Sagas & Sass began covering The Books of Babel by Josiah Bancroft in January 2022; this is our summary of book 4 – The Fall of Babel – as it was written to introduce Episode 40 (covering parts 1 & 2 of The Fall of Babel) and Episode 41 (covering part 3 of The Fall of Babel).
Hey. Hey. Are we all okay after everything that happened in The Hod King? Do we need a moment, still, to digest everything that’s going on? Do we need a reminder of where everyone is in the – oh, never mind, because right now the important thing is REMEMBER ADAM AND THE SPARKING PEOPLE?!
Seriously, The Fall of Babel takes us into the way back machine as the first like nearly 200 pages is all about Adam trying his best to (a) survive and (b) figure out what the hell is going on at the very tippy top of the Tower, and to be honest it’s…a LOT. Because he is brought to a place called Nebos that is this weird pseudo-paradise, where machines do all of the work and there are gardens of fruits and vegetables just existing for the picking and everyone just gets to be artists…and it sounds like paradise, right? Only because he’s an outsider he’s basically put on trial and apparently the only person who can help decide whether he lives or dies is Ida Allod, who created what is essentially an art installation based on his life.
So thanks to Ida they decide that Adam can live, though he is basically tethered to Ida’s daughter Runa, who has been charged with keeping an eye on him. And soon he finds out that there is SO MUCH MORE going on here. As Adam – and we as readers- are waiting to figure out how the fuck this woman knows everything about him, Adam is required to do a lumenguard patrol – the lumenguard being the official name for the ‘sparking people’ – and he discovers that the hods have basically been trucking their way up through the Tower to eventually give sacrifices to the Nebosans. This, and the fact that the vast majority of these ‘offerings’ end up in a giant storage room, is shitty enough….but then someone sends a BABY over, and rather than let the Nebosans kill it, Adam offers to return it himself.
This is when he sees that there are thousands of orphans living ‘on the other side’, as it were. Knowing how easy life is in Nebos and how much STUFF and SPACE they have, Adam promises that he will try to do something for the orphans, and returns to Nebos with this purpose in mind.
Soon enough, Adam – with the help of Runa and Ossian, the keeper of the Warren (aka Nebos’ many-roomed storage area) – is secretly shuttling the orphans into Nebos and hiding them in said Warren. Adam and Runa concoct a not-so-fake romance as part of their plot to disguise what they’re really doing, but of course nothing can last forever. Eventually Elrin, who is Ida’s son and therefore Runa’s brother, discovers what they’ve been up to. He tells Ida, who all this time has been pissed off about Runa and Adam because she has A Thing for Adam (ew), and a confrontation ensues. Ida admits she wants to pluck out Adam’s other eye and then “take care of him” for the rest of his life (double – no, TRIPLE – ew), but thankfully Runa and Adam win the day, Ida dies, Elrin sacrifices himself in a very stupid attempt to rescue her, AND Adam is able to show the captain of the lumenguard a recording of the Brick Layer’s murder that reveals his true plan for Nebos – that being, a place that welcomes hods into its embrace.
Unfortunately, like the Nebosan who murdered the Brick Layer, not all of the people in this little “paradise” like that idea, or the fact that they now have thousands of orphans to deal with. And so we leave Adam and Runa awaiting their fate…
Because it’s time to catch up with Senlin “in the belly of the beast!” The beast being the Hod King, of course. But ya know what? Despite this series kicking off with a book called Senlin Ascends, it turns out that we can sum up his first four Fall of Babel chapters with a simple bullet list:
- Senlin becomes a model ‘stepper’
- Marat takes notice and moves Senlin up in the ranks
- Turns out Marat actually DOES have the use of his legs
- …oh and also, has four other Wakemen working for him
- Senlin realizes Marat is kinda obsessed with him
- The Hod King is damaged when they begin their attempt to climb the Tower and it gets in a fight with the State of the Art
- This leads to them having to burrow back inside the Tower and dig their way up instead
- Marat is Not. Happy.
- Senlin tricks his way into being able to send a message to Finn Goll with a very basic and questionable sabotage plan
- HOWEVER that plan almost works!
- Only it turns out that there’s a Hod “Prince” nestled inside the Hod King and after murdering a bunch of hods who saw him stand on his own two legs, Marat has his Wakemen pilot the little Hod Prince – which they call the Ardennes – away from the scene of the Hod King’s destruction and up through the last bit of the Tower
- And thus, Senlin ends up back in the Sphinx’s lair, still Marat’s prisoner, and with seemingly little to no hope of changing his future, what is very possibly – nay, very LIKELY – going to be a short one, as far as he can tell
So now that we’ve got Senlin out of the way, we finally touch base with the intrepid crew of the State of the Art! We begin with…wait for it…a tea party!
Okay, so there’s tea, but it’s not really a party. Byron WANTS it to be, but Iren is moping, Ann is trying to calm a crying baby Olivet, Marya is exhausted, Voleta is muttering to herself, and then when Byron insists that Voleta actually DRINK some tea, she gets very sick and they have to rush to dose her with the Sphinx’s medium, and we find out from not just this scene but from Reddleman’s own seeming concern that while Voleta is still in a way alive, she’s not by any means out of danger.
All of this, combined with both the arrival of a messenger selling copies of The Acorn, a gossipy yet important publication that is apparently spreading word that the State of the Art is crewed by monsters and abominations who eat human infants and the earlier scene at the tea party, leads to Edit finally sitting everyone down and telling them everything she’s been holding back, including the intel on the lightning sea that will level the Tower if it’s allowed to explode.
Clearly they have no choice but to continue on with their attempt to collect as many copies of The Brickayer’s Granddaughter as they can, and so they make their way to the gambling den that is Port Fortuity, where at first it appears they will be successful in their endeavor…only to discover that the painting is being stolen as they are on their way to collect it! Voleta chases after the hod who has taken the painting, but he gets away, and just as she’s about to dive into a hole in the wall after him – because by the way she seems to somehow have even less of a sense of self-preservation now – the Hod King comes bursting forth and begins laying waste to the port!
The State of the Art – and all of the crew, thankfully – escape and launch the aforementioned attack on the Hod King, but are unfortunately rebuffed…though again, as previously mentioned, not without causing quite a bit of damage to the giant burrowing engine.
Unfortunately it’s soon after that they discover that the ship’s observatory is actually an awesome interactive map…aaand it shows them that Senlin is in fact INSIDE the Hod King. Worrisome as this is, though, they still have a job to do, so it’s on to The Cistern ringdom to hopefully FINALLY get a painting of their own.
…whiiiich they do, but not without cost. They run into the Hod King AGAIN, Edith gets in a fight with two of Marat’s Wakemen and barely makes it out alive, and Iren and Voleta fight off a third Wakemen – a weird human-mechanical spider hybrid named Delythe who ends up cutting off one of Voleta’s HANDS. So even though they stumble back to the ship, painting quite literally in hand, they do so battered, bruised, and tailed by a bunch of injured refugees.
After struggling to offload said refugees to several ringdoms, and all the while noting the Hod King’s slow but constant crawl up the inside of the Tower, they come up with a plan to lay a trap for Marat. As they are plotting, Voleta discovers that she can utilize their copy of the Brick Layer’s Granddaughter to essentially visit the past. She actually gets to talk to the Brick Layer himself, who makes an odd comment that makes it sound as if there’s more than one Tower and then proceeds to try to give her ‘vitally important’ information…except Voleta is yanked back to the present, and anyway, it’s time for them to visit the ringdom of Cilicia and hopefully stop the Hod King’s ascent with their trap!
Now, Cilicia turns out to be a cesspool (ha! alliteration!)…and we mean that quite literally. Its people are fleeing and the whole place is full of crud and clogworms (yet another of the Tower’s dangerous local fauna), so Edith, Voleta, Iren, and Reddleman – let’s call them Team A – have quite a lot to contend with as they await the Hod King’s arrival.
Meanwhile, on the State of the Art, Marya, Byron, and Ann – our unlikely but no less amazing Team B – have their own major problem – that being the sudden arrival of fucking William H Pell, who shoots Byron, threatens Marya, and then gives chase to Ann. We won’t bother you with the details because seriously, fuck that guy, and in the end our trio of unlikely heroes wins the day thanks to some slightly blundering and unexpected teamwork. Go Team B!
As for Team A, they do in fact confront the Hod King, but as per the usual with this series, things don’t go quite as planned. Reddleman doesn’t even get to set off his bomb, because Senlin and Finn Goll set their sabotage plan in motion first! While the Hod King is destroyed, as we already revealed Marat and his Wakemen – with Senlin in hand – escape.
And now it’s time to really take your seat for part 3, because it’s absolutely one hell of a ride. As it happens, the State of the Art has arrived at the apex of the Tower and Edith is not going to be ignored. She’s the Sphinx’s emissary, after all – they can’t keep her out even if they want to. So she busts into Nebos even though she and her crew have only the vaguest idea of what they need to do…though they are waylaid for just a little bit because the Nebosans are in the middle of voting on whether or not to allow the hod orphans to stay…AND on whether or not Adam and Runa should be hanged.
Don’t worry, though! Despite the fact that the Nebosans technically voted to expel the orphans and hang Adam and Runa, Edith is able to convince them that going against the Brick Layer’s wishes – and harming Adam, who is an emissary of the Sphinx – is NOT a good idea. Turns out that when they have to vote by a show of hands versus anonymously, they are far more inclined to make the right decision…which is a lot to unpack, but hey, here we are.
After convincing the Nebosans to, ya know, not be total assholes, Edith, Voleta, Iren, and Reddleman are led to the Warren, where they head to “the lowest point” and instead of facing the usual cyclone, enter an area that is entirely quiet. At first they aren’t sure what to do…until Reddleman announces that he paired a mechanical moth with Senlin’s beacon. Super convenient, that, because as we know, Senlin is ensconced in the Sphinx’s lair with Marat and his Wakemen!
Unfortunately Edith & Co. have to dig down through decades of refuse to reach what is essentially an elevator to the Sphinx’s lair, but soon enough they reach their destination…problem is, there’s something different about the lightning, err, storage. What was previously a ‘stormy sea” has become a “sucking vortex”, and Edith knows that the fact that the lightning draining away is absolutely NOT a good sign.
But of course they don’t have a choice other than to keep moving, through the room where the Sphinx’s automatons and Byron’s predecessors, where they are eventually greeted by Mr. Ekes, one of the early-era footmen. He’s not much help, so they resolve to keep looking around…until their moth guide settles itself on an air vent, leading to them going against their better judgment and split up their party, as Voleta is the only one of them who can actually follow the moth.
In the end, perhaps it was for the best that Voleta went her own way for a bit, because soon enough the rest of them end up in the conservatory, where they find the Sphinx…or rather, the Sphinx’s body, such as it is. They don’t exactly have time to mourn, but instead set Reddleman to work on trying to retrieve her last words from a warped recording while Edith and Iren remove the Sphinx’s body to the pedestal she’d prepared for herself in her little museum. By the time they return to the workshop, Reddleman is able to play them some of the recording, which includes a spiel for Marat in case he has won the day, and then one for Edith as well, in hopes that she has prevailed and will take on the leadership role…only the recorder burns itself out, and Edith is left with half – or less – of whatever the Sphinx meant to say to her.
(And thus continues this series’ maddening endless cycle of “IF THEY WOULD JUST ***TALK*** TO EACH OTHER…”)
Meanwhile, Voleta finds Senlin, they escape temporarily, Delyth finds them, they start fighting what seems to be a losing battle, and then they are narrowly rescued by Iren….only to end up facing Marat and his Wakemen again soon after. A big battle ensues, the tl;dr version of which is: Thornton dies; Reddleman sacrifices himself to save Edith from Marat, Marat dies (AND GOOD RIDDANCE!); Gedge, Cael, and Delyth are incapacitated; and our heroes survive – albeit narrowly, and certainly not unscathed.
So they head back to Nebos, where Adam has installed the pyramid’s capstone as instructed. Voleta dashes off to retrieve him, apparently to bring him back to the State of the Art before the big whatever-is-going-to-happen happens…because again, they only have part of the story, here, and all they really know is that the ship can’t be too close to Nebos when the thing happens. But they are met by Ann, who explains what we already know – that Marya left the ship with Olivet to “go for a walk” and hasn’t returned!
Don’t worry though, they’re fine, Marya just kind of adopted two of the hod orphans and was assigned a home and yes all of this happened in a VERY short span of time but the important thing is that Senlin now has to rush off to go looking for her…which leaves only Edith, Iren, and Ann returning to the State of the Art just in time to VERY narrowly escape as the entire “ringdom” of Nebos separates itself from the top of the Tower and…
Wait for it…
Wait for it…
FLIES AWAY INTO FUCKING SPACE, Y’ALL!!!
Okay, so a quick recap on where everyone is before we get into whatever the hell THAT’S all about. Senlin, Marya, Olivet, Adam, and Voleta are still in Nebos when it disa-fucking-pears, while Edith, Iren, Anne, Byron, Tarrou, and Finn Goll remain behind on the State of the Art.
Did anyone take bets on whether this series would have a happy ending? Because the forever separation of these friends doesn’t seem so happy to me. Not to mention the fact that Edith is left in charge of the Tower, which is an even bigger mess than it was before, and sure, she’ll probably do the best job she possibly can, but also, clearly she’s not going to get even a bit of that rest she really deserves after everything that has happened.
And while everyone on Nebos is safe for now, and there are plenty of provisions and whatnot to get them to their destination, they have no idea WHERE that destination is…and there’s always the chance that they’ll run into like, space pirates or warships or whatever. Plus, while Voleta and Adam have made up and get to be pilot and first mate of the spaceship, and Reddleman is apparently somehow part of the ship itself and therefore might be able to figure out how to make more of the medium to keep Voleta alive, even as this final installment ends, Senlin and Marya are only on the VERGE of making up. Maybe. Hopefully.
And that, fellow readers, is the conclusion of this enjoyable yet maddening series!
QUOTES WE LOVED
“Senlin had been half a pirate, half a thief, and half a killer because he was, at his core, unbending. He could change his sails, but not his course; he could swap his suit, but not his heart.”
“He had done his best to feign stoicism all his life, to tell himself and others that he did what he had to do to protect his sister (which was true), and that he did not feel guilty for those deeds (which was not). He carried with him the memory of every person he had robbed, swindled, betrayed, or misled. Senlin was just another in a long line of souls who he felt beholden to.
Many times in the past, he had wondered if perhaps he should not cling so tightly to a life that made him suffer twice: once in the surviving and again in reflection. Why cleave to something that had been so cruel?
And yet, teetering on that purgatorial stool, Adam realized that he had grown quite attached to his life.”
“But now that he was surrounded by people who esteemed him, he felt no less hollow, no less incomplete. And it occurred to him that the only approval he’d ever courted, and certainly never won, was his own.”
“I hope to be rich one day, but not miserably so. I once rubbed elbows with a gold-drenched lord. He had a staff of dozens, a harem of admirers, and a seat at every table. Yet I have never met a more paranoid, anxious, and isolated wretch. The only medicine for gout is moderation; the only cure for excess is charity.” – from the diary of Joram Brahe, captain of the Natchez King
“Men who brag about how they would’ve risen to the occasion amid some unattended crisis are pigeon-livered liars. There is nothing more flattering to one’s ego, nor more insulting to a survivor, than armchair courage and the valor of the parlor.”
“We can cower behind oaths and excuses, but it does not change the fact that many are suffering and dying. Perhaps we are not responsible for the crimes of our fathers, but make no mistake, we are beneficiaries of those crimes, which makes us answerable to its victims.”
“Byron hated tea. He hated its bitter taste and the tannic dryness it inspired in the mouth. He hated the smell of it, an aroma like soured wood pulp, and he hated the stains it left in his cups and on his tablecloths.
Yet he drank it because he absolutely adored teatime. He loved the little sandwiches and their excessive variety, loved the sugar cubes and their precious tongs. He loved the jewels of jelly and the crowns of toast.”
“I think it’s perfectly all right to be frightened. Sometimes the fear of change is just an expression of love for the life you had. That’s nothing to be ashamed of. I like who we were. And I like who you are, and I suspect I’ll like who you will be, too.”
“…in hindsight, it’s easy to see a better course, a wiser choice. When I look back, I see a thousand small missteps that altogether brought me here. I try not to dwell on my mistakes because it doesn’t change them; it only changes me. I cannot live inside those awful moments, those naive blunders and prideful errors. It would drive me mad if I did.”
“We all forget we’re mortal now and then. We have to, to keep from going mad. But I never forget the people I love, and that keeps me from taking myself for granted. I don’t want to leave them too soon.”
“I don’t think about my own past much, but when I do, it’s like recalling a biography I read a long time ago and did not particularly enjoy.”
“As Senlin listened to Marat again expose the lavishness of his vanity, it dawned upon him how simple the world was in the eyes of a zealot. Everyone was either an implement or an idiot, a rung or an impediment, and the Tower was but a toy he had promised himself. His was not a complex philosophy, but rather an august sort of childishness. Civility, wisdom, and empathy required growth, sacrifice, a willingness to change, but evil never grew up. Evil was as callow and foolish at the end of itself as it was at the start.”
“…in the end, there’s nothing eloquent about death. There aren’t words sufficient to express the final squeals of the heart, except, ‘I love you.’”
“…if you need to cry, there’s no shame in it. It doesn’t make you weak. You’ve carried me for days. That takes a lot of strength. I know I can be a burden.”
“Oh, no, no. You’re light as a feather. I could carry you forever.”
“But what’s the point of all this? What’s the point, really?”
“The point is to try! The only enemy is complacency; the messy rest serves the cause!”
“It seems to have been a close vote. That’s a razor margin if I ever saw one. Perhaps the count is off.” She tapped the dead bee upon the podium as if just striking upon a solution. “I have it! Why don’t we vote again – just to be sure. A show of hands should suffice.”
The bonneted woman seemed to turn a sicklier shade of pale. “This is an outrage. You can’t cancel an accord just because you don’t like the results!”
Edith smiled as she draped her iron arm over the podium. “It’s just a show of hands. All those who wish to hang one of the Sphinx’s emissaries and expel thousands of malnourished children, in defiance of the Brick Layer’s will and the bounds of basic decency, please raise your hands.”
“This is intimidation!“
“I can’t help it if your conscience has embarrassed you. Surely what you believe in private you can also espouse in public? There’s no cause to feel intimidated!”
“Dropping his hands, Senlin regarded his likeness uncomfortably. The mirror’s diagnosis was frank, expected, and brutal: He had aged a decade in a year. Scars crosshatched his wrinkles; moles stippled his sunspots. His once bright eyes were now dull as pencil leads. He looked like a regent’s visage printed on a bank note, softened by a thousand pockets, halved by as many wallets, creased and broken by repeated exchange. He looked as if he should be removed from circulation.
He spoke without inflection when he said, “Do you ever wish you could travel back through your life? I do. I wish I could find myself when I was younger, carefree, cocksure, happy – perfectly, entirely happy. But never quite satisfied. I wish I could find that fool and just flog him up and down the street. I took so much for granted.”
“Neglect never patched a crack, nor denial plugged a hole. Do not forget your imperfections; they have not forgotten you.” – Everyman’s Guide to the Tower of Babel, II. VII
“Rather than feel insulted, her vulgarity only made Senlin feel depleted. His conscience ached with a sense of injustice, and he felt as he sometimes did upon meeting the parents of a classroom terror and discoverin gin the father and mother the forge of the child’s anger, resentment, and violence. Bullies were cultivated, not born.”
“We don’t have to know everything about everything to enjoy the world. I don’t have to know all about stamens and ovules to enjoy the fragrance of a flower, or how to build a house to appreciate a roof over my head. But understanding nothing, or very little of the world, and having no desire to understand more than you already do, well, that invites entitlement. What was a privilege becomes a right. And that, I think, is dangerous.”
