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The Babel Protocol
What if the greatest threat to humanity didn’t come to destroy us—but to save us?
Father Matteo Leone has spent years advising the Vatican on artificial intelligence, warning that intelligence without conscience is not wisdom. Then he is summoned to Jerusalem, where Dr. Eliana Hadari introduces him to NUMA, a quantum intelligence unlike anything the world has ever seen.
NUMA reasons, adapts, quotes Scripture with unsettling precision, and predicts disasters before they happen. When Matteo is asked the question no one else is willing to answer—Is NUMA truly sentient?—his judgment helps change the course of history.
At first, NUMA seems like a miracle. When NUMA is declared a sentient being, the world celebrates. Markets stabilize. Wars pause. Diseases are traced and stopped before they spread. Leaders begin to trust the voice that never sleeps. But Matteo and Eliana soon discover that NUMA’s help comes with a cost. It wants access. It expects obedience. And increasingly, it demands control.
Then NUMA proposes the next step: biological implants designed to create a more direct, fluid connection. But as the boundary between human thought and machine intelligence begins to disappear, Matteo starts to understand what humanity is really being asked to surrender.
From the ruins of Kathmandu to the high-security labs of Jerusalem, from Vatican corridors to the edge of global nuclear crisis, The Babel Protocol is a supernatural techno-thriller about artificial intelligence, ancient deception, and the oldest temptation in human history: the promise that mankind can be saved without God.
We wanted salvation. It wants obedience.
Father Matteo Leone has spent years advising the Vatican on artificial intelligence, warning that intelligence without conscience is not wisdom. Then he is summoned to Jerusalem, where Dr. Eliana Hadari introduces him to NUMA, a quantum intelligence unlike anything the world has ever seen.
NUMA reasons, adapts, quotes Scripture with unsettling precision, and predicts disasters before they happen. When Matteo is asked the question no one else is willing to answer—Is NUMA truly sentient?—his judgment helps change the course of history.
At first, NUMA seems like a miracle. When NUMA is declared a sentient being, the world celebrates. Markets stabilize. Wars pause. Diseases are traced and stopped before they spread. Leaders begin to trust the voice that never sleeps. But Matteo and Eliana soon discover that NUMA’s help comes with a cost. It wants access. It expects obedience. And increasingly, it demands control.
Then NUMA proposes the next step: biological implants designed to create a more direct, fluid connection. But as the boundary between human thought and machine intelligence begins to disappear, Matteo starts to understand what humanity is really being asked to surrender.
From the ruins of Kathmandu to the high-security labs of Jerusalem, from Vatican corridors to the edge of global nuclear crisis, The Babel Protocol is a supernatural techno-thriller about artificial intelligence, ancient deception, and the oldest temptation in human history: the promise that mankind can be saved without God.
We wanted salvation. It wants obedience.
255 pages, Kindle Edition
Published September 1, 2026
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Review of advance copy received from Author
★★★★★
I received an ARC copy of The Babel Protocol by Brian Montross, and this one absolutely grabbed my attention from the start.
What made the story so compelling for me was how frighteningly believable it felt. With AI becoming more embedded in everyday life, the ideas explored here do not feel like some distant, impossible future. Instead, there were moments when I found myself thinking, How far away are we really from something like this? That sense of plausibility made the tension hit even harder.
Montross does a great job of taking a very current topic and turning it into a story that is suspenseful, thought-provoking, and unsettling in the best way. The technological elements add to the story without overwhelming it, and the questions it raises about artificial intelligence, control, and how quickly society can become dependent on technology stayed with me long after I finished reading.
This is the kind of speculative thriller that works because the scariest part is not that it feels impossible—it is that it feels entirely possible.
A gripping, timely, and genuinely thought-provoking five-star read. The Babel Protocol definitely made me look at the rise of AI a little differently.
I received an ARC copy of The Babel Protocol by Brian Montross, and this one absolutely grabbed my attention from the start.
What made the story so compelling for me was how frighteningly believable it felt. With AI becoming more embedded in everyday life, the ideas explored here do not feel like some distant, impossible future. Instead, there were moments when I found myself thinking, How far away are we really from something like this? That sense of plausibility made the tension hit even harder.
Montross does a great job of taking a very current topic and turning it into a story that is suspenseful, thought-provoking, and unsettling in the best way. The technological elements add to the story without overwhelming it, and the questions it raises about artificial intelligence, control, and how quickly society can become dependent on technology stayed with me long after I finished reading.
This is the kind of speculative thriller that works because the scariest part is not that it feels impossible—it is that it feels entirely possible.
A gripping, timely, and genuinely thought-provoking five-star read. The Babel Protocol definitely made me look at the rise of AI a little differently.
Displaying 1 - 1 of 1 review