Babel is the story of four students in Oxford England in an alternate history of the beginning of the Great Enrichment during the 1830s. The alternate part of the history is that nasty translation professors have found a way to improve productivity with magic and silver. Strange economics, including a Trumpian balance of payments issue, lead the students down a path towards terrorism. The author could make the story a little less grim with a little romance. Everyone is too busy studying and hating to have a romance. It is a story of how academics leads to the “logical” extreme. How far will the decent into terrorism go? Does the evil of the professors justify it?

I liked the magic system but the themes are delivered quite heavy-handily

A solid 3.5/5. This was a thorough look into a greedy, power-hungry establishment revolving around an interesting magic system that’s attached to the art of language and translation, it just lacked some excitement and memorable characters. The length of the book could hurt the pace at times, but it also allowed Kuang to create and explore an interesting version of 1800’s Britain in the midst of its Imperialism while reliant on magic-engraved silver. Would recommend to anyone who’s interested.

This is dark academia + fantasy or magical realism. It is thought provoking, complex, emotional, and once again R.F. Kuang did not hold back on the social commentary in this book. I have heard many say/review “this book is not for everyone, but everyone should read this book.” I whole heartedly agree. Yes the pacing can be a problem for some. I don’t know if I can call the pacing slow in the beginning, I would say I had to read slower in order to grasp everything being put down. As a lover of epic fantasy, this was not a problem for me. There are few books that make me want to immediately re-read. This is one. I deeply cherish this book.

The premise started as interesting but the story went off the rails into an anti-colonial rant which was ham-handedly and superficially done (often breaking the internal consistency of the world the author created) until it got to the point of caricature.

This book is a wonderful look experience of brilliant people who are not welcomed into the halls of power. The revolutionary message is poorly paced and the supposed grand coalition is poorly fleshed out. That is fine since the coalition and the revolution is not what this book is about. What we’re left with is a wonderful book about the experience of accomplished people who are disenfranchised by a racist system of extraction with with a quick mention of revolution and feckless violence at the end.

I did not enjoy. It was a slug. If it wasn’t for my inability to put a book down once I’ve started it, I would never have finished. I found myself skimming to get through it.

An inventive, biting, melancholy tale. I’ll not soon forget it. Kuang’s writing is so self-assured. The pacing in this novel is slower than the poppy war trilogy but that seems by design.

r.f. kuang has a writing style that will captivate you and then destroy you with how devastating it can be. it’s so good but it hurts.

The ethereality of the characters brings surreal reading experience. The novel distills real world issues in a fantasy setting, perfected with archetypical characters. The author managed to mold the story around the characters with their own preposterous point of view, and created something otherworldly, yet perfectly reflecting all the problems and struggles in our real world.