Toys in Babylon: A Language App Parody and Whodunit gives readers the perfect demonstration of a parody written with lively intention. This will prove especially intriguing to high school to college-level students of contemporary fiction who are interested in learning about language usage, form, and parody's possible applications.

The tale originally appeared online in thirteen installments, but its appearance here reflects both an expanded presentation and a renewed focus on the language and fine art of parody writing.

Author Patrick Finegan is passionate about languages. His participation in an online chain-novel project delivered unexpected fruits of achievement as he republishes these installments for a larger audience.

The plot revolves around a cast of satirical, fictional characters and situations that embrace animated teaching characters, AI influences, jokes, and mystery alike.

The presence and juxtaposition of all these facets may prove challenging to readers who anticipated the usual linear production, but the joy of Toys in Babylon lies in its unconventional approach to fiction and action. These facets will delight readers seeking the look and feel of something completely different.

Romance, poetic interludes, and more emerge from unexpected encounters. Readers are kept on their toes by a progression of shifting events and realities that keep the characters engaging and memorable.

Confrontations and realizations are carefully crafted to lend insight into the overall atmosphere and motivations of AI and human alike:

"Do not pretend it isn't you. You are the leader, the disgruntled one - all because the Burmese language didn't sell, and ok Dilli dumped you." Myaing lurched back in alarm. Someone squealed on them. Her comrades stared at her in terror and confusion. She stared back in rage and consternation. Her recruits ran for the doors, as fearful as she was, that ok Dilli's unseen army would soon surround them. The room emptied swiftly. Just Myaing and the old hag remained, not even the proprietor. Myaing's feet felt glued in place to the floor.

Again: the complexity of these intersecting worlds and experiences may prove challenging to everyday readers simply seeking staid entertainment value from their fiction. It's the literary-minded reader interested in the changing devices of satire and parody who will find the progression thoroughly absorbing, albeit steeped in language not ordinarily seen in standard writing approaches:

Arpita did not think Clarisse was bonkers but understood why the story was a bombshell to the group: Coki scattered her CD Anon members among cottages outside town, fearful their interaction with official Cokland citizens and cast members might disrupt what she had taken so long to nurture. In fact, she lodged Clarisse in a forest, but her addict cravings were so pertinacious she applied for the high school's vacant media arts position.

These strengths are why Toys in Babylon: A Language App Parody and Whodunit is especially recommended for advanced students of language and parody, who will find the story's contemporary twists and usage to be both thoroughly engrossing and ultimately educational.

Some books make you feel good all over.  Others make you cry.  Some sharpen your skills, and others are just to kill time in the airport or on a cruise ship.   Patrick Finegan’s “Toys in Babylon” may occupy a niche of its own. It was written, as he helpfully explains in the Foreword, as a self-imposed assignment for a chat group arising from a foreign-language learning app. 

Anyone who’s ever studied a language online will recognize the conversation between the baker and the shopper; between the bus driver and the passenger.  In Finegan’s book, these characters have broken free of the script and taken on lives of their own.  This clever concept is most emphatically not a book you’ve read a million times before!

Finegan is a really smart writer, and Google was my friend while reading it.  The Translate feature was useful for the chunks of German, French, Burmese, Russian, and Turkish that came bubbling up (I may have missed a few), and unless you’re familiar with 1930s cinema, 1960s surf music, ChatGPT, 1940s baseball rosters, and other arcane topics, a lot of this may fly over your head.  But the main thread is pretty clear, especially given the background of the project. 

We can imagine a foreign-language app in which millions of users invest a lot of time, create tons of content during assignments and in chat groups, and then have all those records wiped out without warning when the company shuts down.   Many users will be angry, and some may even dream of revenge.

Someone might even commit a murder.

Because so much of the language app takes place in the virtual world, many of the characters in this book are virtual as well.   Finegan doesn’t burn a lot of time explaining how ‘real’ and ‘virtual’ characters are able to interact on the same playing field – just accept the premise and let his wit roll over you.  Note that any blood that was shed in this book was not composed of plasma and hemoglobin but rather 0s and 1s.  You’ll have fun puzzling out the various threads, languages, and references found within Patrick Finegan’s “Toys in Babylon,” and in the end, you’ll probably learn something as well.     

Toys in Babylon is such a different kind of story and it is hard not to sing its praises. I found the story to be satire at its best. With plenty of artificial intelligence, great friendships between characters, a lot of jokes, a little romance, and a big mystery, it contains so much that readers will love, while being completely unlike anything you have read before.

Toys in Babylon is, first and foremost, the story of Coki the bear, the mascot of one of the world’s highly successful language apps. Coki has disappeared…and the question of whether the bear has been kidnapped or murdered is high in everyone’s mind as the story progresses. In this story, a majority of the characters are animated members of the language app who are used to help a person study but, in this case, have created lives of their own outside the app. As the characters, both human and animated, attempt to figure out what has happened to Coki, the characters take on their own personalities and entertain the reader in ways that definitely have not been done before in a book, at least not one that I have ever read.

Patrick Finegan has given readers something so creative with this book and I am sure that it will appeal to many, whether or not you have studied a language online through an app. While there is not a lot of detail in the book about how the human and animated characters can relate to each other the way they do, it does not detract from the story. This is one where you just have to jump in and let your imagination play along and not get deeply involved in the “how” it is being accomplished. You will have so much more fun that way!

The characters themselves are quite nicely developed, whether real or animated, and they keep the story moving right along as the pages turn. While your mind might fill with a little bit of worry regarding the fact that these animated characters are doing and speaking whatever they want, they really do make sense and, as a reader, you can find yourself actually caring about them and what is happening with the company that is causing them such confusion and pain. As I mentioned, you just have to “go” with it and not constantly question and you will adore the story.

Toys in Babylon is a story that I would recommend to others regardless of the type of books you favor. It is different, fun, and in some ways, very educational. For fans of artificial intelligence, it is a book that just may teach you a lot. For mystery fans, it is just a great story with clues that you can enjoy trying to figure out. For everyone else, it is just a fabulous parody to have fun with. Mr. Finegan has done something wonderful here and I will be very interested to see what he comes up with next.

Quill says: Toys in Babylon is such a humorous and creative story and quite different from other things out there, which is what makes it such a fun read. It is not often, dare I say never before, when a mystery fan can get a really good mystery wrapped around a group of cartoon characters.