The Magic Words of Babel

Lexicon by Max Barry

...to people at the top, the scariest thing is how many people there are below. They need to watch us. They need to monitor what we’re thinking. It’s the only thing between them and a guillotine. Every time something like this happens, anytime there’s death and fear and people demanding action, to them that’s an opportunity.  —Lexicon

This terrifying science fiction thriller combines a host of sharp observations on society and individuals, a multitude of cultural origin stories that echo the Old Testament's Tower of Babel, and cutting-edge-of-tomorrow technology that might actually exist today—only "they" don't want us to know. "They" are the verbal elites, a dark Illuminati who know the secret words that, when spoken, can enslave anyone—even another member of the elite—and turn them into a virtual slave, permanently or for a defined time.

The concept supposes a tower of puppets, a looming world-wide heirarchy of commanders and commanded. There are categories, of course, of these verbal whips, and for each personality type, some will work and others will not. In the lexicon of command, there are phrases to subjugate each group, as long as you can determine which type they are.

The cabal of elites selects and trains likely youngsters to gather and interpret data about individuals so that their category is known. A hundred, even fifty, years ago, this would have been difficult. It would have been piecemeal, using the few persons able to determine the type of a person by direct interaction. Social media has changed that.

People resist a census, but give them a profile page and they’ll spend all day telling you who they are.

Then there is the "bareword." A bareword is a rare thought which, whether vocalized or visualized, can command everyone, regardless of their type.

Except, perhaps, one immune. Maybe there are others, but one is known for certain. This unique individual may have died in an experiment—but if not, he or she has experienced first-hand the release of a bareword. And for the elite commanders atop their tower, this person may be their last hope to recover that bareword, to give them ultimate power.

They pursue it despite knowing that, whenever this power has been acquired in the past, a Babel-like tower and the subsequent shattering of the common language has been the result.

Their power lulls them into comfort. They become undisciplined. Those who had to earn power are replaced by those who have known nothing else. Who have no comprehension of the need to rise above base desires. Power corrupts, as the saying goes, and the bareword... is not only absolute power, but worse: It is unearned.

The interleaved neuro-linguistic concepts play well against the political-thriller action of Lexicon, provoking an intermittant recognition of real-world events, and leaving the reader at the end with a deep sense of satisfaction—as well as more than a little queasiness about using social media.