Brain Plague (Elysium Cycle Book 4)

Joan Slonczewski

---

It is one of a series of books set in the same universe, but this is the first one that I have read, so I did not understand a lot of the terminology, which the author never really explains, so I was soon puzzled by what was happening at the start. And throughout the book more things happen which are not clearly explained sometimes referring to events much earlier in the book which we may have forgotten about.

One example at p is where the Right from the start I had problems with this book. One example at p is where the main character tells a man to tell her the colour of her eyes, apparently to find out if he is being controlled by malicious microbes. How would this help? We know already that the microbes can understand colour, so I didn't get what this was about, and there is not a word of explanation. Also, the humans are able to communicate with the microbes which they host, and exchange them with other humans, but the methods are glossed-over.

And why do the humans mostly have mineral names? Another defect is that there is no real plot, with just a series of episodes which don't often have much to do with each other. And apart from the main character they all seem to merge into one, and there are a lot of of them, which adds to the confusion.

Brain Plague

For these reasons there should be a dramatis personae and a glossary of terms. So a lot of hard work to understand an author who lacks the writing skills to convey a story clearly, demanding a good memory for all the individual characters and the ability to make sense of the vague clues that are given about what is going on. Ultimately, not worth the bother. Apr 17, Stephschiff rated it it was amazing Shelves: The Elysium Cycle series is one of the best I've ever read.

I mourned the loss of the worlds and societies Slonczewski created when I finished Brain Plague. I can't recommend this series enough! Jul 21, Joell Smith-Borne rated it really liked it Shelves: Couldn't put it down. Couldn't understand a lot of the science, but loved the fundamental philosophical and ethical questions it raised.

Paperback Editions

And the characters were interesting, and the plot was compelling Feb 07, Sally rated it it was amazing. I read this book last month and I already want to read it again. It is exciting, thought-provoking and like nothing else I have read. I would highly recommend it to anyone who is interested in science fiction or bioethics. Much to my surprise, I haven't reviewed it - wch means that I read it no later than the middle of I liked it but I haven't managed to read a single other thing by her in what seems like a rather long ensuing period.

Brain Plague is different. There's a fairly deep non-oversimplifying socio-political sensitivity to it but it's not as much the central content as it is woven into the overall plot fabric. Betty has authored essays and short stories, lectured on sf around the world, and led many writing workshops. She edited the anthologies Gateways: Slonczewsk is a biology prof. The hosts become 'Gods' for the microbes insofar as they become the microbe's world upon wch they're dependent.

The slaves barely treated their wastes, either, she guessed. The humans, all thin and pale, seemd mostly asleep, although some sat up in chairs, their eyes glazed, rocking. One was being spoon-fed by a slave. Is this what you call Endless Light? She spread her hands. Very well, you may keep her—but if she ever returns to my arachnoid, she's dead. Heinlein's "waldos" being one example. Slonczewski refers to it: Plast formed the bubble cars that glided over the intelligent pavement".

Does Slonczewski take money from them to promote their products? I'm also interested in SF writers cross-referencing each other in other ways: Solaris is a thinking ocean planet that finds things in human observer minds that it then somehow materializes for them. It's hard to imagine that Slonczewski isn't making a bit of an inter-textual joke here. Who originated the term? I 1st ran across it in a novel s by Rudy Rucker. Mostly used in relatively obscure articles and papers, it was not until the heyday of cyberpunk, however, that the term found broad adoption.

Among these first uses of the term in popular culture were the novel "Vacuum Flowers" by Michael Swanwick as well as several books from the hand of Rudy Rucker, one of which he titled "Wetware". Its twenty-odd limbs stood out straight from its body, each ending in a different mechanism for grasping, screwing, or drawing. The sea urchin methodically reviewed the city's needs: They could afford Plan Three, thanks to the sale of Topaz's portraits.

Lady Moraeg, on Plan Ten, looked twenty years for her two hundred. Chrys got by on Plan One, which provided neuroports but did not service them. Being on Plan Ten enables one to choose their age: I had an alarm clock that was designed to look like a block of dynamite. The micros make Chrys rich by funneling their architectural genius thru her: At the seventeenth level, the roots housed a shopping center frequented by middle-class simians and university students.

That was the level Selenite chose to inject the virus containing all the instructions the micros had programmed. In Slonczewski's future, the Theremin has become a portable instrument for minstrels: A very long silence. You might get a reputation. But elders—or elders with children—that's profoundly disturbing.

Elysium Cycle Series by Joan Slonczewski

It's too anthropomorphic - but anthropomorphizing microbes is a large part of what this bk is about: Fireweed brushed its filaments to pass it a few. Worth no more than a virus. I wonder if organized versions of it has CEOs who make enormous profits off donations while very little actually goes to helping anyone. Oct 30, Elf M. It's not often that I re-read a book that, while I enjoyed it, I had a struggle doing so. However, several of Joan Slonczewski's fans, one of whom I trust quite a bit, encouraged me to re-read her book Brain Plague.

The basic plot is straightforward: While this is going on, a "br It's not often that I re-read a book that, while I enjoyed it, I had a struggle doing so. While this is going on, a "brain plague" is moving through the population at large, a blood-borne disease that turns people into zombies who either die or mysteriously disappear.

Our heroine discovers that what she is getting is, in fact, a colony of millions of sentient beings who live at speeds hundreds of times faster than she does, and their 'boost' is in fact her leeching off of their creative efforts. They don't mind, though: The plague, it turns out, is made up of corrupt colonies of these beings who take control of their hosts pleasure centers, addicting their hosts and sending them on an involuntary religious quest to find "the Eternal Light.

There are several problems with Brain Plague, not the least of which is the fact that Slonczewski's culture, as it is depicted, should have disappeared up the Singularity centuries ago. It's depicted as a benevolent Empire of some sort, a capitalist structure that's allowed to flourish as long as it pays its taxes. Medical technology apparently allows for the most Banksian of body modifications, but the best tech only extends human life by two centuries.

They have nanotechnology in abundance-- their buildings are grown, not built, for example-- but our heroine lives near a slum and, upon getting rich off of her colony's efforts, volunteers one night a week in a soup kitchen. The wealthy suffer from problems that any capitalist worth his salt would have solved with the technology at hand-- and made a bundle doing so. The distinctions in Brain Plague are artificial: Although one human and one sentient robot are depicted as "married," as are one human and one uplifted ape, any shades of grey between the two are viciously suppressed by authorial fiat in order to create inter-identity-group conflicts and politics.

The characters in Brain Plague never learned Vinge's Law: Almost everyone in the book is bisexual. The only strictly heterosexual character-- a character given to Liberace-esque self-aggrandizement-- is pelted in every scene he is mentioned with the epithet "medieval. To add insult to injury, it turns out he was incompetent as well. The more I think about it, the more annoyed I become with it: Slonczewski's story is supposed to be "of the far future" but, if it is, then the future was depressingly static for a long, long time. By the end of the book, interesting possibilities suggest themselves, but only suggest.

Slonczewski is a very competent writer: But I found some of the lesser themes in her work bizarre if not downright irrational. I was hoping, upon re-reading, to discover that I had read the story incorrectly. Instead, I found the story even more bizarre.

The characters flit from starsystem to starsystem in starships as casually as you and I take a subway. Sentient AIs have a scatological problem: Despite the enormous variance among the AI characters, they're all trying to found a city on a planet for AIs only just to show the protein machines that they can. There is no investment scheme targeting poor villagers living on the backward from which heroine Chrys comes, exploring the economic value of an entire planet that it's quite cheap to exploit, no capitalist at work trying to make the universe more productive.

The economy, the social structure, the moral milieu, everything about this universe exists only by authorial fiat. There is a class of writer that does not understand how the world came to be the way it is. She looks around and see class divisions and economic segmentation and doesn't understand why those institutions exist-- and then she extrapolates, badly, from the existing to an analogous SFnal setting.

Slonczewski has done that with Brain Plague , but in the process she has given her class segments and economic segments or their progenitors capabilities that should destroy and re-arrange the distinctions with which she's trying to analogize. Slonczewski remains a great writer of characters and their relationships except when she doesn't; she does a poor job of communication Chrys's social life, using it primarily as an excuse to drive her into the grubbier bars , but she introduces ideas willy-nilly into her story without really grasping the consequences of her actions.

Jun 30, Joel Finkle rated it really liked it Shelves: Interesting, if a little stilted, bio-punk story of sentient microbes that serve as worshipful mind enhancers, except when they don't, and enslave the mind. I picked up the book when Sloczewski guest-blogged for Charlie Stross several years ago, and I've followed her blog since, but never got around to the book until a recent trip.

Some great hard science, some nice mingling of art and technology that reminded me a lot of Metropolitan by Walter Jon Williams artist reluctantly pulled into a power Interesting, if a little stilted, bio-punk story of sentient microbes that serve as worshipful mind enhancers, except when they don't, and enslave the mind.

Some great hard science, some nice mingling of art and technology that reminded me a lot of Metropolitan by Walter Jon Williams artist reluctantly pulled into a powerful but feared part of society, with an organic science that's almost magic Not the best book I've read this year, but worth a read, and worth finding more books by the author. Nov 04, Phil rated it it was ok.

I like the rest of this series more. The potential for the concepts explored here is immense but the book really never goes very deep. Maybe it has to do with the slipping of time between when the author came up with the concepts and when she worked on this book? It doesn't help that the main character seems shallow, callow, self-serving and plain old petulant Too bad for the little critter civ in her brain. Sep 03, Lauren rated it it was amazing Shelves: I think I first read this book about 10 years ago. Back then, it was out of print and I've cherished my hardcover copy.

Since then, I've read this book many times over. Maybe a weird choice, but this is probably my favorite book. One of the best things about this book is how unique it is. It's a great mesh of fantasy explained by science fiction. Elves, vampires and robots - all manage to fit into Joan Slonczewski's world and be explained away in scientific terms. She does such a great job of pa I think I first read this book about 10 years ago. She does such a great job of painting a totally different futuristic world.

She really makes you fall in love with the main characters.

She makes you care so deeply about these small beings, even though their short lifespans result in a high turnover in main characters. While Chrysoberyl can sometimes fall into the typical heroine trap of making stupid decisions to be the hero, she is such a well-developed character, that it doesn't take away from the book.. Worth reading for the fantastic world building I had high hopes for this book but in the end was a bit disappointed.

The author created a fantastic world where whole civilizations lived and died inside the skulls of human hosts, communicating with their hosts, other hosts and other civilizations, and interacting with the outside world. I found this world fascinating and kept hoping for a storyline I could follow, but the story seemed to wander a lot and could have used some ruthless editing.

In Worth reading for the fantastic world building I had high hopes for this book but in the end was a bit disappointed. In spite of this, I'm still thinking of this book and the characters in it days later. I started out giving it three stars, but woke up in the middle of the night, upset that I hadn't judged fairly.

So I'm revising my evaluation to four stars. I do recommend reading it for the world-building. It was unique and haunting. Jun 17, Samantha rated it really liked it. I really liked this book, which picked up where The Children Star left off. All of the books in the series have crazy strange worlds that you get pulled into, but Brain Plague has a nice protagonist that you like and want to see do well in the situations that she finds herself in.

I'm not sure if I'd like it as much if I hadn't read the Children Star, because it provided a good introduction to micropeople, and all their weirdness. This is probably my second favorite in the series, I liked Daught I really liked this book, which picked up where The Children Star left off. This is probably my second favorite in the series, I liked Daughters of Elysium better because it has really memorable characters. I'd recommend the series, starting with Door into Ocean, for anyone who likes or thinks they might like science fiction or fantasy.

I love this novel. It is a very different take on what it means to be different, what it means to be ill, what it means to be privileged and what it means to serve. The world is full of challenges and the characters make choices, both good and bad, with consequences.

See a Problem?

The overall tone is hopeful in the face of difficulties. The aliens, who literally live in the main characters head as supporting cast, are a mix of the childlike and the profound. The technology, which includes routine gender shift I love this novel. The technology, which includes routine gender shifts at the top levels of medical care as a matter of course, completely supports the world and the concepts the author is playing with.

For fans of science fiction, this may be a must-read. Feb 25, Rachel rated it it was ok Shelves: This book was so poorly written I could not finish it It was almost too cutesy, everyone has a jewel name Chrysoberyl is the main character and they wear the jewel as a name plate, etc.

Dec 26, Harpoon rated it it was ok. Sign in to subscribe to email alerts for Joan Slonczewski. Filtering Exclude erotica Include mainstream erotica Include all erotica. About Publish Join Sign In. Readers Benefits of registering Where are my ebooks? Describe your issue Have a question not already answered in the links at left or on our main FAQ page?

Joan Slonczewski Biography Joan's Campbell Award-winning novel A Door Into Ocean shows her command of genetics and ecological science, as well as her commitment to pacifism and feminism. It depicts the ecosystem of a planet covered entirely by water, inhabited by an exclusively female race of genetic engineers. Her most recent book, Brain Plague , depicts a world where intelligent microbes inhabit human brains.

The microbial aliens have potential for great good as well as great evil. They evolve in the same way as pathogens such as the AIDS virus or as symbionts such as our digestive bacteria, which help keep humans healthy. Brain Plague tells of a future in which genetic engineering, combined with nanotechnology, can do everything from shaping our bodies to growing enormous buildings for us.

• DAMASCUS - All The Bible Teaches About
• Book 3: Awesome Gothic Place (Photo-book Series of The Beverley Minster 1)
• Whos Your Uncle?
• Citizens
• The Dynamics of Heritage: History, Memory and the Highland Clearances (Heritage, Culture and Identity)