Brasyl

Infobox Book
name = Brasyl
title_orig =
translator =


image_caption =
author = Ian McDonald
illustrator =
cover_artist = Jacket design by Stephan Martinière
country = United Kingdom
language = English
series =
subject =
genre = Novel, Science Fiction, Cyberpunk
publisher = Pyr
release_date = May 3 2007
english_release_date =
media_type = Print (Hardcover)
pages = 357 pp (first edition, hardcover)
isbn = ISBN 978-1-59-102543-6 (first edition, hardcover)
oclc =
preceded_by =
followed_by =

"Brasyl" is a 2007 novel by British author Ian McDonald. [cite news |title=Time traveller |url=http://www.newstatesman.com/books/2007/07/ian-mcdonald-brasyl-quantum |work=New Statesman |date=2007-07-12 |accessdate=2008-05-28 ] It was nominated for the 2008 Hugo Awards in the best novel category. [cite web |url=http://www.thehugoawards.org/?p=142 |title=2008 Hugo Award Nominees |work=The Hugo Awards |accessdate=2008-05-28 ]

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 finally 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.

References