Beneath the World, a Sea: From the Arthur C. Clarke Award winning author of the Eden Trilogy

This is Earth in 1990. It's exactly like our Earth, except that, somewhere in the Brazilian jungle, is a half-forgotten territory populated by plants and animals entirely unlike those on the rest of the planet. And this strange environment has strange effects on the human mind.The world building is good. There's some strong similarities to Chris Beckett's (earlier, excellent) Dark Eden series in his intense, hallucinogenic depiction of the vegetation of an alien world. And the "duendes" are great: half formed creatures somewhere between human, animal and plant that have devastating mental effects on any humans they come close too. Despite this, the human characters in the novel are plodding - literally in the case of the lead charater - an English policeman who doesn't ever escape stereotype. Given that the novel is essentially about human personality - it's an exploration of a world where the alien creatures and environment break down the human psyche - the failure to conjure real, believable human beings is a big weakness.The other dimension of this book is the colonial narrative. This is partly a book about Westerners trying to "help" incomprehensible and incomprehending local people - a typical narrative for English writers since the 19th century. One senses Chris Beckett knows this side of picture well (I think I read somewhere he had a background in international development). But its an angle of the story that doesnt ever really arrive anywhere - apart from a rather feeble conclusion that maybe it would have been better to have left the natives alone.Finally there's also a little bit of authorial laziness. References to western researchers in the jungle using laptops - in 1990?! - annoyed me. And the few phrases of simple Portuguese quoted in the book are more than 50% wrong.Generally i really like Chris Beckett's work, and this is enjoyable and readable. But not his best.

Wow, this book is...I don't know. I'm not entirely sure what it is aiming to do and it didn't really feel like it had any real story to it. It really ended up being a commentary on philosophy, religion, the self and how our consciousness hides things from ourselves. Whether or not that is done successfully is something that could be debated, but I wasn't really convinced or intrigued by it.The premise is a good one: a police officer from London travels to the Submundo Delta (only reachable by a 1 month boat journey) to write a report for Geneva about how to stop the killings of psychic beings called duendes which have just been classified as 'persons'. The problem is, the duendes drive people to violence and self-criticism with their mental antics. Some even become so hooked on them that they gradually lose themselves to the duendes and the forest.This would have been fantastic if it had actually been a fantasy-police novel as the description of this book suggests, but really it is very descriptive of the environment and delves far too much into the characters' histories. Beckett did a good job of linking them all to each other, but for what reason? Nothing comes of it.So overall, an interesting idea but not executed exceptionally well.

Chris Beckett is a very imaginative and eminently readable guy - I am a great fan of his Eden trilogy - but I feel that he has got into a bit of a tangle with this one. The basic tenet works extremely well, and as other reviewers have mentioned, the echoes of Conrad strengthen the imagery. The problem, in my opinion, rests with the protagonist. He is rather poorly created, almost like a puppet figure rather than a real person. I couldn't bring myself to believe in him, or to care one way or the other about him. A great shame, as the underlying story deserves better. Why not try again, Chris? Send someone else in, but make him (or her) more three-dimensional.

A brilliant and fascinating book. Another tale of existential weirdness up a jungle river in the grand tradition of The Crystal World, Heart of Darkness and Aguirre, Wrath of God. Also reminded me very much of James Everington's The Quarantined City. Chris Beckett's portrayal of how the alien landscape and its inhabitants splinter and undermine the characters' sense of self is wonderful.

Oh dear I was waiting eagerly for this book but was disappointed it does have hints of Heart of Darkness but that brought out the Marlon in me - the horror, its not a horror that’s too harsh but is very JG Ballard ( do read his) and just plot seems to peter out. I did like his Eden series and short stories