by Ian McDonald
First published 2007
Edson climbs from São Paulo's slums toward riches as a talent manager, but a random meeting pulls him into illegal quantum computing networks. In a surveillance state that monitors every face and transaction, escape becomes impossible. Meanwhile, Rio TV producer Marcelina chases her breakthrough reality show by tracking down a disgraced World Cup goalkeeper. Her investigation uncovers an ancient conspiracy that puts her life and soul at risk. Centuries earlier, Jesuit missionary Father Luis ventures into colonial Brazil's wilderness to find a rogue priest who has built an empire beyond church authority. Accompanied by a French spy and geographer, Luis discovers something in the Amazon that shatters both his faith and his understanding of reality. Three separate Brazils, spanning past, present, and future, weave together across dimensions of time and space, challenging the nature of existence itself.
Genres: science-fiction, 21st-century, brazil, alternate-universe
Vibes: suspenseful, thought-provoking
Tropes: found-family, unreliable-narrator
Setting: São Paulo, Rio, Amazon
Period: Past, Present, Future
355 pages · Hardcover · Pyr