As a dog person, I like the idea of including a cybernetically enhanced dog as one of the POVs. The Babylon Eye opens with no world-building, just smeAs a dog person, I like the idea of including a cybernetically enhanced dog as one of the POVs. The Babylon Eye opens with no world-building, just smells, and sounds. Then we get to the prison where an inmate with the past gets an offer that sounds too good to be true. Meet Elke Veraart, an eco-terrorist and a talented trainer of gardags, cybernetically enhanced attack dogs. When one of the most advanced gardags, Meisje, disappears during a mission on a Portal-Station out to sea, influential people offer Elke the deal. If she finds the dog, she’ll win back her freedom.
The story is told from two points of view, one human second canine, and is set in Cape Town, South Africa. I loved the setting and both characters. Meisje felt real and believable. Du Toit wrote her POV well and captured her dual nature. Meisje is a dog with doggy needs, but also an enhanced and intelligent creature able to mind-link with a human handler. She can’t talk, but she understands human language and pays attention to details and smells. She evades capture and proves her intelligence repeatedly.
Elke is a character with a past. Suicidal, lonely, and filled with guilt, but also principled and dependable. On the outside, she looks angry (for example her body modifications include long horns), on the inside she remains emotionally vulnerable, complex and careful. After loosing home as a young teenager, she joined a gang that hunted poachers and assassinated them. I have a feeling what happened to her then still shapes her life now, many years later.
Aside from political intrigue, sci-fi elements, the story has also an ecological message. The main protagonist used to be an eco-terrorist. The world is running on empty and people deal with an energy crisis, climate change, rising sea levels, pollution and the destruction of the natural world. Humanity survived the first contact with aliens (Strangers) and there’s even a black market for an alien world-contraband. All of those elements blend in an intriguing vision of the future.
The Babylon Eye has it all - strong, relatable characters, solid vision, good, utilitarian writing. Unfortunately, it lacks focus. I felt as if it couldn’t really decide what it wanted to be. As a result, parts of the text felt unfocused and uninspired and this significantly decreased my enjoyment in the story.
Try it, though, to see what African indie sci-fi scene has to offer. Neatly edited and relatively, The Babylon Eye entertains and differs from most western sci-fi in a good way....more