you know, and research
the rest. Never give up!
Just for Fun:
Do you like tea or coffee?
VE: Coffee—we all need a boost for our creativity.
Do you have any pets?
VE: Two (very naughty) cats
What’s your favorite color?
VE: Red
What’s your favorite season?
VE: Autumn
What’s your favorite movie?
VE: Blade Runner (the original, directed by Ridley Scott).
Interview Closing:
This was so much fun! Thank you, Vyvyan Evans, for joining us. We wish you all
the best on your continued writing journey and we are looking forward to your
next book.
VE: Thank you!
GIVEAWAY
The
author will award a copy of the audiobook to a randomly drawn winner.
Thank you so much for featuring this book and author.
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