THE MEMORY OF BABEL

Dabos pushes full steam ahead with new arks, new spirits, and new treachery.

Over two years have passed since Ophelia was forced to part from Thorn and return to Anima, where she has spent every moment planning to find him and deciphering the truth she has learned about God. With a lead, a new identity, and the help of exiled friends, Ophelia journeys to the ark of Babel, ruled by twin family spirits but tightly controlled by the unyielding Lords of LUX. Here the Memorial, an enormous archive, is said to hold “the ultimate truth,” which Ophelia wagers includes the knowledge of how to thwart a perfidious deity. As she competes, awkward as ever, to gain access as one of the Memorial’s information virtuosos, Babel is beset by mysterious attacks; the LUX authorities insist that they are accidents, but Ophelia is certain that the victims came close to the secret she is pursuing. This narrative feels tighter, with a more determined protagonist and crystallized connections between the family spirits and God’s insidious plan—even alternating perspectives between Babel and the Pole don’t slow the pace. Ophelia’s inexplicit asexual representation continues, though the blooms of long-sown romance shift her toward demisexuality. But it’s not all immersive worldbuilding and thoughtful character development. The overall lack of non-White characters makes an unfortunate swerve into exoticization of Babel’s dark-skinned population. The use of the term “crippled” to describe a character with a disability is an unfortunate choice.

Murder, power grabs, and world-rupturing revelations fly by in this penultimate volume.