#10
Walking To Babylon
By Kate Orman
Oh, crumbs. For some reason I get a bit flustered reading (and especially reviewing) books that everyone likes. You know where you are with a stinker; you also might enjoy diving into a book that everyone sniffs at only to say no, you’re all mean, Tempest is fine actually. When it’s something like Love And War or The Also People, there is (in my stupid brain anyway) a feeling that there won’t be much to say, and anything you do say could have it all backwards.
All of which, fluster and bluster and blah, is to say that everyone likes Walking To Babylon, and they’re right. It’s great. So, thanks for coming.
Fine, I’ll try.
Walking To Babylon juggles a few elements that will be familiar to readers of the Benny NAs. Bernice is on a mission from (you could at least pretend to hold your breath) the People, more specifically God, and the only way to solve the crisis is to visit an archaeological dig. That is a slight fib: she must travel to Babylon in its heyday, before the conquering and the ruins. Having her marching around active history feels like a fresh way to handle a heroic archaeologist. (It is only a mild irritation that Lawrence Miles did this not long before as a short story, but then again even NA fans probably didn’t read the last Decalog.)
The problem is this: two of the People have built a time travelling path from their Worldsphere to Babylon, and they appear to have gone to live at other end, leaving the path open. No one knows why, but the People have a precarious treaty with a powerful force that shall remain nameless (okay, Time Lords, please don’t sue us) and if they find the People mucking about with time travel it would mean war. Specifically a Time War, which Kate Orman evokes with characteristic New Who prophecy at a few points. Bernice has five days to reason with the fugitives and shut down the path or Babylon, everyone in it and Earth’s history will be scuppered to prevent a larger crisis.
It sounds like a massive story, but Walking To Babylon approaches it with the same sort of human smallness (perhaps as a coping mechanism for big ideas) as The Also People. The majority of it is people talking to each other, trying to solve problems with civility. On the Worldsphere, Clarence (an angel, to all intents and purposes, Benny met in Down) is figuring out why the path was created and what they can do about it. In Babylon, Bernice is trying to find the fugitives (you’ll notice I haven’t included their names: typical People, they are unpronounceable) while also trying to support a fellow traveller, Edwardian linguist John Lafayette. He found the path, which shouldn’t be possible, and Bernice is the closest thing he has to a way home. Most of the book is their relationship.
And, oh right, yes, it’s a love story. Sort of. (When push comes to shove, John says that he is not in love with her, but it’s obviously something. Bernice feels a connection she hasn’t had in a while, but that doesn’t automatically make it more. It’s well handled, not unlike some of the ships-in-the-night dalliances of the Doctor Who NAs.) Walking To Babylon, despite the ticking clock, allows Bernice to slow down and feel things. The relative naivety of John, whose social mores can’t cope with Babylon, let alone the sexual politics of Benny’s time, allows for some thoughtful reflections on civilisation: ways in which the Babylonians are backward, but know what they want, and ways in which the People are hyper-advanced, but out of touch and easily self-deluded. (And probably ways in which John and Bernice emulate both those viewpoints, I suppose.) John’s out of place-ness doesn’t make him a figure of fun, as it could have, but it does increase his reliance on Bernice. Also his fascination: he’s as in awe of her as he is of Babylon, especially when a heated chase leads to some decidedly un-Edwardian sex. Bernice seems aware of her awkward duty of care for him, which perhaps contributes to this not becoming a relationship.
There aren’t many black and white characters here. Bernice and John meet a slave owner who comes to their rescue; a shady go-between has much to gain from aiding the fugitives, but ultimately he helps Bernice because it is more pragmatic to do so; the fugitives, despite their catastrophic lack of judgement, are damaged by war and believe what they’re doing will be good for their people in the end. Their whole society comes out of this feeling like a richer and more troubled bunch, which is a relief when these books are so determined to revisit them.
Despite its characterful smallness, there are moments of high drama and excitement. John comes close to death after an attempt to rescue Bernice from kidnappers (she thinks he was wrong to do so, but we know she was in much greater danger), and when medical aid arrives from an unlikely source I couldn’t disagree with Benny’s assessment: “…so relieved that it was almost a physical pain.” The sheer simplicity of the path, as a means for time travel, also allows for some striking imagery. The moment when it finally begins to break up, and Bernice and John literally run along it for their lives, is going to stick with me.
There is also, of course, a lot of great writing for Bernice. Trust Kate Orman to understand the assignment: not only placing Benny in living history, knowing how that will brighten her up, but displaying her frayed edges and imperfections as a character as well. Bernice relates to the (philosophical) youth of these renegade People – who already took direct inspiration from her life, though that is hardly her fault – telling them a story about a stupid decision that almost got her killed years ago. This ultimately, seamlessly sets up one of the key premises of her character: “I remembered those long nights in the Aurigan jungle, after a lip-smacking meal of night crawler, trying to keep myself from going mad. It would always take forever to go to sleep … I would talk to myself, encouraging words, badly constructed limericks, sometimes a wavering song. I told myself my life story. I made up the bits I couldn’t remember or didn’t like. After that, I started keeping a diary. And still made up the bits I couldn’t remember or didn’t like.” Orman also peppers Bernice’s ongoing memoir with footnotes, which are a perfect fit and work much better (in my opinion) than her original whimsical go-to of notes on top of notes to continually rewrite the moment. (Which is still a thing, admittedly.)
It’s Kate Orman, so the book feels breezy even when it’s brilliant, and much of it is set in the Worldsphere, which is as consistently fun to revisit as a cherished fairytale. There are delightful passages, like a chapter that’s a farce with Benny trying to grant a chain of wishes in order to find something out, or this gem when John encounters the Worldsphere: “The first thing he saw was Clarence … an angel, right out of a Bible illustration, naked as a jaybird and with a ten-foot wingspan. The next thing he saw was that the world went away for ever and curled to the sides and up over his head, past the sun and the smiling planet that circled it. A yellow-coloured drone floated up. ‘Hi,’ it said. ‘I’m God.’ I expected John to faint. Instead, he said, ‘Bernice, are you feeling all right?’ I would have answered, but I decided to fall over in the grass and have a little sleep instead.” You generally feel like a lot is being said, but also it’s okay just to enjoy the good company for 250 pages.
When something’s good it’s easy to get stuck just describing it. Walking To Babylon is a rare treat, though: quality time with Bernice in the hands of someone who gets her. (Footnote: what do you mean, she didn’t write another one? Cruk!)
9/10
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