Brasyl

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Brasyl
Author	Ian McDonald
Cover artist	Jacket design by Stephan Martinière
Country	United Kingdom
Language	English
Genre(s)	Novel, Science Fiction, Cyberpunk
Publisher	Pyr
Publication date	May 3, 2007
Media type	Print (Hardcover)
Pages	357 pp (first edition, hardcover)
ISBN	ISBN 978-1-59-102543-6 (first edition, hardcover)

Brasyl is a 2007 novel by British author Ian McDonald.^[1] It has been nominated for the 2008 Hugo Awards in the best novel category.^[2]

[edit] Plot Summary

Brasyl is a story in three braided pieces. The main action concerns Marcelina Hoffman, a coked-up ambitious reality TV producer in contemporary Brazil, a striving amateur martial artist who transcends the cliches of luvvy television phony and becomes a full-fledged, truly likable person as we watch her embark upon a mad new project. Marcelina is going to find the disgraced goalie who lost Brazil a momentous World Cup half a century before and trick him into appearing on television for a mock trial in which the scarred nation can final wreak its vengeance.

Another story is set in the mid-21st century, at a moment when the first quantum technologies are reaching the street, which industriously finds its own use for these things. Q-blades that undo the information that binds together the universe, Q-cores that break the crypto that powers the surveillance state that knows every movement of every person and object in Rio and beyond.

The final story is a 19th century Heart of Darkness adventure in the deep Amazon jungle, as we follow an Irish-Portuguese Jesuit into slaver territory where he is sent to end the mad, bloody kingdom of a rogue priest who scours the land with plague and fire. He is joined by a French natural philosopher, who intends to reach the equator and discover the shape of the world with a pendulum.

[edit] References