Product Description

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #514170 in Books
• Published on: 2009-04-28
• Released on: 2009-04-28
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Mass Market Paperback
• 368 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9780765359131
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
• Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. In this triumphant return to the universe of The Iron Dragon's Daughter (1994), Hugo-winner Swanwick introduces Will le Fey, an orphan of uncertain parentage. After defeating an evil mechanical war dragon who has enslaved him and his village, Will finds himself displaced by war, first imprisoned in an internment camp and then transported to the many-miles-high city of Babel. On the way, he falls in with Esme, an immortal child with no memory, and Nat Whilk, a donkey-eared confidence man of superhuman abilities. Fusing high technology seamlessly with magic, Swanwick introduces us to a wide range of marvelous conceits, fascinating digressions and sparkling characters. His language bounces effortlessly back and forth between the high diction of elfland and thieves' argot to create a heady literary stew. This is modern fantasy at its finest and should hold great appeal for fans of Neil Gaiman's Anansi Boys or China Miéville's novels. (Jan.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From School Library Journal
Starred Review. Grade 9 Up—An unusual combination of Faerie, postindustrial Earth, and biblical places, The Dragons of Babel will immediately capture readers' interest. A war is going on, but the "dragons" involved are part machine and part magic. One crash-lands near a Faerie village and declares itself king. Teenaged Will, part mortal, is forced to become its lieutenant and carry out its commands to the villagers, which eventually causes him to be driven out after it is killed. He is rescued by female centaurs during a battle of giants and ends up on the train to Babel accompanied by Nat Whilk and his adopted daughter, Esme. The three of them wind up in underground Babel (think New York City with a postindustrial fairy twist) where he helps the downtrodden. In a world full of every fairy imaginable (and maybe a few that aren't), Will becomes the center of Tower of Babel itself. Readers will empathize with the teenager, who is struggling to find his place in this world, and growing both in stature and knowledge, and the zany characters who accompany him. Earthy, bawdy, and often brutal, it's a story that will keep science fiction/fantasy fans involved till the end.—June H. Keuhn, Corning East High School, NY
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Review

Customer Reviews

Weird and flawed but powerful for all that
He's just a country boy, living in a small village after his parents are killed by the war. But when a dragon crashes nearby and decides to make himself king of the village, Will Le Fey gets drafted as the voice of the dragon. That role gives him a certain amount of power, but it also earns him the hatred of everyone in town--and when his best friend decides to lead a resistance movement, Will finds himself in a no-win situation.

When war extends across the land, Will and many others become refugees, finally making his way to Babel, the center of the Empire. There he falls in with confidence men and dreamers--and becomes the catspaw for a clever scheme to take advantage of the absent king and place him in the position of pretender--with all of the financial benefits that might create.

Author Michael Swanwick creates a powerful world, where technology and magic coexist, where pointless war is waged over forgotten slights, and where the ruling elite parties, indulges in casual sin, and where both the mob and the elite dream of a return of the absent king--for very different reasons. It's hard not to draw parallels between Swanwick's fantasy world and the world in which we live (Babel's library has stone lions out front, and Will dreams of crashing dragons into the great tower of Babel), and piecing through the clues to figure out exactly what Swanwick is saying about our current situation is half the fun of the story.

Will has vowed revenge for the casual destruction the forces of Babel called down on his home, but the world seems uninterested in his vows, conspiring to defeat his dreams at the same time as it showers new opportunities on him. Clearly Will is being manipulated. Exactly who, or what is doing that manipulation is less obvious--partly because so many forces seem intent on doing that.

There are some loose ends to the story--a long section in the middle where Will serves as an underground (literally) warrior champion seems poorly integrated with the story and I expected to see more of a resolution of the issues involving ex-friend No-name, the dragon, and Esme. Still, THE DRAGONS OF BABEL has a real power to it--the story sucked me in, made me think, and held my interest. It's a different kind of story, but it's hard to put down.

"A train whistle at night means the same thing in all langusges."
Swanwick is certinly one of the most original fantasists working today, and _The Iron Dragon's Daughter_ was perhaps his best (even though the evangelicals loudly denounced it). This one, while not actually a sequel, is set in the same world, which is a mish-mash of modern America and Faerie. You know you're there when the centaurs carry assault weapons, a high elf rides a Vespa, the haints play reggae, the royal palace includes rooms designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, and the Cabinet of Curiosities displays both a stuffed capricorn and a Soyuz spacecraft. Will Le Fey is a young orphan subsisting in a rural village which is just trying to keep its collective head down while the endless war between East and West rages on. Then a war dragon (sentient, but with a half-human pilot) crashes and takes over the village for its own survival -- and appoints Will its lieutenant. When the dragon is killed (more or less), Will is forced out . . . and so begins a series of adventures in the classic pauper-to-prince picaresque tradition, from refugee camp to the tutelage of a master con man (keep an eye on him), to a period as an underground rebel leader, to his attempt to pass himself off as the lost heir of His Absent Majesty. (And, of course, there's more to the scam than he knows.) For all his occasional naivete, Will has innate cunning -- although when he tries to win the heart and hand of his True Love, who happens to be one of the ruling elite in the towering city of Babel (or maybe Babylon), the reader knows it won't be a sure thing. Swanwick's patented tongue-in-cheek cynicism and ability to make even temporary secondary characters interesting will keep you reading far into the night.

Uneven and vulgar
I finished this book, which is more than I can say for several recent books I've picked up.

The language of the book, and by that I mean the writing, sparkles. The prose is very nice. The setting is also interesting. I laughed out loud at some of the humor. However, so many things get thrown at you, and sometimes the events seemed so random, that I felt like the author was making it up as he went along. The plot wanders at times, and you get strange asides that could have easily been cut (but at the cost of the world-building, I suppose). Still, I didn't really feel connected to any of the characters, and the setting was too fluid to really stick in my mind.

A fair amount of foul language and quite a bit of vulgarity lower this one star. I just don't see why you need some of the distasteful stuff in this book. I guess some people like it. I don't.

The climax was a let down and relatively predictable. And what happened after that just left me saying, "What?!" Not because I couldn't believe it, but because it was rather confusing. I'm still not sure exactly what it meant or what happened, and I really don't care enough to find out.

But, like I said, I did finish the book, which is more than I can say for some books.

If you like dark, nasty fantasy, go for it. Otherwise, pass.