Hugo Nominee: Brasyl

I set out to try and read all the Hugo best novel nominees this year and this is a brief review of "Brasyl" by ianmcdonald

I sort of followed along and picked up the story as I went. It took me a while to figure out that one setting was Sao Paulo not Rio and that one of the main characters like to create different identities for himself, with different names, according to what he was doing at the time.

I got the impression the chaos was part of the effect he wanted to create.

I liked the richness of detail in the back ground, fiddly bits, even if I don't read all of it. This style is similar to that of Charles Stross, Tobias Buckell and Karl Schroeder other authors I like and read a lot.

Afterwards I did want to read up on Brazilian history and read about the plague and see if it actually happened.

All in all a good book, right up there with the other nominees.

Dungeons and Dragons referenced by McCain blogger:

Via Boing Boing:

"It may be typical of the pro-Obama Dungeons & Dragons crowd to disparage a fellow countryman's memory of war from the comfort of mom's basement, but most Americans have the humility and gratitude to respect and learn from the memories of men who suffered on behalf of others."
- Michael Goldfarb

Full text here:

http://www.johnmccain.com/McCainReport/Read.aspx?guid=181471d0-5456-4434-9f78-2f30ffc39459

I guess he never met any of my Army Reserve friends who played D&D and got me into it.

Pro-Obama Dungeons and Dragons Crowd T-Shirts

Again via Boing Boing there are now T-Shirts:

http://www.redbubble.com/people/dennisculver/clothing/1549871-1-pro-obama-dungeons-and-dragons-crowd?bodycolor=black&style=mens