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Brasyl

11 January 2009 in Novel | No comments

By Ian McDonald.
Begun 15 Nov 2008; finished 21 Nov.
Review written on 22 Dec 2008.

After reading the puissant River of Gods, I approached Brasyl with very high expectations — and Ian McDonald didn’t disappoint me. This novel is to Brazil what River of Gods was to India: it is jam-packed with action, a mystery gradually unravelling, mercurial characters whose role is to act as vessels or impetus for ideas, high technology just beyond the edge of our understanding, multiple storylines converging into a unified whole, and an overarching aesthetic that seeks to capture the ambience and culture of Brazil the people, society and nation.

The story of Brazil is told in three different timelines: in the present, following Marcelina Hoffman the reality-TV producer in her frenetic pursuit of media success in São Paulo; 20 years into the future, in the life of Edson Oliviera, a small-time businessman in the favelas of a futuristic São Paulo of high technology and extreme social surveillance; and in a 18th-century past where the new world of Brazil was being colonized and broken by the Portuguese, and Father Luis Quinn of the Jesuits is sent on a mission deep into the Amazon jungle to bring a heretic to justice. These three very disparate stories separated by time are united by the futuristic technology of quantum computing, and through that, multiple parallel universes. Elements of the three storylines intersect, overlap and bleed into each other; from this arises a unified worldview that crosses all three Brazils, touches the three main characters, and ties the novel together.

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River of Gods

26 October 2008 in Novel | 1 comment

By Ian McDonald.
Begun 09 May 2008; finished 17 May.
Review originally written 26 Sep 2008.

If there was a contemporary SF/fantasy book that I was compelled to read solely from the weight of accolades, it’d be River of Gods. I’d heard so many paeans about this novel and Ian McDonald in general; furthermore, the cyberpunk/future-Earth setting looked very fascinating. (How many books are set in India, let alone pay attention to the country?) And the book has a Stephan Martiniere cover — it can’t get better than that! So I snapped it up the moment it came into the library.

This novel is worth every paean and accolade received.

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The Night Land

27 September 2008 in Novel | No comments

By William Hope Hodgson.
Begun c. Dec 2007; finished 26 Jan 2008.
Review originally written c. Jan 2008.

As of writing this review, I’m about 3/4ths done with the 500 pages of The Night Land, but I don’t need to finish it to write about it.

This is an obscure novel, I wouldn’t have come across it if I hadn’t seen references to it on an acquaintance’s blog. The text is available on Project Gutenberg, but I was lucky enough to find a second-hand paperback copy.

William Hope Hodgson lived at the turn of the 20th century; authorially is the peer of Lord Dunsany and H.P. Lovecraft, in that he writes fantastical or speculative fiction before the Fantasy genre was established.

This epic is set in a future Earth, millions of years in the future when the Sun has died, plunging Earth into eternal night. The Earth is beset with monsters and supernatural forces of evil, and the remnants of humanity live in a great stronghold called “the Last Redoubt”, shielded perpetually from the evil without. The hero is a youth who ventures into the Night Land outside the stronghold to seek and rescue a maiden (ie. his soulmate) from another stronghold elsewhere that had been overcome by the evil forces. The story charts the perils and strivings in the Land, and finally his rescue of his beloved and their return to the Last Redoubt.

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A Canticle For Leibowitz

17 May 2007 in Novel | No comments

By Walter M. Miller, Jr.
Begun 22 Mar 2007; finished 30 Mar.

Walter M. Miller’s novel, A Canticle For Leibowitz, is at the time of writing, the most powerful and impactful novel I have read this year.

A Canticle For Leibowitz is a book in three parts, a history of humanity told from the perspective of the monks of a monastery. (This is also one of the uncommon novels that has to do with monasticism!) The first part begins in the dark ages following a catastrophic collapse of civilization, where monasteries are the last bastions of knowledge and monks the preservers of history in an otherwise tumultuous and chaotic world. The second part is a renaissance following the return of scholasticism to the secular world. The final part is the growth and adaptation of the monastery in the ‘modern’ era, standing upon the brink of a space age.

Sound like a novel set in history? In fact, this is dystopian science fiction, a story of future-Earth beyond the 20th century, a vision of humanity’s history following a nuclear catastrophe. Read the rest of this entry »

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Souls in the Great Machine

29 August 2006 in Novel | No comments

By Sean McMullen.
Begun 10 Aug 2006; finished 22 Aug.

This entire review contains details about the plot that could constitute as spoilers.

I’ve now read the first book of Sean McMullen’s Greatwinter trilogy, Souls in the Great Machine. (The Miocene Arrow is the second novel but I read it first.) I can now say with confidence that Greatwinter is the most innovative and creative series I’ve read since Primary Inversion (by Catherine Asaro) about 6 years ago. McMullen’s future-Earth, both familiar and alien at the same time, is a feat of world-building, and I’m in love with it. While I enjoyed the setting and scope, the characterization leaves something to be desired: the novel would be far more superior of the characters were more fleshed and open. But, on the whole, it is a great novel and a fabulous world that I’d like to experience again.

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The Greg Mandel trilogy

11 August 2006 in Novel | No comments

By Peter F. Hamilton.
Being, Mindstar Rising, A Quantum Murder, and The Nano Flower.
Commenced c. July 2006; finished 09 Aug.

Peter F. Hamilton is an author I’ve been wanting to read for some time. Encouraged by two acquaintances (one of whom lent me these novels), I have finally gotten down to reading one of his series, the trilogy starring Greg Mandel, ex-military psychic, in a post-global warming, hypercapitalistic future. At the time of writing I have yet to read A Quantum Murder, but I think I can safely assume it is similar to the other two and continue with this review.

I read The Nano Flower first, then Mindstar Rising; the novels can be read standalone. They are set in a future Earth where global warming has drastically altered the world: climate, environment, technology and demographics. A hypercapitalistic free market dominates; Big Businesses control the economy and pack much political clout with national governments. Technology has taken a leap forward, especially in the fields of computer science and biology; space colonization is the next big horizon.

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Feersum Endjinn

28 June 2006 in Novel | No comments

By Iain M. Banks.
Begun 14 June 2006; finished 20 June.

Feersum Endjinn is an Iain Banks SF novel — shorter, leaner, faster, and with an appropriately sharp punch. It’s exactly what I’ve come to expect from Banks: a visionary, creative setting, a tight and fast-paced plot, idiosyncratic characters, and atypical narration. But these expectations don’t stop it from being a surprising story. The structure is recognizably Banks, but the story is very unique.

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The Miocene Arrow

9 May 2006 in Novel | No comments

By Sean McMullen.
Begun 28 Apr 2006; finished 07 May.

There’s nothing like reading a series in order, where characters and plots are introduced in their proper places, and confusion and spoilers are minimized. Therefore I was supremely peeved upon discovering that The Miocene Arrow was the second book in Sean McMullen’s Greatwinter trilogy, the first being Souls in the Great Machine. That didn’t last long, though: a bit of rereading, and an initial cast list, helped me pick up the setting, and I was quickly immersed in the story.

The setting is Earth in the fortieth century. A series of events that took place in the twentieth century had plunged humanity into a technological and social Dark Age: electric power had been abolished, a vast population of humanity and animal life wiped out, and a phenomenon known as the Call dictates and limits humanity’s progress. In America, where The Miocene Arrow is set, human civilization is confined to high-altitude, mountainous strongholds, and steam, diesel and alcohol power all technology and vehicles, themselves limited in size and power. The American havens are governed by a quasi-feudal political system, where hierarchy and chivalry rule, and warfare takes place in tightly controlled duels.

Such is the setting and the people, which are then turned upside down by Australian spies (some of whom are introduced in Souls in the Great Machine, which itself is set in Australia) — total warfare and an Industrial-Age arms race ensue, and eventually we gain revelation of a plan more sinister than American civil war.

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