Complex Cyber
Punk Quantum Romp through a Multiverse Past, Present & Future Brazil.
Have you ever
eaten an exotic dish and bitten into a cardamom pod? If you have, you’ll know that it literally
explodes with mysteriously complex flavours and sexy, heady perfumes. Reading, or listening, to Brasyl by Ian
McDonald induces a much similar sense.
There are three
main threads in the book, each with a distinct time- and geographical
setting. The three threads each also
follow a different protagonist. In the
present (2006) we have Marcelina Hoffman, a rather shallow, Brazilian martial
arts arse kicking producer of trashy reality programmes for a controversial TV
Station in Rio de Janeiro. The second
protagonist, Edson Jesus Oliveira de Freitas lives in a near-futuristic (2032)
Big Brother-esque Sao Paulo. Edson goes
by a few different aliases and his pursuits, monetary and otherwise, are not
always strictly legal. Despite this,
Edson is a very likeable character. Edson
and some of the other characters in his part of the universe are near Anime-like
in appearance and conduct – slender boyish boys and girlish girls or girlish
boys and boyish girls, you know what I mean.
In 1732 the Black half-Irish Jesuit Priest Father Luis Quinn, a learned
man of strong character wades through the Amazonian rivers and rain forests,
his mission turning out quite differently from that which he first anticipated…
Cyberpunk,
biopunk, alternate history, quantum computers, travel between multiple
universes, Doppelgรคngers, wearable computers, mind expanding drugs are
all mixed with the wonderful and strange sights, colours, sounds & smells
of a bygone, contemporary and an imaginary yet to come Brazil as the three
threads starts intersecting. Myth, fact,
religion, sexuality - this is modern speculative fiction at its best!
This is the first
Audible Book I, J. Hardspear de la Azotea, listened to where the voice actor is
British. For us non-British English
speakers from South Africa, North America, Australia & New Zealand there is
a certain charm to British English.
Nigel Pilkington’s narration lends integrity to both the text and
characters. I looked up his profile on
the web and found that he was born in Lancashire. One can hear the Northern England influence
in his accent, but it is not too strong and I had no difficulty following the
narration. He does however use different
accents for different characters and for the different strands in the
book. (It is very quaint the way he – as
Edson - drops t’s, elongates vowels and puts k’s after words ending in –ng.) Mr. Pilkington reads Brasyl with flair and
fluency, his voice matching the said sights, colours, sounds & smells of
the prose word for word.
The only reason why I gave ‘Overall Experience’ 4 instead of
5, is: I gather in the printed form of
this book there is additional content which include a glossary with Brazilian
Portuguese slang and other unfamiliar words & terms. It also includes a playlist, suggested
reading etc. Audible should find a way to
make this available to anyone who purchases this recording.
