The Babel Effect

by Daniel Hecht

Book Overview

With all the imaginative depth and narrative power of Michael Crichton's Timeline or Jurassic Park, The Babel Effect is an electrifying, thinking person's thriller based on cutting-edge neurological... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0609607294
• ISBN13: 9780609607299
• Release Date: December 2000
• Publisher: Crown Publishing Group (NY)
• Length: 448 Pages
• Weight: 1.20 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.4" x 6.4" x 9.5"

Customer Reviews

An amazing feat!

This is an international suspense thriller and powerful love story with an usual plot. The main characters are members of a creative and broad gauge think tank commissioned to figure out the causes of human violence. This is a detective story in its own right, and involves a sorting through the many possible explanations. But mysterious--sinister and violent--forces don't want them to succeed. This story began to make me wonder if we are really conscious beings capable of making human choices, whether we are just vehicles for perpetuating DNA. What a web the author weaves! I found that the story picked up the pace as it progressed and the characters contended with dangerous challenges and contemplated the meaning of their lives. The action is especially grippimg in the midst of a vividly described civil war in Africa. READ THIS BOOK!

Three books in one

I will admit a connection to the book; I did some of the scientific research that backs it up, and I know Daniel Hecht. I never actually read the book till it came out, but when it did, I read it through in a few long sittings.What I found was three books in one. On the surface, it is a good international thriller, with a talented but flawed hero, a team of realistic supporting characters, some whiz-bang science and spy tradecraft, and a varied assortment of bad guys. I appreciated the fact that the violence was not romanticized, and the consequences of violence had equal billing. The second book, contained within the first, is the story of a man who drinks too much, battles with anger, guilt, and his own limited emotional perception, and is afraid that his wife is drifting away from him. His search for his wife is literal, emotional, and globally metaphoric.The third book, paralleling the first two, is a scientific and philosophical exploration of the fundamental question of evil. Hecht provides no easy answers, but provides a number of interesting avenues of thought. The one that catches me is this: Are good and evil human-created concepts that we impose on events, or are these concepts inherent in the structure of the natural world?It is the love story, the hero's inner struggles, and the wide philosophical scope that lift this book above the usual cold war spy story or nuke terrorist novel. It is a fitting second novel for Daniel Hecht, after Skull Session. Skull Session was a gothic murder mystery that explored the question of human destiny and genetics by way of neurology. Hecht entertains us and makes us think.

A great thinker

See storyline above.Daniel Hecht has written a superb novel that makes you think. I like that. A great intellectual thriller with action, suspense and emotion. A highly researched novel concerning genetics, and the idea that evil and violence can be hereditary or passed on via memes or virus's. A wide range of characters provide a wide array of opinions on this subject. Great subject. Great story. Great charcters.Highly recommended for all.

Brilliantly conceived!

As he demonstrated in Skull Session, Daniel Hecht is a gifted writer of formidable imagination. He is a producer of trenchant prose on wonderfully unique themes. In The Babel Effect, he tackles the malaise that affects much of the general population as a result of escalating violence, and suggests a very viable thesis for the underlying cause(s). This is not light reading, but it's a powerful, thought-provoking book that ultimately catches fire and burns, hot and bright, right to the end. Compelling, fascinating--all the good adjectives apply to a very special book. I recommend both Skull Session and The Babel Effect. Both will stay with you for a long, long time.

Thoughtful And Suspenseful

I can't remember reading many books that made me think so much, all the while engaging me in such a well woven story. This is, perhaps, the only suspense novel that I've ever given to other people to read just so that we could discuss the underlying ideas. I'd recommend The Babel Effect as highly as anything I've read in a long time.