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    Brain Plague
    Brain Plague
    Brain Plague
    Ebook464 pages8 hours

    Brain Plague

    By Joan Slonczewski

    4/5

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    About this ebook

    "In Joan Slonczewski's Brain Plague...a starving artist on the planet Veledon agrees to let a colony of "brain enhancers" occupy her skull. These microscopic creatures live in the brain's outer linings, causing bursts of genius—or irreparable harm. The creatures themselves are like tiny human beings; one of their greatest concerns is getting their young to breed." — The New Yorker

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPhoenix Pick
    Release dateOct 15, 2019
    ISBN9781604504712
    Brain Plague
    Author

    Joan Slonczewski

    Joan Slonczewski is the author of The Highest Frontier, The Children Star, and A Door Into Ocean. She lives in Gambier, Ohio and teaches biology at Kenyon College.

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    Reviews for Brain Plague

    4/5

    69 ratings5 reviews

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    • 4/5
      Oh, how I love Joan Slonczewski and the Door Into Ocean universe! So much so that I somehow got two copies of this from paperbackswap. Ooops. Once I got the second copy in the mail, it was clearly time to start reading one of them.

      I believe this is the fourth book in the Elysium Cycle. It takes place soon after The Children Star. Like that book, this one continues to explore what it means to be sentient. Taking place back on Valedon, we follow an artist, Chrys, as Valans struggle to adapt to the influence of the micros from The Children Star. Some, elite members of society flourish with their "microbial enhancers," though they must be kept under close medical (and social) supervision. Ever the danger that they may fall prey to "the brain plague" -- "bad" micros who take over their hosts, keep them strung out, seeking arsenic, rewarded or punished by the neurochemicals the micros control -- ending up as shuffling "vampires" or hijacking ships to take to The Slave World -- the existence of which the Valan government (among others), is trying desperately to find.

      Like all Slonczewski's work, this one explores fascinating ideas. The relationship between civilizations and their god, -- the need for genetic and cultural interchange between civilizations. The nature of addiction. Inequity in access to healthcare.

      My only complaint of this book? The love scenes. Oh, my dear, sweet Lord, the love scenes. I still don't know what happened in the first of these -- but what I do know? It wasn't sexy. Even though it was a payoff to a relationship I had long been watching and hoping for. Thankfully, these instances are brief and confined to a short section of the novel.

      I will continue to recommend Slonczewski's work far and wide. Though I will also continue recommending Door Into Ocean as the first work -- not only because it is the first book of the Elysium Cycle (as far as I know), but also remains, in my mind, the best.
    • 3/5
      Chrysoberl is an artist just barely making her rent when she receives word: the medical experiment she volunteered for is ready for her. To her surprise, instead of a new drug she gets an entire race of microbial people who live inside her brain, patrol her body for ill-health, and worship her as a god. She and the microbial people enter into a tentative detente--she will feed them arsenic and give them light, and they won't turn her into a slave using their ability to manipulate her sensations of pain and pleasure.

      This is the fourth and possibly last book in Slonczewski's acclaimed Elysium cycle, a series that spans a number of worlds and hundreds of years, yet never lost its personal touch. Like all of the books, the main character has personal problems and concerns, yet is still involved in a much larger social change or revolution taking place. And like the others, this book features a unique mix of hard sf (Slonczewski is fantastic at using biochem to create realistic aliens and future tech without ever infodumping) with a thoughtful exploration of morality.
    • 3/5
      I read this back when it was first published and felt the need to revisit it again, even to the point of buying two different copies of it.

      Starving artist Chrysoberyl agrees as part of an experimental protocol to become the host to a community of sentient microbes. The specific strain she gets, Eutheria, turns out to be highly temperamental and creative. There is more than a bit of science fiction handwavium in the medicine and biology involved, but it gets right to the meat of the issue.

      Most of the novel centers on multi-species ethics and responsibility. Humans are gods to the intelligent microbes, with the power of life and death. However the microbes are not powerless in this relationship, having the ability to control human beings by directly manipulating dopamine in the brain. On the one side are the Olympians who control their microbial populations through sometimes brutal executions and genocide. On the other side is the microbial Leader of Infinite Light who entraps humans with the promise of unending pleasure and addiction. The conflict of the novel centers on trying to find a compromise between these two extremes.

      The setting is beautifully realized. Points I liked about it was the somewhat careful consideration of a culture in which inter-species relationships are potentially more scandalous than same-sex relationships, good development of Chrysoberyl as a heroine, and richly considered and detailed settings.

      It falls a bit short in plot and pacing. It's hard to tell where the climax comes, and stretching out the romantic relationship was a bit strained. Chrysoberyl's solutions to problems works perhaps one more time than it should, and the shifts in supporting characters at the ending seem a bit too tidy for my taste. For a work that's so focused on biological aspects of cognition, it seems a bit glib regarding the possibilities that sexual orientation and gender identity might be physical.
    • 5/5
      Pros: brilliant world-building, fascinating characters, thought-provokingCons: Chrysoberyl of Dolomoth is a pyroscape artist with the Seven Stars. In order to improve her financial and artistic positions she agrees to become a carrier. Carriers play host to sentient microbial symbionts, visible to the host via their optic neuroports. Chrys’ ‘people’, the Eleutherians, call her the God of Mercy, but they don’t always act in her best interests. And there are other strains of micros going around, ones that take over their hosts, turning them into vampires and drug addicts. These hosts eventually travel to the Slave World, a place no one ever returns from. You’re dropped into this complex world with no explanation, so it takes a few chapters to become familiar with all the terms, characters, and ideas. You do learn about the micros and how being a carrier works along with Chrys, but there’s a lot outside of that to take in: Chrys’ art, elves, sentients, simians, the Underworld, vampires, anti-simian groups, etc. The world is multi-layered and realistically complex.The characters, both humanoid and micro, are quite fascinating. Chris must learn how to deal with the little people in her head and their demands on her time (for themselves and for the larger micro community as a whole) while also continuing with her own life (her art, lost friends, religious family, learning how to handle money, personal relationships).The book does… meander a bit. While there are several linear plot threads, there are also a fair number of asides into complementary issues. The author examines different problems associated with being a host, and how different hosts treat their people. It also goes into how the hosts treat each other - both in the carrier community and outside of it. Then there’s the inter-racial problems: simians and physician sentients face discrimination, elves believe their society is perfect and so ignore the real threat one of their members poses everyone, should micros have the same rights as carriers, etc.I really enjoyed the book. It’s fascinating seeing the different groups interact, and the micros are so much fun.
    • 3/5
      This book in the same universe as Door Into Ocean and Daughter of Elysium is as different from them as they were from each other. Though many SFNal elements are shared with Daughter, where that book began slowly with mostly cultural observations spread over out several chapters, this book begins with an info-dump that in a few pages sets out a pulp novel baseline befitting its title: vampires (we would call them zombies these days) are biting people, spreading the brain plague, and taking their victims to the Slave World. The main character is an artist whose life on a slummy lower level involves avoiding both the vampires and cancerous patches of nanoplast, the material from which the entire city is built. After that blast from the 1930s, things settle down, perhaps a little too much. The main character stays fairly naive for a bit too long, while everyone around her knows more about what is going on than she does. Still and all, this ends up being more the kind of biological SF that I had hoped for from this author. The core idea is intelligent microbes who colonize the arachnoid matter of the human brain. There are many -- um -- cultures of these microbes. Our hero's culture has grand artistic visions as she does but also subversive revolutionary ambitions. One of the best parts of the book's premise is that it leads to two parallel tales in two very different timeframes. Her story of gradual awakening to social issues and taking a stance takes place over a few months. The microbial timeframe is a several hundred times faster so a multi-generational saga is told of an evolving civilization. Another interesting idea is how each carrier (human with microbes) is like a different continent. There are occasional visits, invasions, and cultural assimilation of microbes from different hosts. The dangers in the relationship between carriers and microbes are several. There is the god-complex relationship between microbes and their hosts, which serves neither side well, but the bigger danger is that only cultural prohibitions -- and eventual host-death -- prevent the microbes from enslaving their hosts through the repeated triggering of the pleasure response via dopamine release. This tension -- that humans can and frequently do wipe out entire microbial civilizations and microbes can and frequently do enslave their hosts -- creates a solid base of tension throughout the book. The microbes are too human-like in my opinion, but I feel that way about the aliens in almost all SF. The richness of ideas and awkwardness of exposition makes this book feel like a first novel, but the ideas win out. Recommended.

    Book preview

    Brain Plague - Joan Slonczewski

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