Thank you Netgalley for the free ARC, provided in exchange for an honest review.

While Babel also shows the horror of violence and resistance and complexity of bringing about change, it is quite different from The Poppy War. The first half is world and character building. Four new students go to Oxford to study at Babel, a translation academy whose main goal is creating translators who can program silver, the method of magic that runs England, contributes to it's success at colonialism and power, and relies upon pairing words from different languages to work. Three of the four students are foreignborn, and their obvious foreign, nonwhite appearance means they cannot fully assimilate into white, British society. While, their language skills are the future of silver, they are treated by all, even their guardians, as other and not as good as. When Robin learns that his guardian is working with partners to take over China and all silver production, he is determined to bring down the British Empire at the expense of everything. While slow to get into the action, this book is a masterpiece.