Customer Reviews

Out on Blue Six

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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.

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.

I too remember buying and reading this thing when it was first published, and wondered what on Earth I was reading.

We bounce from one tale to the next, following the goings ons of an introverted woman, to the escapades of an eclectic group of societal vagabonds who've thrown off the bonds of their society which provides for everything.

The world described is something a bit beyond Logan's Run territory. The city in which the tale takes place is something that's really out there, and the world in which it is placed (and I'll add protected from) is, literally, a titanic cesspool. All the while the remnants of Earth of eons ago are stashed in a colossal basement warehouse storage area.

The whole thing is one weird ride, and for a few times while riding the bus reading this thing I scratched my head as to what the heck I was really reading.

I'm a sci-fi kind of guy, and I love other world experiences, but this one, in spite of being situated here on Terra in another existence, is just a bit too existential for me. As such I had a hard time sticking with it.

But, nonetheless, it was entertaining for what it was.

I read this when it first came out, and I thought someone would snatch up the movie rights because it is so cinematic. Sadly, it's been ten years and no one has. McDonald renders his world so visually in this book that you picture the scenes vividly while you read. The characters are quirky and fascinating, and the story is a lot of fun. This is a hidden gem that deserves to be more widely read.