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Bernice Summerfield: Virgin New Adventures #10
Walking to Babylon
"I'm scared of letting all these people down. Like the whole human race. At least if I get blown up as well, they can say I died heroically. Assuming I ever existed at all."
When Bernice Summerfield visits the People — an incredibly advanced civilisation living in a Dyson Sphere — she discovers that even in utopia, they still have their problems.
An illegal time travel experiment threatens a war which could destroy them all. Rather than risk it, the People and their ultra-powerful computer, God, are prepared to eradicate the source of the problem — the ancient city of Babylon. But such action would involve the death of a quarter of a million human beings, and do incalculable damage to Earth's history.
Babylon — and the human race — have one hope. Benny returns to the cradle of civilisation to try and stop the interference. She has just one week to prevent a catastrophe that could mean she will never be born. Her only assistance comes from a Victorian linguist who has stumbled across the experiment himself. But he's no help at all — even though he has a power neither of them suspects.
When Bernice Summerfield visits the People — an incredibly advanced civilisation living in a Dyson Sphere — she discovers that even in utopia, they still have their problems.
An illegal time travel experiment threatens a war which could destroy them all. Rather than risk it, the People and their ultra-powerful computer, God, are prepared to eradicate the source of the problem — the ancient city of Babylon. But such action would involve the death of a quarter of a million human beings, and do incalculable damage to Earth's history.
Babylon — and the human race — have one hope. Benny returns to the cradle of civilisation to try and stop the interference. She has just one week to prevent a catastrophe that could mean she will never be born. Her only assistance comes from a Victorian linguist who has stumbled across the experiment himself. But he's no help at all — even though he has a power neither of them suspects.
272 pages, Paperback
First published November 1, 1998
78 people want to read
About the author
Kate Orman
65 books42 followersKate Orman studied biology at Sydney University and worked in science before becoming a professional author. Orman is known for her sci-fi work, and especially her frequent collaborations in the "Doctor Who" universe. For Virgin Publishing and BBC, she wrote more than a dozen full-length novels, as well as numerous short stories and non-fiction pieces related to "Doctor Who". She was the only woman and only Australian to write for the initial range of novels, the Virgin New Adventures.
As of 2022, Orman lives in Sydney and is married to fellow author Jonathan Blum.
As of 2022, Orman lives in Sydney and is married to fellow author Jonathan Blum.
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
April 20, 2022
With the switch to the Bernice Summerfield novels, the New Adventures lost their ability to do any real time travelling plots inherent in Doctor Who plots. It becomes interesting when Kate Orman contributes the first time there would be any real time travel elements included in the series as well as being a sequel to Ben Aaronovitch’s The Also People, more so than Ghost Devices was despite featuring the People. Kate Orman once again looks into the psychology of the main character post-The Dying Days where she has already cut off every last shred of her relationship with Jason Kane, but at this point there is already a lot of both subtext and straight up text that she clearly still loves the man. This is already the tenth novel in the series and Jason has appeared in several of the other novels, mainly Beyond the Sun and Deadfall, but it is really interesting because Jason is nowhere to be seen in Walking to Babylon. This doesn’t feel like an oversight on Orman’s part, he is explicitly absent which in retrospect makes it incredibly weird that the audio adaptation brought in Jason Kane but didn’t actually add much for him to do except be part of the People plot which was heavily truncated, existing God, Clarence, and the Worldsphere entirely with a decent amount of the residuals going to creating a plot for Jason as well as changing the motivations for the two main People characters who were included.
Walking to Babylon has a brilliant plot about two rogue People finding their way to Ancient Babylon where they are attempting to avert a war, a very specific war that is never named but heavily implied to be a Time War involving the Time Lords. The interference with the timelines is what permeates this novel as everything builds towards a point where it is revealed that despite these specific People not being responsible for the Path through time, but another People being secretly stoking the war. One stroke of genius was concluding the novel on the Worldsphere with a denouement involving characters from The Also People and So Vile a Sin appearing to support Benny in what is essentially emotional turmoil. John Lafayette is a character from the early 20th century, included here to be a love interest to Benny and the other emotional center of the novel. John is a reserved Edwardian gentleman who is shoved into an ancient culture who is more sexually liberated with institutionalized sex work and a major supporting character being a religious prostitute. Orman is brilliant at creating a romance between John and Benny while setting the book in an epistolary format, mainly from publications Benny wrote or her own personal memoirs, with the footnotes representing the many sticky notes which cover passages of Benny’s diary. We get to see this relationship grow between two people out of time, one very experienced, the other inexperienced. The sexual repression and liberation of John Lafayette which is paired with the romantic feelings and sexual encounters without being gratuitous. This is no Timewyrm: Genesys, as Orman addresses a lot of what sex work entails and how it culturally works in Babylonian society. Orman’s prose is also just beautiful and the book is such a slow burn it makes everything feel real.
Overall, Walking to Babylon is a perfect reflection on what the Bernice Summerfield novels have been leading to and how writers have dealt with the production issues of having to write a divorce. While not the first book to address this fact, this is the one that parses out what Benny feels about Jason without ever needing to have Jason in it. It’s also such an exploration of history and alien societies. 10/10.
Walking to Babylon has a brilliant plot about two rogue People finding their way to Ancient Babylon where they are attempting to avert a war, a very specific war that is never named but heavily implied to be a Time War involving the Time Lords. The interference with the timelines is what permeates this novel as everything builds towards a point where it is revealed that despite these specific People not being responsible for the Path through time, but another People being secretly stoking the war. One stroke of genius was concluding the novel on the Worldsphere with a denouement involving characters from The Also People and So Vile a Sin appearing to support Benny in what is essentially emotional turmoil. John Lafayette is a character from the early 20th century, included here to be a love interest to Benny and the other emotional center of the novel. John is a reserved Edwardian gentleman who is shoved into an ancient culture who is more sexually liberated with institutionalized sex work and a major supporting character being a religious prostitute. Orman is brilliant at creating a romance between John and Benny while setting the book in an epistolary format, mainly from publications Benny wrote or her own personal memoirs, with the footnotes representing the many sticky notes which cover passages of Benny’s diary. We get to see this relationship grow between two people out of time, one very experienced, the other inexperienced. The sexual repression and liberation of John Lafayette which is paired with the romantic feelings and sexual encounters without being gratuitous. This is no Timewyrm: Genesys, as Orman addresses a lot of what sex work entails and how it culturally works in Babylonian society. Orman’s prose is also just beautiful and the book is such a slow burn it makes everything feel real.
Overall, Walking to Babylon is a perfect reflection on what the Bernice Summerfield novels have been leading to and how writers have dealt with the production issues of having to write a divorce. While not the first book to address this fact, this is the one that parses out what Benny feels about Jason without ever needing to have Jason in it. It’s also such an exploration of history and alien societies. 10/10.
August 2, 2023
Kate Orman turns in the strongest Bernice Summerfield book so far, dealing with history, civilisation and relationships while trying to prevent Babylon being destroyed. It also finds space for a compelling love story. Typically for Orman, the writing just bounces along. An easy recommend to anyone even passingly familiar with Bernice.
4.5
4.5
August 17, 2020
You can't go into this cold: you need to be aware that (1) the Benny Summerfield books are a spin-off of the "Doctor Who" New Adventures line, and (2) that this is a direct sequel to one of those novels -- the glorious "The Also People" by Ben Aaronovitch. If you're familiar with both, then not only will reading this sequel pose no continuity problems, but it will be a rich, dense, gloriously witty & poignant experience that will satisfy you in any number of ways. This is easily one of Kate Orman's best novels.
April 4, 2015
Easy quick read. Quite entertaining. Sympathetic main characters in a universe bearing some similarities to Ian Bank's universe.
March 8, 2025
I have come to the conclusion that anything Kate Orman writes for Benny or science fiction, I am going to love it.
I've only ever really listened to the BF version of this, and now having read the book-the book absolutely triumphs over the audio. There is so much that has been missed and so much development and inner thoughts that Benny has in this novel that the audio just fails to capture. Also, the Audio completely cut out Clarence and God's characters but I see why they did it, but still.
This book is just wonderful. Unlike the audio, this book has no Jason Kane in apart from name-dropping. (Hurray).
i really loved seeing more of Clarence in this book and seeing his friendship with Benny. And it's really interesting to see how the People view War and the Treaty and the veterans.
I also liked John as a character, he was really intriguing.
Over all, loved it. Will probably come back and review it properly.
I've only ever really listened to the BF version of this, and now having read the book-the book absolutely triumphs over the audio. There is so much that has been missed and so much development and inner thoughts that Benny has in this novel that the audio just fails to capture. Also, the Audio completely cut out Clarence and God's characters but I see why they did it, but still.
This book is just wonderful. Unlike the audio, this book has no Jason Kane in apart from name-dropping. (Hurray).
i really loved seeing more of Clarence in this book and seeing his friendship with Benny. And it's really interesting to see how the People view War and the Treaty and the veterans.
I also liked John as a character, he was really intriguing.
Over all, loved it. Will probably come back and review it properly.
October 30, 2011
Fifteen months ago a friend of mine bought me a copy of Walking to Babylon by Kate Orman, a sequel of sorts to Ben Aaronovich's Doctor Who novel The Also People, which is sometimes regarded as the finest Culture novel ever written by someone other than Iain M. Banks. I've finally gotten around to reading it.
It is actually a very good novel. Ms. Orman has an strong grasp of plot, the novel proceeds along at a good pace and the complications are fit for the circumstances. She has excellent characterizations; I think she got Bernice down much better than Paul Cornell, who wrote the much less cleanly imagined Oh No It Isn't. There are moments in the book where she really has a grip on a character's emotions and the tension crackles along. The relationship between Beni and John Lafayette is just awesome, and when the inevitable love scene wanders into the book she writes with that kind of deft and delightful "I don't have to tell you everything to make this work" touch that I, and too many contemporary writers, are just too damned clumsy to make happen.
The premise of the book is straightforward: Beni is summoned back to the Worldsphere, the Dyson sphere in which live The People, a collection of billions of individuals all hiding out from the rest of the universe, living in an AI-mediated utopia, all under the watchful eye of a prime AI who calls itself God and manifests itself to other people as a WalMart ikon. Someone on the sphere has broken the treaty with the timelords and created an interdimensional gateway to ancient Babylon. Beni is an archeologist and a former Doctor's companion and is therefore best equipped to find whoever it was and fetch them back.
If Ms. Orman has a singular problem, it is that she can't pick a point of view and stick with it. Although she signals the transitions clearly, there doesn't seem to be a rhyme or reason for her constant shifts from Beni in the first person to John in the third to some bystander observer nearby. This isn't the "three points of view" technique of David Weber to illustrate a battle, or the "two voices" strategy of romance novels to show a relationship. It seems that she simply picked whatever point of view she thought she could get away with. It's a workable technique, but here it feels choppy. The book is speedy reading and the shifts seem to come fast but not light. But that's my only real complaint. The story's fun.
There's a weird disconnect that's not the author's fault: Beni belongs to Virgin Publishing, but Dr. Who belongs to the BBC, and the two parted ways a while ago. Somehow, Ms. Orman has managed to write a book in which a companion to The Doctor visits a world in cold war conflict with The Timelords and hangs out at (and with) a house that last hosted The Doctor and several companions-- without ever once mentioning The Doctor, Timelords, The Tardis, or any other BBC trademark. It's quite remarkable how well she pulls this off.
As for The People, Ms. Orman once said to me that she had only read The Also People and was unaware that she was trafficking in goods that, as Mr. Aaronvich puts it, "he got off the back of a lorry." She does a great job of handling those goods of dubious provenance. God and the Worldsphere's populace are in full swing when they're the subject of a chapter. There's a little less detail in places, but when she puts her mind to it Ms. Orman can make a world as wacky as anything Ben or Iain writes. Her description of the Freak Accidents Interest Group is a moment of strong clarity, and her insight into what's wrong with The People, and her so much stronger handling of that insight, make Walking to Babylon a worthy companion to other Culture novels on your bookshelf. Or your Dr. Who bookshelf. Or maybe just your bookshelf, just because.
It is actually a very good novel. Ms. Orman has an strong grasp of plot, the novel proceeds along at a good pace and the complications are fit for the circumstances. She has excellent characterizations; I think she got Bernice down much better than Paul Cornell, who wrote the much less cleanly imagined Oh No It Isn't. There are moments in the book where she really has a grip on a character's emotions and the tension crackles along. The relationship between Beni and John Lafayette is just awesome, and when the inevitable love scene wanders into the book she writes with that kind of deft and delightful "I don't have to tell you everything to make this work" touch that I, and too many contemporary writers, are just too damned clumsy to make happen.
The premise of the book is straightforward: Beni is summoned back to the Worldsphere, the Dyson sphere in which live The People, a collection of billions of individuals all hiding out from the rest of the universe, living in an AI-mediated utopia, all under the watchful eye of a prime AI who calls itself God and manifests itself to other people as a WalMart ikon. Someone on the sphere has broken the treaty with the timelords and created an interdimensional gateway to ancient Babylon. Beni is an archeologist and a former Doctor's companion and is therefore best equipped to find whoever it was and fetch them back.
If Ms. Orman has a singular problem, it is that she can't pick a point of view and stick with it. Although she signals the transitions clearly, there doesn't seem to be a rhyme or reason for her constant shifts from Beni in the first person to John in the third to some bystander observer nearby. This isn't the "three points of view" technique of David Weber to illustrate a battle, or the "two voices" strategy of romance novels to show a relationship. It seems that she simply picked whatever point of view she thought she could get away with. It's a workable technique, but here it feels choppy. The book is speedy reading and the shifts seem to come fast but not light. But that's my only real complaint. The story's fun.
There's a weird disconnect that's not the author's fault: Beni belongs to Virgin Publishing, but Dr. Who belongs to the BBC, and the two parted ways a while ago. Somehow, Ms. Orman has managed to write a book in which a companion to The Doctor visits a world in cold war conflict with The Timelords and hangs out at (and with) a house that last hosted The Doctor and several companions-- without ever once mentioning The Doctor, Timelords, The Tardis, or any other BBC trademark. It's quite remarkable how well she pulls this off.
As for The People, Ms. Orman once said to me that she had only read The Also People and was unaware that she was trafficking in goods that, as Mr. Aaronvich puts it, "he got off the back of a lorry." She does a great job of handling those goods of dubious provenance. God and the Worldsphere's populace are in full swing when they're the subject of a chapter. There's a little less detail in places, but when she puts her mind to it Ms. Orman can make a world as wacky as anything Ben or Iain writes. Her description of the Freak Accidents Interest Group is a moment of strong clarity, and her insight into what's wrong with The People, and her so much stronger handling of that insight, make Walking to Babylon a worthy companion to other Culture novels on your bookshelf. Or your Dr. Who bookshelf. Or maybe just your bookshelf, just because.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews