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Christopher Brookmyre
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Bedlam Hardcover – May 7, 2013

by Christopher Brookmyre (Author)
4.0 4.0 out of 5 stars 682 ratings
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Heaven is a prison. Hell is a playground.

Would it be your ultimate fantasy to enter the world of a video game?

A realm where you don't have to go to work or worry about your health; where you can look like a hero or a goddess; where you can fly space-ships, slay dragons, yet all of it feels completely real. A realm where there are no consequences and no responsibilities.

Or would it be your worst nightmare?

Stuck in an endless state of war and chaos where the pain and fear feels real and from which not even death can offer an escape.

Prison or playground. Heaven or hell. This is where you find out. This is white-knuckle action, sprawling adventure, merciless satire and outrageous humour like you've never experienced.

This is Bedlam.
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  1. Print length
    384 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publisher
    Orbit
  4. Publication date
    May 7, 2013
  5. Dimensions
    6.34 x 1.26 x 9.41 inches
  6. ISBN-10
    0356502139
  7. ISBN-13
    978-0356502137
  8. See all details
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Editorial Reviews

Review

BEDLAM is what Brookmyre does best - terrific premise, great glued-to-the-page, pulse-stimulating story . . . and then the dawning realization that there's Something Much Deeper (and probably more sinister) Than You Thought going on!―Diana Gabaldon

One of the funniest writers in Britain―Guardian

Like the best Science Fiction books, BEDLAM utilises an alternative reality to pose deep philosophical questions about the human condition. Like the best Christopher Brookmyre books it also has funny jokes, characters you can empathise with and devastatingly employed swear words . . .

Ingenious . . . builds on contemporary issues of digital copyright and the amorality of big corporations in a very smart way―SFX

Christopher Brookmyre hits another high score with this brilliant, fast-paced gamer's nightmare

Brookmyre hits another high score with this brilliant, fast-paced nightmare―Charles Stross

About the Author

Since his award-winning debut novel Quite Ugly One Morning, Christopher Brookmyre has established himself as one of Britain's leading crime novelists. He says this hasn't stopped his fans from asking him to write something more futuristic instead, and he hopes they have as much fun reading Bedlam as he did writing it. Life is just a game, after all . . .

Christopher is developing a computer game based on Bedlam with a UK-based games company REDBEDLAM, due for release in 2014.

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Orbit (May 7, 2013)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 384 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0356502139
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0356502137
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.4 pounds
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6.34 x 1.26 x 9.41 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.0 4.0 out of 5 stars 682 ratings

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Christopher Brookmyre

Christopher Brookmyre

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Customer reviews

4 out of 5 stars
682 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

S. Anderson
5.0 out of 5 stars Could be Brookmyre's best book yet
Reviewed in the United States on December 10, 2013
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Bedlam is one of my favourite books by Christopher Brookmyre. This might be partly because I work as a programmer, and I do think I enjoyed the book more because I have a background of IT work and '90s first person shooters, but you don't need that background to understand and enjoy the story. As long as you're aware that computer games are a thing, you'll be fine.

The protagonist is likeable, relatable, and believable, and the other characters are also well written. Bedlam has all the great action sequences and hilarity you expect from a Brookmyre novel, and in my view the plot is well written. I could see what the twist at the end was likely to be, but it still kept me guessing because I wanted to know how the situation would be resolved. There's a lot of things to think about with this book, and it raises some ethical questions that are interesting and becoming steadily more relevant as technology advances.
3 people found this helpful
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Layman
4.0 out of 5 stars game boy meets Sci fi
Reviewed in the United States on February 11, 2014
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Fast moving story for gaming geeks. It takes you into a game, literally. For those of you that plays games into the night, this can happen to you.
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Martin
3.0 out of 5 stars A change of genre
Reviewed in the United States on July 22, 2013
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Cards on the table, I am a big Christopher Brookmyre fan. So much so, that I'd pretty much say if it's got his name on the front, I'd go ahead and get the book without reading the blurb, safe in the knowledge that it would be right up my street.
Unfortunately, this policy caught me out a little with this shift in genre into sci-fi, and I was a little disappointed - not being much of a sci-fi nut, or a games geek at all - when I realised what I'd got myself into.
That said, it displays the usual Brookmyre style of being well crafted with a light humour and an intricate plot itching to be unravelled. So if you are into Brookmyre AND sci-fi - you'll be in heaven, or some equivalent idyllic digital nanosphere with Bedlam.
So for my star rating, it would probably score at least a 4 if that were my bag.
However, I'm guessing that if anyone is likely to find this review useful, it will be those, like me, who like Brookmyre's crime stuff and might otherwise leap into this book expecting more of the same. So I'm going to dip down to a 3-star rating just to represent the warning about knowing what you're getting into.
I never read any Iain M Banks books, but enjoyed a lot by Iain Banks without the M - it was very thoughtful of him to flag up to his readers which genre they'd be getting by use of that middle initial. I see Christopher is becoming Chris for his next release, so wonder if Brookmyre is going to go down the same route. That would be a welcome move, in my book - and I am looking forward to his 'return to crime', which I expect would warrant an extra star or two in my review.
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Jean L.
5.0 out of 5 stars Very funny book with a great plot and an interesting moral ...
Reviewed in the United States on July 1, 2015
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Very funny book with a great plot and an interesting moral dilemma. Has flashbacks and flashforwards that can be a little confusing, but really make the story deeper. Don't read the blurb before you read, as it spoiled the first few chapters for me. Definitely uses curse words, but no sex scenes so you decide if it's age appropriate. A great read and I'm looking forward to reading more of this author's work!
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FlickBishop
4.0 out of 5 stars Four Stars
Reviewed in the United States on January 31, 2017
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Awesome
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Amazon Customer
5.0 out of 5 stars Item as promised - thanks!
Reviewed in the United States on July 31, 2019
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Item as promised - thanks!
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Amazon Customer
2.0 out of 5 stars Not the Christopher Brookmyre style I expected
Reviewed in the United States on October 25, 2013
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In this book, it seems Christopher Brookmyre has forgotten the audience and written to indulge himself. I loved all his earlier novels and this one was a huge disappointment.
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Sean the Bookonaut
4.0 out of 5 stars More a sci-fi mystery than a technothriller
Reviewed in the United States on March 9, 2013
In Bedlam we see Brookmyre diverge from his usual fare of Scottish crime novels and venture into science fiction. That being said, Bedlam is still at its heart mystery fiction, with our hapless protagonist required to unravel who he is, where he is and how to take down the bad guys.

Ross Baker is computer scientist working for a shady American firm in the charming surrounds of industrial Stirling. He works hard but never seems to get ahead, he thinks his girlfriend is about to leave him and the office psychopath has just screwed him over again when he decides to help one of his colleagues, Solderburn, who is working on side project.

He consents to be scanned by Solderburn's new cobbled together scanner and wakes up inside a 1990's first person shooter called Starfire. From this point on he's on his own and has to figure out where he is, if he's still Ross Baker and how to get home.

It's not a new idea, being transported into a video game, but Brookmyre has reworked the idea and given us a story that will be a trip down nostalgia lane for anyone who grew up gaming from the late 80's onward combined with some techno thriller trappings. There's some good in-jokes and some not so subtle social commentary - Brookmyre did win a laugh from me with a reference to Daily Mail readers.

I did, however, find it a bit slow going until the last quarter of the book where the pace picked up and both the reader and Ross had a better picture of where things were going. There's also an info dump at the end of the book which is an info dump in both the literal and narrative sense. Ross gets injected with updated information on what's going on in the outside world bringing he and the reader up to date. It felt like Brookmyre was glossing over what might have been good techno-thriller material but I don't know that I can suggest another way to have worked the information into the story without revealing some of the mystery.

If you are looking for a mystery novel with a difference, if you enjoy Brookmyre's humour and you're a fan of gaming you'll enjoy Bedlam, as for the techno thiller aspects, it just doesn't move fast enough for me.
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Top reviews from other countries

Mudzie
5.0 out of 5 stars An absolute favorite for gamers!
Reviewed in Germany on January 31, 2019
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For a gamer, this book is amazing! And if you're into questions about consciousness and how the human mind works, then you're in for a stimulating adventure, that will keep you on the edge of your seat, and mind-blowing jaw-dropping revelations the further you go into the story. Very well written. I can say for sure it's one of my absolute favorite reads.
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The Supreme Stick
4.0 out of 5 stars Not what I expected. However, ...
Reviewed in Australia on September 25, 2020
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I was looking for classic Brookmyre and most certainly NOT SciFi, which I hate. However, it was enticingly well-written and may have altered my perceptions.
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Alistair G
5.0 out of 5 stars Action-packed sci-fi adventure paired with gaming nostalgia
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on September 29, 2014
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To preface my review I should state that it will be intentionally vague around plot specifics in order to avoid any spoilers.

This is my first foray into the work of Christopher Brookmyre and from what I understand it is a bit of a departure from his previous books. I went in not knowing what to expect and found myself plunged into an exciting and vividly painted science fiction adventure set against the backdrop of computer games past and present.

As both a gamer and a Scot, I found a huge amount to relate to throughout the journey of the main character, Ross Baker, as he works to untangle the messy and confusing situation he finds himself in. I imagine Brookmyre himself must have been an avid gamer to have come up with such insight into game design, the mechanics of games and how they would apply (or not) if you one day found yourself stuck within one.

His colourful use of Scottish parlance never failed to bring a smirk to my face with a liberal scattering of genuine laugh-out-loud moments. The ability of Brookmyre to seamlessly weave these comedic moments together with the dark and gritty undertones and occasional bleak moment is one to be admired. Combine that with the philosophic questions raised as to the nature of human consciousness and you have a seriously engaging and thought-provoking read that managed to hook into the 90's gaming nostalgia of my youth. Classics from Quake, Serious Sam and Unreal all the way through to more modern titles such as Grand Theft Auto, Just Cause, TF2 and Black and White get a shout out.

Many of the references and details may be lost on non-gamers, but in my opinion the plot of this book is more than capable of standing up on its own. Having now completed the book, I'm going to check out the tie-in game of the same name. I understand that there's an interlinking side-plot to the events occurring in the book, and the idea of a video game collaboration with Redbedlam studios actually formed the basis for this novel. Having been introduced to the world of Bedlam through his writing, I'm excited to actually get in and explore it myself.

In closing, if you're at all interested in dystopian sci-fi and action adventure, I'd recommend giving this a shot. If you're a gamer (specifically PC) and you recognise any of the games I listed above, this book is practically required reading!
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Dianne Strickland
3.0 out of 5 stars Played Video Games?
Reviewed in Canada on May 14, 2013
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If you answer yes, you will probably love this. Brookmyre is savagely funny, articulate and obviously knows a lot about video games.
I have never played one so this was really lost on me.
I've read every one of his books, adored some, thought others were completely off the rails. His earliest ones were my favourites. Least favourite was the one about religion.
I have a few techie friends; I am going to pass Bedlam on to them.
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Avid Reader
3.0 out of 5 stars Would mostly appeal to passionate Gamers
Reviewed in Germany on May 12, 2013
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Although I like Brookmyre's style, and buy all his books, I was not as happy with this one as some of his others. The book is basically a homage to computer games, from their beginning to the future, and as someone whose favourite game is Jewel Quest III, I suspect that much of the subtext and possible in-jokes eluded me. So I would recommend it mostly to people who have had a life-long affair with gaming, as the author evidently did.
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