The Dervish House in The Alternative Worlds

Nov 19, 2009 Kara Babcock rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: ebook, 2011-read, science-fiction, hugo-nominee, posthuman, religion-fiction, 2011-best10

I didn't want to give this book five stars, but Ian McDonald hacked my brain. I had heard enough about The Dervish House—my first novel by McDonald, incidentally—to be fairly confident I would like it. Yet it is not the sort of novel that inspires love at first sight; rather, it tantalizes, flirts, and seduces its way into your heart. It accomplishes this through McDonald's style, the way he describes the city of Instanbul, invites us into its streets and its politics and the eponymous apartment ...more

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Jul 29, 2011 Sarah rated it liked it

Shelves: sf

I need to think on this one a little bit. It's beautifully written but leaves me a bit cold. I loved Can, Boy Detective. I loved the city of Istanbul and its place in the story. Still, many of the other characters didn't fully live for me, and there were a handful of items or moments that seemed like they should be significant but lost their value to the plot just before the end. The last paragraphs were excellent, and the action of the last two days made up for the positioning of the first thre ...more

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Aug 10, 2011 Richard rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: science-fiction

A twisting dance as six stories entwine in the heart of near future Istanbul. The old world and the ultra new, the ancient and the nascent future whirl together around the old Dervish House in Adem Dede Square.
Heat struck Istanbul, at once archaic and enigmatic then industrial and grimy, but also thrusting and modern, the palpitating heart of new European future Turkey, the crossroads of East and West, makes a fascinating and atmospheric setting as the stories spiral ever faster around each oth ...more

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May 03, 2011 Daniel Roy rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: sf, favorite, world-turkey

Going into "The Dervish House", I was very afraid that a British SF author, even without meaning to, would simply 'otherize' Turkish culture, prop it up as something fantastical and alien, rather than human and fascinating. In that specific regard, the novel feels like a miracle.

I'm not Turkish myself, but I've spent a wonderful month in Istanbul in 2010, and it's my favorite city in the whole world. But there's a long tradition in the West of fetishism of the Orient, and given the politically c Going into "The Dervish House", I was very afraid that a British SF author, even without meaning to, would simply 'otherize' Turkish culture, prop it up as something fantastical and alien, rather than human and fascinating. In that specific regard, the novel feels like a miracle.

I'm not Turkish myself, but I've spent a wonderful month in Istanbul in 2010, and it's my favorite city in the whole world. But there's a long tradition in the West of fetishism of the Orient, and given the politically charged relationship between the West and Islam, this practice has taken an ugly turn in fiction.

But nothing of McDonald's novel feels of orientalism. Now, perhaps a Turk reader would disagree with me; if so, I'd love to hear it. But as a Western reader who pays close attention to his own cultural biases, this novel felt right. There were no exotic descriptions of the adhan, no looming women in burqa. Islam permeates the story, but in a realistic way, with each character having their own personal relationship to the religion, or sometimes being together areligious. In other words, Islam serves as texture here, as theme, but not in a monolithic, reductive manner. One perfect example is the treatment of the headscarf: it's mentioned as a character detail from time to time, but casually ignored when it's not relevant, just as it's perceived in a context where a great number of women wear it.

McDonald's writing is superb. The characters are complex, human and flawed. Some I liked less than others, or even found pointless; others sang off the pages and gripped me. My favorite by far was Aslan the trader, who is exciting, infuriating, charming and repulsive at once. He's human, and never acts like a cartoon villain even at the very moment when the story hands him an opportunity to do so.

The city of Istanbul is depicted with such grace and beauty it made my heart ache to go back. The science fictional elements of the story infuses it with mystery, instead of diminishing it. The opening scenes of a strange bomb on a tram, followed by swarms of police nanobots, is haunting and crisp. The rest of the story pays homage to the grandeur and timelessness of Istanbul and its denizens.

If there's an aspect on which the novel falters, it's the plot. The opening chapters are gripping, but the characters in the story are not so much propelled forward by what happens, than simple witnesses. For the most part, with two exceptions, they go through their lives and forget about it. The trigger of the story doesn't push forward actions, it only makes them pause a moment. Now, this would be fine if the individual stories were powerful and gripping, but the book lagged in the middle. Some stories just felt like they were headed nowhere, waiting for the plot to find them again. Once the plot comes back in focus, the storylines do not so much coalesce around it, as much as stumble and trip on it to their conclusion.

But regardless, "The Dervish House" is brilliant and evocative. The very real beauty of Istanbul creates, in McDonald's hands, wonders in greater numbers than most SF settings.

Last, two criticisms of the novel that don't have to do with McDonald's writing itself:

Cover: Though the illustration is beautifully drawn (by my favorite illustrator, Stephan Martiniere, no less), it sadly falls prey to the orientalism that McDonald so carefully avoided. Why do we need to see three women in burqa on the cover? None are mentioned in the story. This does disservice to the story.

Kindle edition: The Turkish characters "ğ" and "ş" were rendered as graphics in the Kindle edition. They were of the wrong size, and not in line with the type. This was very distracting, and a poor choice. I hope this gets fixed in a later revision. ...more

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May 26, 2011 Maree rated it really liked it

This book took me a long time to read, was mildly interesting throughout, and much better now that I'm not reading but reflecting back on it. It was a great story and I loved how everything was woven together through the stories and the character, but it seems to me, especially with the end, that this is a story about Istanbul, not about any of the characters.

It was a very complex novel, which makes it difficult for me to break down in any meaningful way all that was happening all at the same ti ...more

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Sep 19, 2010 Ryandake rated it really liked it

still a four-star book, even on the second read. nobody does a huge story, with an unfamiliar culture and a large cast of characters, better than McDonald.

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