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A review by nwhyte
The Dervish House by Ian McDonald
5.0
http://nwhyte.livejournal.com/1576357.html
It's 2027 and Turkey has joined the European Union. In an old tekke in Istanbul, six people find their lives intertwined around a plot involving nanotechnology, the Nabucco gas pipeline, and the arcane secrets of the mellified man. There is a lovely echo between microcalligraphy and encoding information on junk DNA. It's Ian McDonald's best disciplined novel so far, I think, with all the lush description and present tense intensity that we are used to, but somehow coming together rather beautifully. As far as I can tell (based on my work in a Turkish speaking area outside Turkey over the last few years) Ian seems to have really got the measure of Turkish orthography and culture. A brilliant book.
It's 2027 and Turkey has joined the European Union. In an old tekke in Istanbul, six people find their lives intertwined around a plot involving nanotechnology, the Nabucco gas pipeline, and the arcane secrets of the mellified man. There is a lovely echo between microcalligraphy and encoding information on junk DNA. It's Ian McDonald's best disciplined novel so far, I think, with all the lush description and present tense intensity that we are used to, but somehow coming together rather beautifully. As far as I can tell (based on my work in a Turkish speaking area outside Turkey over the last few years) Ian seems to have really got the measure of Turkish orthography and culture. A brilliant book.