Very well written. Super original.

Though I didn’t like her subsequent book, Yellowface — Babel is great.

BUT it would have been better if half as long. In fact, you could read just the first half of Babel and be impressed.

Rebecca F. Kuang is only age-28 as I post. An American, born in Guangzhou, China.

She has degrees in Sinology from Magdalene College, Cambridge, and University College, Oxford, and is currently studying at Yale.

Kirkus said it was “ambitious and powerful while displaying a deep love of language and literature“.

I’d never thought much about the art and science of translation before.

Babel: Or the Necessity of Violence: An Arcane History of the Oxford Translators’ Revolution won the 2022 Nebula Award for Best Novel.

Babel is set in an alternative-reality 1830s England in which Britain’s global economic and colonial supremacy are fuelled by the use of magical silver bars.

Their power comes from capturing what is “lost in translation” between words in different languages that have similar, but not identical, meanings.

Silver bars inscribed with such ‘match-pairs’ can increase industrial and agricultural production, improve the accuracy of bullets, heal injuries, and more.

To harness this power, Oxford University created the Royal Institute of Translation, nicknamed “Babel“, where scholars work to find match-pairs.

… focused on four new students at the institute, their growing awareness that their academic efforts maintain Britain’s imperialist supremacy, their debate over how to prevent the Opium War, and the use of violence.

Class obsessed England needs diversity in Babel to optimize Silver production. 😀

Friends in this book thrown together as outsiders: Robin from China, Ramy from Calcutta, Victoire from Haiti, and Letty, a white British admiral’s daughter.  (In our reality, women were not invited to be students at Oxford until 1879.)

The administrators of the 2023 Hugo Awards, held at Chengdu Worldcon (in China), ruled Babel not eligible for nomination without further explanation.

 A later report based on emails shared from the awards’ administrative panel revealed that the book was likely ruled ineligible in an attempt to avoid running afoul of Chinese censorship laws

The 3rd — and best so far — book in the Gideon series.

1. Gideon’s Sword
2. Gideon’s Corpse
3. The Lost Island
4. Beyond the Ice Limit
5. The Pharaoh Key

Still absurd and impossible. But more entertaining.

Gideon Crew–brilliant scientist, master thief–is living on borrowed time.

When his mysterious employer, Eli Glinn, gives him an eyebrow-raising mission, he has no reason to refuse.

Gideon’s task: steal a page from the priceless Book of Kells, now on display in New York City and protected by unbreakable security.

Accomplishing the impossible, Gideon steals the parchment–only to learn that hidden beneath the gorgeously illuminated image is a treasure map dating back to the time of the ancient Greeks.

As they ponder the strange map, they realize that the treasure it leads to is no ordinary fortune. It is something far more precious: an amazing discovery that could perhaps even save Gideon’s life.

Together with his new partner, Amy, Gideon follows a trail of cryptic clues to an unknown island in a remote corner of the Caribbean Sea. There, off the hostile and desolate Mosquito Coast, the pair realize the extraordinary treasure they are hunting conceals an even greater shock-a revelation so profound that it may benefit the entire human race . . . if Gideon and Amy can survive.

PrestonChild

Quite good.

13th book in the very popular Ruth Galloway series by Elly Griffiths. 

Ruth is a forensic archaeologist who assists the police from time to time with investigations. 

The Night Hawks, a group of metal detectorists, are searching for buried treasure when they find a body on the beach in North Norfolk.

… he turns out to be a local boy, Jem Taylor, recently released from prison.

Ruth is more interested in the treasure, a hoard of Bronze Age weapons.

Nelson at first thinks that Taylor’s death is accidental drowning, but a second death suggests murder.

Nelson is called to an apparent murder-suicide of a couple at the isolated Black Dog Farm. Local legend talks of the Black Shuck, a spectral hound that appears to people before they die. …

The 3rd novel (2024) by an excellent author, Alex Michaelides.

This is a murder mystery — and also literature. The writing is excellent.

That said, for me the story wasn’t all that compelling. I really didn’t care about any of the characters.

This is a tale of murder.

Or maybe that’s not quite true. At its heart, it’s a love story, isn’t it?

Lana Farrar is a reclusive ex-movie star and one of the most famous women in the world. Every year, she invites her closest friends to escape the English weather and spend Easter on her idyllic private Greek island.

I tell you this because you may think you know this story …

It had all the necessary ingredients for a press sensation: a celebrity; a private island cut off by the wind…and a murder.

We found ourselves trapped there overnight.

Our old friendships concealed hatred and a desire for revenge.

What followed was a game of cat and mouse ― a battle of wits, full of twists and turns, building to an unforgettable climax. The night ended in violence and death, as one of us was found murdered.

Not being much of a fan of thrillers, I have to admit this one is not bad.

1. Gideon’s Sword
2. Gideon’s Corpse
3. The Lost Island
4. Beyond the Ice Limit
5. The Pharaoh Key

The plot is insane, at times. But it’s certainly never boring.

Gideon is an art thief and nuclear researcher turned government agent — who only has 11 months to live.

Gideon’s Corpse (2012) is a thriller by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child.

… a sequel to Gideon’s Sword.

The plot focuses on a nuclear scare, the federal reaction, and Gideon’s attempts to unravel the mystery.