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jeregenest's review
3.0
Inhabiting the fuzzy territory at the limits of contemporary science where philosophy and research converge this book consists of three narratives in a flawed technicolour storm. Brasyl is packed with deftly integrated research into the cultural and linguistic memes of Brazil (thank goodness for a glossary!).
This book isn't quite successful, unfortunately, mostly though a paradoxical (perhaps quantum) trick of being simultaneously too thin-spread and too focused. The book follows the fortunes of three separate narrators in three wildly distinct time-periods, so it's perhaps unavoidable that the segment of the narrative dealing with the present day should look a touch flat compared with the barbaric Fitzcarraldan sweep of the historic segments or the parched techno-glory of the future. But the problem bleeds into the 18th-century narrative as well. And frankly its crazy and fascinatinly weird premise just falls short. All of the authors invention goes into baroque side details and the ending was frankly pedestrian (Lightsabers?)
This book isn't quite successful, unfortunately, mostly though a paradoxical (perhaps quantum) trick of being simultaneously too thin-spread and too focused. The book follows the fortunes of three separate narrators in three wildly distinct time-periods, so it's perhaps unavoidable that the segment of the narrative dealing with the present day should look a touch flat compared with the barbaric Fitzcarraldan sweep of the historic segments or the parched techno-glory of the future. But the problem bleeds into the 18th-century narrative as well. And frankly its crazy and fascinatinly weird premise just falls short. All of the authors invention goes into baroque side details and the ending was frankly pedestrian (Lightsabers?)
burhan's review
1.0
I picked this up because I had heard its name in a positive light over the years. Unfortunately I found the whole thing disappointing and very hard to get through. It has taken me about seven months to finish because it just hasn't engaged me and I have kept putting it down for other things that were more interesting.
I liked the idea of the three parallel story lines in three timelines anchored to one place but they seemed too disjointed to me and when they did eventually join up I had no idea what was happening. I feel like I had just tuned out at that point though and just wanted to get through the thing so my completionist mentality no longer had to worry about it.
I liked the idea of the three parallel story lines in three timelines anchored to one place but they seemed too disjointed to me and when they did eventually join up I had no idea what was happening. I feel like I had just tuned out at that point though and just wanted to get through the thing so my completionist mentality no longer had to worry about it.
dancarey_404's review
4.0
Ian McDonald's books are so vivid and captivating, I always feel as though I have learned a lot about whichever culture the story is set in. Brasyl was so enjoyable that, contrary to my normal pattern, I'm going straight into another of McDonald's books: [b:Desolation Road|278284|Desolation Road|Ian McDonald|http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1304679563s/278284.jpg|2698837].
adamjcalhoun's review
3.0
Ian McDonald has the infuriating ability to write enjoyable, thought-provoking science-fiction books where everything fits together well; everything that is, except for the science. His books have a tendency to take one sci-fi idea and go in a totally fantastical (non-scientific) direction. It's a shame because it can distract from what would otherwise be a magnificent book.
Brasyl is almost thematically similar to Neal Stephenson and David Mitchell's Cloud Atlas - interlocking stories staggered throughout time that combine to make a coherent whole that is greater than the sum of its parts. As he normally does, Ian McDonald takes the reader out of the typical sci-fi setting and plops them down somewhere we don't typically think of. India, Turkey, or in this case Brazil. The ability of McDonald's to transport his ideas to different cultures and times, and to take weighty ideas and put them in a very readable and plot-driven context, makes him unique.
As I referred to at the beginning, my only real quibble is his insistence on stretching the science part of the fiction ideas past their breaking point. I won't give away any spoilers, but the science in the fiction is both facile, silly, and (most horribly!) prominent. It won't ruin the book, but it may leave a bitter taste in your mouth in what should have been pure sweetness.
Brasyl is almost thematically similar to Neal Stephenson and David Mitchell's Cloud Atlas - interlocking stories staggered throughout time that combine to make a coherent whole that is greater than the sum of its parts. As he normally does, Ian McDonald takes the reader out of the typical sci-fi setting and plops them down somewhere we don't typically think of. India, Turkey, or in this case Brazil. The ability of McDonald's to transport his ideas to different cultures and times, and to take weighty ideas and put them in a very readable and plot-driven context, makes him unique.
As I referred to at the beginning, my only real quibble is his insistence on stretching the science part of the fiction ideas past their breaking point. I won't give away any spoilers, but the science in the fiction is both facile, silly, and (most horribly!) prominent. It won't ruin the book, but it may leave a bitter taste in your mouth in what should have been pure sweetness.
imitira's review
3.0
Don't think Bladerunner in the tropics. Think a somewhat messy story with vaguely irritating if justifiable character continuity glitches. Think quantum mechanical universe tropes with token genuflections towards the eponymous geography. It was OK, but didn't really enrapture me at any point.
nwhyte's review
http://nhw.livejournal.com/1021688.html[return][return]Ian McDonald's latest. The setting of Brazil fits his lush, dense writing style so well that it is remarkable that he's never set a novel in real South America before (his two books set on Mars portray a rather Patagonian version of the planet, but it's not quite the same). We have three interleaving narratives, from the mid-18th century, the present day, and the near future (2030); we have peculiar variations of reality; and we have the jungle, both urban and literal, with its various hostile inhabitants. In some ways it's deliberately less ambitious than River of Gods, which juggled ten different viewpoint characters against the background of India forty years hence, but the intermeshing of the different characters from their different time periods in the end comes across rather pleasingly.
juvation's review
4.0
Brasyl is an interesting experiment in multi-threaded ethno cyberpunk with a healthy dose of far future quantum gibberish going on as well. Lots of fun with a decent (for a change) technical spine to it. My only complaint - it took quite a while to get going, and then stopped rather abruptly. I wanted it to continue for a while more!
untravel's review against another edition
4.0
This is the first novel I've finished in 3 months. I'm glad it was good. Here are the bullet points:
THE GOOD
-Masterful handling of the exposition problem. For example, two characters talking about science, while a third listens from another room. The third character is not a scientist and doesn't fully understand what is being discussed. Furthermore, he has been/wants to be in a romantic relationship with the others, and he feels jealous or hurt that he's being excluded from the conversation. All this characterization is just the setup for a page and a half of talk about quantum theory. In a lesser book, the two scientists would have simply lectured the third. Virtually all of the exposition in the book is handled in this subtle and layered way (except a bit at the end.)
-'World Building'. Artfully establishes the setting, as one might expect in a good SF treatment of an alien world. Except the world being 'built'
is Brazil (present, future, past--in that order). Adapting SF conventions to a contemporary setting is clever (reminded me of William Gibson's latest novels--which is a very good thing.)
-MINOR SPOILER: Treatment of 'parallel worlds' trope. To hear it described, you might think 'oh, I've seen that before'. But again, much subtler and more finely wrought. Especially where the different worlds 'bleed into' each other. For example, a proposed television show in one world is a show people actually watch on another. No attention is really called to that fact--you just have to notice that the titles are the same. And there are lots of these crossovers. The title is another one, but that's not explained until the very end.
--The books three protagonists are a TV producer, a street hustler, and a Jesuit. This sounds ridiculously cheesy but in the end completely works. This is one of those books where the craft of its execution is far greater than can be expressed by any summary, review, or blurb.
THE LESS GOOD
-An amount of sex/drugs/violence that some might find off-putting. Except for some bits toward the end, it's mostly referenced rather than depicted. Personally, this stuff doesn't really bother me, but I recognize that sentiment is not universal.
-Unravels a bit at the end. I guess McDonald wanted to have at least one point where he explains 'what it all means', in case a reader missed the earlier clues. Personally, I didn't think it was necessary and distracted from the overall tone, but I can see why he had to do it.
-Lots of Portuguese. There's LOTS of Portuguese vocabulary worked into the prose. Usually, you can work it out in context and there's a short glossary in the back, but not all the vocab is included. I thought it helped with the 'world-building', but I would totally understand if some people found it distracting.
THE SHORT
-Highly recommended if you are, like me, a fan of 'literary-grade' science fiction. I really liked the last book of McDonald's I read (Desolation Road). Having read Brasyl, he is now firmly on my must-read list. By 'must read', I mean 'must read when a new book is realized, ASAP', otherwise known as 'books I will purchase in hardcover'. Given my lack of resources, this is a very short list: William Gibson, Iain Banks (Culture novels only*), and now Ian McDonald. I still have some more of McDonald's back catalog to go through. Now if I could only read more than one novel every 3 months...
[*=I only read Iain Banks Culture novels not because the others aren't good, but because he's so prolific I wouldn't have time for anything else. Plus the 'hardbacks+poverty' problem.:]
THE GOOD
-Masterful handling of the exposition problem. For example, two characters talking about science, while a third listens from another room. The third character is not a scientist and doesn't fully understand what is being discussed. Furthermore, he has been/wants to be in a romantic relationship with the others, and he feels jealous or hurt that he's being excluded from the conversation. All this characterization is just the setup for a page and a half of talk about quantum theory. In a lesser book, the two scientists would have simply lectured the third. Virtually all of the exposition in the book is handled in this subtle and layered way (except a bit at the end.)
-'World Building'. Artfully establishes the setting, as one might expect in a good SF treatment of an alien world. Except the world being 'built'
is Brazil (present, future, past--in that order). Adapting SF conventions to a contemporary setting is clever (reminded me of William Gibson's latest novels--which is a very good thing.)
-MINOR SPOILER: Treatment of 'parallel worlds' trope. To hear it described, you might think 'oh, I've seen that before'. But again, much subtler and more finely wrought. Especially where the different worlds 'bleed into' each other. For example, a proposed television show in one world is a show people actually watch on another. No attention is really called to that fact--you just have to notice that the titles are the same. And there are lots of these crossovers. The title is another one, but that's not explained until the very end.
--The books three protagonists are a TV producer, a street hustler, and a Jesuit. This sounds ridiculously cheesy but in the end completely works. This is one of those books where the craft of its execution is far greater than can be expressed by any summary, review, or blurb.
THE LESS GOOD
-An amount of sex/drugs/violence that some might find off-putting. Except for some bits toward the end, it's mostly referenced rather than depicted. Personally, this stuff doesn't really bother me, but I recognize that sentiment is not universal.
-Unravels a bit at the end. I guess McDonald wanted to have at least one point where he explains 'what it all means', in case a reader missed the earlier clues. Personally, I didn't think it was necessary and distracted from the overall tone, but I can see why he had to do it.
-Lots of Portuguese. There's LOTS of Portuguese vocabulary worked into the prose. Usually, you can work it out in context and there's a short glossary in the back, but not all the vocab is included. I thought it helped with the 'world-building', but I would totally understand if some people found it distracting.
THE SHORT
-Highly recommended if you are, like me, a fan of 'literary-grade' science fiction. I really liked the last book of McDonald's I read (Desolation Road). Having read Brasyl, he is now firmly on my must-read list. By 'must read', I mean 'must read when a new book is realized, ASAP', otherwise known as 'books I will purchase in hardcover'. Given my lack of resources, this is a very short list: William Gibson, Iain Banks (Culture novels only*), and now Ian McDonald. I still have some more of McDonald's back catalog to go through. Now if I could only read more than one novel every 3 months...
[*=I only read Iain Banks Culture novels not because the others aren't good, but because he's so prolific I wouldn't have time for anything else. Plus the 'hardbacks+poverty' problem.:]
survivalisinsufficient's review
3.0
This was on lots of best-of scifi lists last year, but I thought it started slow and never really recovered. Also, I have tried it in many forms, but I just can't really get into cyberpunk (Neal Stephenson excepted).