The Roaring 20s: A review of Barbara Hambly's Scandal In Babylon
- vanessajknipe
- Jun 16, 2023
- 4 min read
(contains spoilers)
The movie Babylon, reminded me to talk about Barbara Hambly’s book Scandal in Babylon which covers the same era.
I first met Barbara Hambly’s books in the 1980s with The Time of the Dark, a Second World Fantasy where the main character travelled between the modern USA and the magical world of Darwath, to save the day against the armies of The Dark.
Most recently, I read Scandal in Babylon. It came as a shock to me. For all it’s billed as ‘A silver screen historical mystery’, the similarity of the characters to her far older Bride of the Rat God, convinced me, at first, that Scandal was a sequel to Bride.
This is not the case. In Scandal and Bride, Barbara Hambly has written something which could be taken as a writing exercise along the lines of:
Take the same characters and the same world building research and change one thing about the world. Write two books.
Similarities
In 1920s America, Prohibition was in full force while the silent movie industry flourished in Hollywood, fuelled by bathtub gin and cocaine. To comment on this mix, add a WW1 British War Widow.
The Books
In Bride of the Rat God
impoverished war widow, Norah Blackstone is whisked off to Hollywood as a companion and dog brusher for her sister-in-law Christine Flint, more commonly known to movie-goers as Chrysanda Flamade. Chris’s movie producer/lover gifts her with an antique Chinese necklace, the Moon of Rats, accidentally offering her as a sacrifice to the Chinese Rat God. Chris performs a balancing act between her producer lover and an elderly millionaire, Ambrose Conklin, who is wooing her. After a great deal of terror and horror, Chris, Norah, and an ancient Chinese Wizard, Shang Ko, fight the Rat God and finally imprison the Demon-god in a camera, because a camera steals the soul and demon-gods are nothing but soul.
In Scandal in Babylon
impoverished war widow, Emma Blackstone, is whisked off to Hollywood as a companion and dog
brusher for her sister-in-law, Kitty Flint, more commonly known to movie-goers as Camille de la Rose. When the corpse of Kitty’s first husband Rex is discovered in her dressing room suspicion falls on Kitty as Rex was murdered with her handgun. Kitty performs a balancing act between her producer lover and an elderly millionaire, Ambrose Crain, who is wooing her. Emma Blackstone, not trusting the police hunts down the killer, who turns out to be Ambrose Crain’s son, trying to prevent his father from cutting him out of the Will in favour of a much younger bride.
Differences
The same characters produce very different endings. The stories diverge when one world has magic and the other does not. Bride is (Historical) Urban Fantasy whereas Scandal is Historical Fiction. There are character differences, both Emma and Kitty, feel younger than Norah and Christine. Emma in particular comes off as more naïve and priggish than the worldly resigned Norah. Emma spends a lot of the book quoting in Latin whereas Norah relies a lot more on her volunteer ambulance driver (VAD) experience.
Why I thought they were in the same series
Scandal starts with Emma Blackstone already working as a scene writer for the motion picture studio, whereas Norah ends up as a scene writer by accident in the middle of Bride. This felt like such a continuation, that I had to check in Bride to make sure the names were different. It would be unlike such an accomplished author as Hambly to make a continuity error about character names.
In Scandal, Emma has already convinced her sister-in-law to give up cocaine because Emma has convinced Kitty it gives her wrinkles; whereas in Bride Chris still uses cocaine. She finally gives it up because it leaves the mind open to possession by a demon god.
Together these made Scandal feel like a continuation of Bride.
Definitions
I take my definitions of ‘Urban Fantasy’ and ‘Second World Fantasy’ from SFE, The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction.
Urban Fantasy is defined as: Urban Fantasies are normally texts where fantasy and the mundane world intersect and interweave throughout a tale which is significantly about a real city. [i]
Generally, Urban Fantasy is set in what we would think of as Our World but the magic and or surreal elements are hidden from the normal people.
Second World Fantasy is defined by C.S. Lewis and quoted in SFE as: A Secondary World can be defined as an autonomous world or venue which is not bound to mundane reality, which is impossible according to common sense and which is self-coherent as a venue for Story (i.e., the rules by which its Reality is defined can be learned by living them, and are not arbitrary like those of a Wonderland can be).[ii]
Finally
I enjoy historical murder mysteries; I must have read every Agatha Christie going. So yes, I did enjoy Scandal In Babylon. While initially confused by the apparent mistakes, I found Scandal in Babylon to be very readable historical fiction. I would have preferred not having spent the first half of the book wondering when the magic and demons would appear, just because the names and characters were so similar to those in Bride of the Rat God.
I did not enjoy Scandal in Babylon as much as Bride of the Rat God; the action is far less thrilling. There is a death-defying ending as Emma chases after her kidnapped sister-in-law. Bride edges in horror with the chance that the characters will be ripped apart by a demon. Scandal sticks with the plausible and possible, so the scene the millionaire’s son sets up is a murder/suicide caused by a mind deranged by movie-star cocaine. If you enjoy historical fiction, then Scandal in Babylon is a very solid, well-researched read. And on the whole, once I realised what was happening, I found the experiment of two books with one background very interesting.
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