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• "For a hundred leagues along the Rio Branco the emblem of the Green Lady is an object of dread"

  This is stunning. Set in modern times in Sao Paulo, and in 1732-34 in the Amerindian jungle. It flips to one or another location chapter to chapter. Don't let the noisy language in the first chapter, set in 2005, put you off. This is where we meet, a group of boys who have unexpectedly found a Merc with the keys still in it and are having it away, when one, Marcelina Hoffman comes on their sound system shrieking that they are on a TV Game Show, and all they have to do to keep the car and maybe get a TV contract, is evade the cops who are hot on their trail. Bear with it. It does get better than this. As an arbiter of TV taste, though, Marcelina leaves a lot to be desired. Something weird is happening in Marcelina's universe as she seems to be sabotaging her own production ideas. The language is a mixture of South American slang and up to the moment neologisms. Copywrong dealers are `quantumeiros'. Top-dog of the favela (shanty-town)is Fia Kisheda with the very important handbag. In the Favela "the population of a small town scavanges the slopes of the tech trash mountain." There's the forest of fake-plastic trees (has Thom York read this book?), the Vale of Swarf, the Ridge of Lost Refrigerators. In the blink of an eye we are at June 1732, with a mule going mad on the wharfe-side, and Father Luis Quinn, an admonitory of the Jesuit Order, is raging at a race, where slaves carry their (human) mounts up the rigging. That word `admonitory' has a meaning which will carry over via quantum mechanics to the present and the future. Quinn will travel with Dr Robert Falcon, a Geographer, in whose possession is a new device, a governing engine of some kind. We learn more about this, and, staring into the river, as two currents converge, Falcon intuits fractals. Some the descriptions of the landscape and jungle are breathtaking. We flip to 2032 where an admonitory of the Order has crossed the boundaries between the multiverses, this is Fia, whose computer is printed on her body. Slipping back to 2006, we learn that there is not one world, there are many worlds. There is not one you, there a many you's. There is not the universe, but the multiverse. There are two competing theories. One is String Theory, the other is Loop Quantum Gravity. LQG wins out. We segue back and forth in time, pivoted upon theory. In 1733 Fr Quinn has determined a site to develop, a home for his freed slaves, but a mad priest, Goncalves, has dammed the river. Can the damm be sabotaged? Can Fr Quinn deliver the ultimate admonishment? The Portuguese Navy is sequestered nearby. Will they interfere? (You bet they will.) The thick allusiveness of the language is a revelation, in both worlds. I've left a lot out of the range of plots - futbol, for instance. It's a wonderful book, but you need a deep affinity for Science Fiction (and maybe a little bit of scientific nous), to get the best out of it. But even without that, if you like real, grown-up SF, this was made for you. There's a very welcome glossary at the back.

• This was a complex read but the whole thing has ...

  This was a complex read but the whole thing has really stuck with me. The characters and their surroundings are fleshed out with intricate aesthetics and the premise continues to be thought-provoking several months later.

• Colourful Complex Quantum Shenanigans

  In 1733, Father Luis Quinn, a decent irish priest haunted by a violent incident in his past, is sent on a mission into the Amazon jungle as an admonitory to reign in a rogue priest. In 2006, Marveline Hoffman, a producer of reality TV programmes is on the trail of Barbosa, the Brazilian goalkeeper from the Nineteen Fifty Fateful Final, the man who made all Brazil cry. However, things start becoming decidedly weird when her doppelganger begins interfering in her life. And in 2033, Edson, a metrosexual bisexual entrepreneur, falls suddenly in love with a Japanese quantum scientist in a Brazil monitored by surveillance angels whose quantum technology is beginning to leak onto the streets. For these three main characters to be enfleshed so lovingly on the page is remarkable enough, but McDonald goes far far further in giving birth to an entire cast of wonderful people. It is most impressive in its tri-part descriptions of South America in its past, present and future where life in each of the three ages is tough, but still finds room for loving, compassionate people. Each of the protagonists experiences, to a greater or lesser degree, an epiphany and their lives are changed. Father Luis Quinn's turning point is when he is given an Amazonian drug extracted from the skin of a golden frog which gives him access to his consciousness across the infinite array of parallel universes. Marcelina, whose life revolved around the production of exploitative reality shows, finds her life turned upside down by the discovery of another Marcelina from a parallel world who is slowly destroying her life and relationships. Edson, possibly the most complex of the characters here, falls in love with a quantum physicist. When she is killed he is devastated until he sees her again and discovers that she is a fugitive from a parallel world who is being hunted down by the agencies patrolling the infinite array of quantum realities. It becomes evident that these worlds are from different variations of our own earth, and none of them may be based on the Earth we know. However, inbetween the plots strands McDonald gives us wonderful views into the lives of a whole army of characters, whether they be Eighteenth Century scientists attempting to measure the world or Hispanic cleaning ladies who know all there is to know about The Fateful Final when Brazil lost the World Cup in Nineteen Fifty.

• Brilliant and beautiful

  This is my favorite of all of McDonald's works so far. He expertly weaves together three different stories in dramatically differing time periods but does this with such apparent ease and fluidity of language (including a lot of the Portuguese idiom) that the complexity of the whole work is illuminated but never overwhelming. Father Luis Quinn, an Irish Jesuit cleric sent by the Portuguese Jesuit authorities to "admonish" a fallen priest in the deep jungles of 18th century savage and slave-ridden colonial Brazil is also my favorite of all of McDonald's characters. Quinn, a huge strong paradox of a man with a dark past, asks only for a "task most difficult." He gets this and we get a brilliant read in return.

• a hard read

  This was the first book by Ian McDonald I have read. The plot was interesting, even engaging at times. But the writing was horribly loose and overwritten, and especially in the beginning before I got used to large amount of Portuguese words scattered everywhere this was really, really slow read. Why say something simply, when you can use a few flowery and long sentences without commas to say the same thing? :-) This book didn't give me any need to sample something else McDonald has written. Second this years' Hugo nominated book I have read. At this time "No award" is still my first choice in the novel category.

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