Out on Blue Six |
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Author:
Ian Mcdonald
By Spectra
Average Customer Rating:   
List Price: $4.50
Our Price: $4.45
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A great addition to McDonald's works, 2008-09-19
Ian McDonald, as usual, comes up with a fascinating idea for a novel and manages, with a few pitfalls, to write a wonderful book utilizing it. Featuring an ensemble cast, Out On Blue Six traces the adventures of several dispirit groups through the canopy and subterranean levels of a self-contained futuristic city.
The dis/utopian nature of the society reads somewhat like an optimistic version of Brazil, or a function version of the Paranoia games. Avoiding pain is the highest priority of the computers that run the society, so people are told what is best for them with no ability to argue. A few vignettes in the novel focus on this, but a great deal more is focused on the edges of the society.
The one downside to this book is the treatment of the ensemble. My favorite character, a Yulp comic artist, who starts the book, seems to fade into the background as characters with stronger survival skills are introduced. Other than this small issue, the book is a truly fantastic piece of work. It's a shame that it's out of print, but it still is readily available and worth a read.
Out on a limb, 2002-09-13
After my review of McDonald's short story collection, Speaking in Tongues, several people, among them Michael Sumbera, recommended to me what they felt was McDonald's best novel, Out on Blue Six. There was also some attention focused on the novel on rec.arts.sf.written, because of its similarity to Terry Gilliam's "Brazil." The comparison is not misplaced, although McDonald has a different agenda than Gilliam. Both stories feature a huge government that relegates people's lives, in which a small mistake can wreak human lives. That is, both stories are satires on present governments and governmental ideas. But whereas Gilliam plays the satire to the hilt, and goes beyond simple governmental poking, but also poking at individuals within it, ultimately ending on an extremely cynical note, McDonald still feels there's hope to be had. Out on Blue Six is an extremely pyrotechnic novel, full of unknown words and weirdly impossible SF ideas; again, like Snow Crash, this isn't a hard SF novel, but rather a novel of adventure and philosophy. Stephenson pulls it off slightly better, mainly because he isn't concerned with wrapping things up in a denoument, which McDonald does with his story.
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Binding: Mass Market Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 823.914
EAN: 9780553277630
ISBN: 0553277634
Label: Spectra
Manufacturer: Spectra
Number Of Items: 1
Publication Date: 1989-04-01
Publisher: Spectra
Release Date: 1989-04-01
Studio: Spectra |
