Publishers Weekly has just weighed in on the second book in Justina Robson’s Quantum Gravity series, the hysterically (but not necessarily accurately) titled Selling Out,
Selling Out debuts this October and sees Special Agent Lila Black, quite literally, on a mission to Hell. This being Justina Robson we are talking about, the results make you laugh, cry, think and feel.
High-Powered Intrigue and Action Read More »
Larry Ketchersid really likes Here, There & Everywhere,
“Chris Roberson is a fellow Texas author whom I have not yet met. I will soon seek him out and buy him a Shiner and a Tequila to discuss this and his other novels. I am always impressed when a writer pens something that is so obviously outside of their experience, and for Mr. Roberson to write from the perspective of Roxanne Bonaventure as a young girl, teen, moving through the other stages of womanhood, takes excellent powers of observation.”
Chris Roberson: Channeling His Inner Teenage Girl Read More »
Over on SFFWorld, Rob H. Bedford posts his thoughts on Sean Williams’ The Hanging Mountains: Books of the Cataclysm: Three:
“The overall storyline isn’t losing any steam and the tension that comes off the pages during any scene with the Twins is building to great effect. One of the aspects of this series that I enjoy the most is how Sean Williams continues to evolve the landscape of our world. From the titular hanging mountains, to the sea serpents, to the sky wardens, to the strange races, part of what makes this series such a fun ride is knowing, at one point, the world the characters inhabit was our own. Williams is continuing to develop the characters, the transformed earth, and the plotline in equal amounts, culminating in an ultimately delectable stew.”
Sean Williams: Serving Up a Fantastic Stew Read More »
The Library Journal has just given Mike Resnick’s Ivory: A Legend of Past and Future
Ivory: Gamblers, Warlords, and Elephants, Oh My! Read More »
In the latest installment of Tom Easton’s column for Analog magazine, “The Reference Library,” he praises the “panache” of Ian McDonald’s latest, Brasyl, proclaiming that “McDonald soaks us in atmosphere: flamboyance, verve, religions (including soccer), lunch-hour plastic surgery, and all the rest of the potpourri that defines modern Brazil.”
Tom provides a big hint to the big picture, but understands that “it’s much more concerned with image than with anything real. That makes Brazil the perfect stage for this play, even as it calls into question the nature of reality and free will.”
His conclusion, that “Brasyl is an impressively energetic novel that gains a great deal from the exotic ambience of its setting. It also makes an interesting philosophical point at the end: Only in imperfection, perhaps the work of the devil, can we find hope. McDonald is well worth your attention.”
Update: Two reviews for the UK edition for Brasyl came to my attention today as well. Lisa Tuttle, in The Times, calls the book, “a brilliant, kaleidoscopic novel that’s both a portrait of a country and an exploration of the wilder shores of theoretical physics. Brasyl is McDonald’s best book yet, written in a vivid, almost hallucinatory style that’s perfectly suited to his fascinating subject.”
Meanwhile Eric Brown writes in The Guardian that Brasyl is “an accomplished work, a complex, multi-layered narrative which questions the notions of determinism and free will in a universe of illimitable possibilities. McDonald not only paints a stunning portrait of Brazil, which in all its chaos mirrors the quantum uncertainties of the multiverse, but presents a set of characters who come over as real people: multi-faceted, flawed, but ultimately sympathetic.
Brasyl: Well Worth Your Attention Read More »
D. Douglas Fratz gives Hurricane Moon
“Latner shows significant skill in creating a broad range of likable characters and braiding science fiction and adventure with romance to create a very readable and enjoyable novel…Hurricane Moon is a solid debut novel that should please fans of hard science fiction, planetary adventure and romance fiction alike.
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Joe Sherry offers a review of Mike Resnick’s Starship: Pirate,
Or, as Joe says, “If I called the Starship novels as introductory sci-fi, please do not take that as a knock. It isn’t. It is just a statement that a reader who knows nothing about science fiction can pick up one of these books and be equally as entertained as one who has been reading the genre for years. It’s a good introduction to what sci-fi can be. It isn’t just about the Big Idea. It’s also about the fun story.”
Adventures in Resnick Reading Read More »
“Ian McDonald is doing great work exploring cultures and countries not normally explored to the same degree by science fiction,” says Tomas L. Martin, in his review of Brasyl
Meanwhile, I’ve just found a new-to-me review site, Alternative Reality Web Zine, where Andrea Johnson says that McDonald is “Throwing standard American/Western European science fiction on it’s head.” She describes the novel as “part cyberpunk, part historical narrative, part bladerunner, part parallel universe epic, and part introduction to a culture most Americans know nothing about…. Sure, I’ve read parallel universe plotlines before, but Brasyl takes it to a whole new level of weirdness. McDonald’s characterization is great, the characters feel realistic, fleshed out, and for the most part, unlikeable… Enjoy their stories for what they are, don’t rush to the end for the action. The enjoyment of the journey makes the unexpected and bizarre kicker even sweeter.”
Brasyl: A Bizarre Kicker Read More »
The Chicago Center for Literature and Photography has a review of David Louis Edelman’s John W. Campbell Memorial Award nominated novel, Infoquake.
“… like many fantastical books, it is the universe that Edelman has created that is of equal importance as the story itself that takes place there. And indeed, this is yet something else that many sci-fi fans love about sci-fi, is the vast and consistent environment that is created for these stories to reside; it’s what makes Trekkies Trekkies, what keeps Star Wars fans endlessly arguing over what is ‘canon’ material versus ‘non-canon.’ And in this case, Edelman creates a whopper of a universe for his characters to inhabit, one filled with an entire glossary of minor figures and obscure historical events, just begging for a little fan-fiction to fill the gaps…”
Amsusingly, the review gives Infoquake a rating broken out by Story, Characters and Style, with an Overall rating of “6.8, or 9.3 for science-fiction fans.”
The review also contains a foot-note: “Oh, and speaking of complex backstories and fan-fiction projects, no review of Infoquake is complete without special mention of the absolutely astounding support website Edelman has created for it; …’astounding’ as in the amount of background information Edelman provides about the ‘Jump 225’ universe, including not only a full reprinting of the paper book’s appendices but also almost 10,000 words of backstory not found in the book at all. Imagine if JRR Tolkien had had access to a personal website while writing Lord of the Rings, where he was able to publish his background notes in real time instead of years after his death.”
And there’s a repeat of the call for fan fiction: “… just begging for some smart fan-fiction to fill in the narrative gaps. So how about it, Edelman? You claim to be a big fan of the Web 2.0; how about open-sourcing the background universe of Jump 225, and allowing others to write and publish their own stories that take place in it? We nerdy slashfic Sigh fans anxiously await your answer!”
A Whopper of World-Building Read More »
Adam Balm is back on Ain’t It Cool News with a review of Ian McDonald’s Brasyl.
“I walk away from this book convinced that he’s lived it all. I absolutely believe that this middle-aged white Irishman is also an indian boy, a self-absorbed Latin American woman, a Jesuit priest, and a walker between the universes. There’s no other explanation.”
Then, after a bit of plot description he summarizes McDonald’s accomplishment thusly:
“…the brilliance lies in how MacDonald marries these tropes of radical Hard SF to the South American traditional themes of Latin American magical realism, melding it all together and spitting out something that feels like it’s never been done before. And on top of that, there’s probably at least two new ideas on every page that stops you cold in your tracks, where you put the book down and just stare into space. …you just end up hating this guy for being so damn clever.”
Ain’t It Cool News: the Brilliance of Brasyl Read More »
