Brasyl (GOLLANCZ S.F.) - Softcover

McDonald, Ian

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0575082887 ISBN 13: 9780575082885

Publisher: Gollancz, 2008

Synopsis

Ian Macdonald's River of Gods, painted a vivid picture of a near future India, 100 years after independence. It revolutionised British science fiction for a new generation by taking a perspective that was not European or American. Brasyl will do the same for South America's largest and most vibrant country.

This is a story that begins in the favelas, the slums of Rio, and quickly expands to take in drugs, corruption, and a frightening new technology that allows access to all the multiple worlds that have slipped into existence in other planes every time we make a decision. This is rich, epic science fiction that opens our eyes to the world around us and posits mind-blowing alternative sciences. It is a landmark work in modern science fiction from one of its most respected practitioners.

About this title

About the Author:

Ian McDonald is the author of Planesrunner, Be My Enemy, and Empress of the Sun, in the Everness series. He has written thirteen science fiction novels--including the 2011 John W. Campbell Memorial Award winner for Best Novel, The Dervish House--as well as Brasyl, River of Gods, Cyberabad Days, Ares Express, Desolation Road, King of Morning, Queen of Day, Out on Blue Six, Chaga, and Kirinya.  He's been nominated for every major science fiction award, and even won some. McDonald also works in television and in program development--all those reality shows have to come from somewhere--and has written for screen as well as print. He lives in Northern Ireland, just outside Belfast, and loves to travel.

From Booklist:

*Starred Review* McDonald takes on frenetic, vast, fascinating Brazil in this epic interweaving three time strands: the contemporary world of TV producer Marcelina, whose proposal for a series based on a mock trial of an ex-soccer star who played in the most devastating championship game in Brazilian history gets her entangled with the strange truth about our world; the eighteenth century of a Jesuit whose "task most difficult" of returning a fellow Jesuit to the teachings of the church takes him to the Amazon, where the task becomes unexpectedly, unimaginably more difficult and bizarre; and the nearish future, in which Edson, risen from poverty and crime almost to his dream of wealth and a house by the sea, gets mired in the affairs of Fia, a quantumiera (she operates a quantum computer in an always-moving vehicle) who disables the quantum security chip his brother nearly died for stealing. The connections of these worlds through the various ways in which people can perceive all possible universes, and the implications of the universe's unavoidable quantum entanglements--ranging from the possibility of predicting the future to the existence of nigh-infinite doubles of everyone--prove startling. McDonald's Brasyl is a magnificent place, and the motivations and possible results of the battle over the multitude of quantum universes it posits are chilling and wonderful. Regina Schroeder
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About this edition

• Publisher: Gollancz
• Publication date: 2008
• ISBN 10: 0575082887
• ISBN 13: 9780575082885
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 432