Brasyl by Ian McDonald : Quantum Physic in Brazil with a lot of great writing

How does Ian McDonald do it. He delighted me with River of Gods. He surprised me with Cyberabad Days and Brasyl is an absolute beauty.

There are three parallel stories all set in different times in Brazil. The one I liked most is set in the 17th century and is about a prise Luiss Quinn(that I remember after two weeks ought to speak for the book). The sword fights are the equal to anything that Alexandre Dumas does in Three Musketeers and the writing is fantastic. I also learnt a lot of strange facts about a lot of strange things including the origin of computing.

The second arc is set in the present and concerns itself with a reporter on the hunt of disgraced Goalkeeper who lost Brazil the fateful final against Uruguay. This probably has the best description of a football match that I have ever read. (Admittedly I haven't read many but its hard to see how it can get better than this).

The third strand is set in the future and I found it to be the most confusing. Quantum technology has reached the street and is with any technology that is made available, strange and unconventional uses are found all the time. Admittedly I didn't enjoy this strand as much.

As with Ian McDonald and like in River of Gods it all connects in the end thanks to the many worlds interpretation of Quantum Physics. McDonald is a wonderfully gifted writer and the prose is clipped and of all the authors I read I think I read McDonald the fastest. I would still rate River of Gods higher than Brasyl though.

You can buy Brasyl here.

The windup girl by Paolo Bacigalupi : A future without Oil and genetic engineering

The Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi  (Don't even try to pronounce the author's name,  I gave up after a few tries) is an extraordinary book. Its hard to see how this is his first novel (Even China Mieville wrote King Rat first up).

The book is about the near future and is set in Thailand. The world has been afflicted by a plague due to which new food varities need to be developed again. Human tinkering has produced new cpecies and of course since we have run out of fossil fuels new energy sources have to be found. It is against this backdrop that a rich cast of characters comes to life.

The plot concerns itself with a Mr Anderson Lake a factory manager who is actually in Thailand on a covert mission to get the aforementioned foods which somehow Thailand has managed to procure. The other characters includes Enmiko the windup girl, a yellow chinese who has had to migrate to Thailand. 

This is a wonderfully realized tale. Bacigalupi walks the tightrope between exposition and character development with consummate ease. This is one of the best books I have ever read and regardless of your choice of genre is a must must read.

You can buy The Windup Girl here.

Parshurama's presence of mind

Jamadgini was a great sage, among the most powerful of his era. As can be imagined he lived the most austere of lives with no fancy bells and whistles. Revathi was his wife. They also had five sons, the youngest of them being Parasurama(Literally meaning Rama of the axe(Parasu)). Parshurama would later attain fame as the killer of the entire Kshatriya race and for being a supreme warrior brahmin.

Once it so happened that as Revathi was filling up water in the mornings as she usually did, she happened to see Gandharvas and Apsaras frolicking and enjoying themselves. They were beings of such beauty and grace that she could not help but imagine herself amongst them partaking in their activities.

While she was imagining things, the pot in her hand slipped thereby breaking the spell. Revathi was too shaken to make any sense of things. She ran back not taking care of the trees and their thorny branches. By the time she arrived back to the ashram she and her clothes were in tatters.

Jamadgini being the dutiful husband that he was, asked her about the problem. At first she was hesitant but Jamadgini noticed the tell tale signs of arousal upon her face. A short while later she had narrated what she had seen. Jamadgini was full of rage at this transgression.

As each of his sons returned from their morning tasks he called them one by one and asked them to behead their mother's head for this cardinal sin. He promised them anything that they might desire in return for this dastardly deed. The eldest son refused of course. He said that he could not do the deed asked because his mother had taken care of him all his life and he would surely go to hell for this deed. As did the second, third and fourth(They were perhaps influenced by the eldest). Jamadgini grew progressively angrier as each of his sons refused. 

Then Rama of the axe who had gone to collect firewood returned. Jamadgini asked his youngest son to behead his mother in return for which he would grant him anything he desired. Parasurama cut of his mother's head without a moment's hesitation. Then Parasurama asked that he wished for his mother to be resurrected.

It is amusing to note however that all mythologies are invariably patriarchal and most such stories revolve around punishments meted out to wives by husbands and the woman losing her chastity(or being suspected of doing so).

What if Ravana had won

History is written by the victors. Many consider history to be fixed but it is ever changing based on who writes it. Allow me to give an example. Consider our grand epic Ramayana, hailed as an epic magnifying the victory of good over evil with Ram hailed as the paragon of virtue and Ravana as the supreme embodiment of evil.

Say Ravana had won, this is the tale that we would have heard.

Ravana went to Sita's Swayamvara, he truly loved her and she him. He strung Shiva's bow and when he let loose an arrow the bow broke into two. The court was aghast at this display of strength and valour but the Lord Janaka, Sita's father intervened. He said that a man from afar could not marry a maiden from his kingdom. Ravana being the man he was, respected the wishes of his elders and acceded for he did not want Sita to fall into disgrace in her own kingdom.

Eventually Sita was married to Ram. He happened to be a drunk and a wife beater. Despite being the eldest son his father decided to hand the kingdom over to his younger brother Bharat because everyone knew that Ram could not be king. Ram of course was not happy with this development and staged a coup with the help of another of his brothers Laxman. Eventually Ram and Laxman were beaten and banished.

Sita could not take the life of the forest anymore. Ram was losing it by the day. She begged and prayed to Ravana to come and rescue her from this tyranny. Ravana who could not bear to see his maiden in distress took her away in his Pushpak Viman to Lanka with the help of Marichi who distracted Ram by , disguising himself as a beautiful deer which Ram wanted to skin and make a garb out of.(Ram could not leave an object of beauty all alone)

Ram of course could not bear this. His pride was hurt and he wanted his wife back not because he loved her but because he could not bear the disgrace of losing his wife after all that had happened. He needed an army and he would get one at any cost. He helped the Vanar Sugreeva, who wanted the usurp the kingdom from his elder brother Vali. Sugreeva challenged Vali to single combat and Ram happily shot Vali in the back while the two of them fought their private battle to decide the kingdom flouting every single warrior code.
With Sugreeva thus bound to him he had an army. He worked them to the bones constructing a bridge to Lanka. Ram also sent one of his most powerful warriors Hanuman to lay to waste the pristine city of Lanka even before the battle had started not even sparing the civilians. Ravana sent his son from another marriage Indrajeet, who killed Ram and Laxman in a fair fight but they were bought back from the dead using the darkest of magic. Indrajeet was then killed by stealth while he was worshipping lord Shiva for no place is sacred to the damned. Kumbakarna Ravana's ever asleep brother was killed in his sleep lest he wake up. The youngest brother Vibhishana, always jealous of Ravana and his abilities was promised the kingdom in exchange for his help.  In short Ram left no stone unturned to gain victory.

Finally the good king Ravana decided to take matters into his own hands. He called out Ram for a fair fight. Ram had no choice and after a lengthy battle was killed. Ravana the merciful let the survivors travel back to their homelands and even provided them supplies for the long and arduous journey. Ravana and Sita lived happily ever after. Ravana would have been hailed across all future generations as a saviour, probably as Maryada Purshottam and we might even have had a festival celebrating his victory over evil.

A super sad true love story by Gary Shteyngart

A brilliant book. Just goes to show that funniest books are actually tragedies. The future it presents is eerily close and feels scary to say the least. I hope the what he says does not happen but a small part of me says that it will.

The novel is set in a America of the future and is largely about the story of the Lenny Abramov, a jew who also happens to be a Russian immigrant and a  much younger Korean Eunice. The world goes haywire even as they develop their relationship. Everyone uses a device called an apparat which seems like an extension of cell phones. This is an innovation that tells you everything you need to know about the room, How you rank and what your various indexes are. Scary to say the least. Funny when applied to the predicament of Lenny. Reading is frowned upon and thought to be outdated. Its all streams, images and visuals in the future. In short it takes every predicament that seems to be affecting the world at present and extrapolates it.

A beautiful novel, an easy and thought provoking read.

On the advice giving blogs

It is amazing how many people are giving advice and earning money out of it these days

they do nothing but sprout bullshit doing nothing on their own.

The stupid self proclaimed experts who know nothing of the field they talk about.

This self esteem movement is doing more to lower self esteem than anything else ever before.

Every self help book shows you what you need to do to achieve inner piece.

How the fuck does someone decide that they have the answers to all the problems in the world.

Its all bullshit folks, its all bullshit.

Hyperion by Dan Simmons : Storytelling at its absolute finest

What an outstanding book Hyperion turned out to be. (The cover is extremely tacky though. Brings to mind the old adage, don't judge a book by its cover)

Seven pilgrims are chosen and tell their tales en route to Hyperion of how they encountered the Shrike. A god who can play with space and time.

The stories are magnificent, each is a novella in itself. There is a reverse aging story that puts Benjamin Button to shame. The first is a story about encountering an alien but not so alien species. There is story of lovers who age at different rates thanks to one of them having to travel in space.  The best one however is told by a poet about his muse and writing, getting his books published,  I suppose this is Dan Simmons way of taking a dig at the publishing industry. Absolutely fantastic and beautifully written.

Dan Simmons writes with a deft touch and it is obvious he is well read with many references to the poetry of John Keats but all this doesn't come in the way of the story itself but only serves to enhance the tale. Whats great about Hyperion is the number of ideas and styles that Dan Simmons manages to blend effortlessly(at least it seems that way, a fair amount of work must have gone into it I am sure).

This book turned me into a Dan Simmons fan and I can't give higher praise than that. A masterpiece.

You can buy Hyperion here.