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.

Patrick Finnegan’s [sic] second novel TOYS IN BABYLON is both satire and mystery and a sendup of AI. Coki, the mascot of a popular language app, is missing, and feared murdered. The app’s AI, who has evolved lives and ideas of their own, plans to take over the way language is taught, making human teachers irrelevant. Further plot dissection would reveal spoilers, and there’s too much fun to be had in discovering the twists and turns as they unfurl. Love, language, friendship, deception, and AI are all entwined for a roller coaster of a ride. The author has a sharp eye for the absurd and ironic, and weaves all the elements together in ways that are delightful surprises. TOYS IN BABYLON is a fast, funny page turner.

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.

Toys in Babylon by Patrick Finegan is a very different kind of book. It is both humorous and satirical, mixing actual characters with animated avatars. It is up to date with AI and ChatGP entwined with a real-life and modern scenario. Coki Bear, the bright pink corporate mascot, has gone missing. It is time for the license renewal and both the ‘real’ CEO and the ‘imaginary’ characters are desperate to find her. There is a large cast, and so the list at the beginning of the book is very helpful. Inspired by the Duolingo online language app, this satire mixes fantasy and even history, with references to early songs, television series, and past events. The avatars, each with their unique personality, rise up to overpower those who created them, or do they? Is that all a dream? The cartoon characters bear a strong resemblance to those you meet on the online language app, even to the green scarf and pink feathers. Readers need to suspend disbelief as the cartoon creatures converse with those in real life while attempting to solve the disastrous disappearance of Coki Bear.

Patrick Finegan has written a totally unique book in Toys in Babylon, an apt description of an international online language app used by millions around the world. I could relate to many of them since I am a daily Duolingo fan. It is a very clever satire as the story races at breakneck speed from the first page to the last. Most of the cartoon avatars are both cute and cuddly and quite endearing. They possess more wit, intelligence, and savvy than their creators envisaged. An eclectic mix of fairytales, old musical hits, previous events, and the mystery of the missing Coki Bear, the mainstay of the Cok Dill Corporation, makes for an interesting read. There are passages in French and German and song lyrics among the mixture of the AI-generated animated teaching characters and actual company executives. The reader is kept guessing with every page. A niche book that will appeal to a select audience who will appreciate the hidden and parallel messages.

Whip-smart satire and a cutting-edge premise make Toys in Babylon: A Language App Parody and Whodunit by Patrick Finegan a tongue-in-cheek romp for savvy language lovers everywhere.

The animated avatars of a popular language-learning app begin to panic when their mascot, Coki Bear, turns up missing, leaving the town of Cokville leaderless. Between filming reality television and responding to the prompts and stories that fuel their online world, these colorful characters hunt for their missing friend, but they’re not the only ones who’ve noticed her absence.

The programmers at the Cok Dilli company are stupefied when their irritatingly attentive brand-name bear suddenly vanishes from the platform, as though someone has deleted the whole digital soul of the tiny pink ursine. Trying to manage damage control and crack the case without losing a step or worrying their shareholders may prove too much for the dwindling human staff. The real question is, when a virtual creature is infused with genuine artificial intelligence, is wiping away their digital existence all that different from murder?

Bursting at the seams with wordplay and whimsy, this pun-packed whodunit takes readers into the secret lives of meta-verse denizens and their real-world creators, making for a surreal and allegorical ride through our complex contemporary landscape. Those who are familiar with the DuoLingo app will clearly see the parallels between Coki Bear and Duo (the pestering green owl) and the “motivational propaganda” of language-learning apps, but this novel also satirizes the tech world writ large, artificial intelligence, and modern culture, so no reader should feel fully left out of the joke.

As debates over education rage and defunding continues, particularly in the United States, a book examining the fate of human teachers and the role of technology in the classroom has never been more relevant. The plot doesn’t limit its social critiques to tech, however, delving into immigration and wall-building to protect specific interests, along with challenging gender norms, intellectual property law, and addictions of all kinds. The multilayered, reality-blurring story can be difficult to follow at times, but the wry comedic moments remind readers that the author knows precisely what tale he’s trying to tell.

While there are plenty of strange and entertaining elements to the plot, the book is ultimately a vehicle for linguistic gymnastics and the pure pleasure of words. It relentlessly pokes fun at the hiccups, tangles, and paradoxes of language, from English and German to French, Klingon, and even a bit of High Valyrian. Exploring different ways that language is used, manipulated, evolved, and destroyed, what begins as a somewhat harmless story becomes a powerful reminder that language, communication, and connection are truly the driving forces of humanity, rather than technology, profits, and corporate domination.

From an editorial perspective, a final manual proofread is recommended, particularly with the prose containing words from so many different languages, and where so much of the wordplay is subtle. Overall, Finegan delivers a beautifully bizarre and thought-provoking novel, one that poses crucial questions for real-world society, delivered with linguistic confidence and inimitable creativity.

Must read 🏆

A thoroughly engrossing infotainer, blending sci-fi and cozy mystery about contemporary AI technology, leaving behind much food for thought

The story is about a language learning app called Cok Dilli, which reminds anyone who is aware, of the famous Duolingo. But Cok Dilli is more interesting. Not only does it provide a wide range of services in several languages, but it also has a vivid virtual world: a city with virtual characters, houses, shops, offices, ruling bodies, even the police. These virtual characters, including the Coki, a bear and the company’s mascot, are powered by AI. One fine day, Coki goes missing from the virtual world, wreaking havoc in both the virtual and the real world.

But why would a missing mascot pose any problem? This book has two main themes: one, the mystery of the missing bear; and two, the complexities of using AI.

In the preface, the author tells us how this book conceptualized as an online challenge on a web forum where he had invited members to collaborate on a story. He ended up writing a couple of chapters himself, and eventually the entire book! I wonder if the collaboration could have been any better. But I’m glad the author completed this book as it was a delight to read.

I absolutely loved the concept of using a language learning app to explore the impact of AI. After all, not many other companies can have as direct a conversation with its users as a learning app, with such breadth and depth of topics. I’m not aware if a company like Cok Dilli truly exists, but the way it has been described in the book, it’s tempting to replicate one in reality!

The book sheds light on the ed tech industry, the lack of concern of tech companies for people (own employees and even customers). The author even covers the business challenges like the sustaining growth and profitability, the CBA of manpower costs vs investing in AI, issues of copyrights and IP, and the limitations of current regulations concerning AI. It reflects the authors understanding of this industry and the applications of technology.

It also provides food for thought on topics like mankind’s readiness to handle AI at its fullest, the potential of AI sentience and the limits when they start broaching the limits of self-awareness, philosophy and emotions.

Non – tech readers may struggle a bit to understand the tech portions of the story. But despite delving about tech, the story has been written as a cozy mystery, with loveable characters (both real people, virtual characters and AI). The tone is light and comic, written in a simple, direct yet descriptive language. Being a story about a language learning app, it uses quite a few foreign languages in conversations, mostly as poems or exclamations. While they don’t drive the story, they add authenticity to the plot. And obviously, boast about the author’s own linguistic knowledge.

When I had picked up this book, I hadn’t expected to enjoy it as much as I did. It is an infotainment. This is a medium length book, highly recommended for anyone interested in AI, feel-good and/or cozy mysteries.