Sacrifice of Fools

by Ian McDonald

Protestants, Catholics, aliens... Just another division in Belfast.

When the alien Shian come to Earth, they offer technology in exchange for a home. Belfast, Northern Ireland, is where eighty thousand of them settle. From that point on, the already-divided city takes on yet another partition. The Shian integrate themselves into the city’s culture, becoming one more set of faces in the crowd. Now, a series of ghastly murders has stunned the city and affected both the Shian and the humans.

Andy Gillespie, a Loyalist and former criminal, is immediately named the main suspect in the killings. To clear his name, he must find the true perpetrators, and in order to do so, he must get help from any source possible—be it Protestant, Catholic, or extraterrestrial.

Shortlisted for the James Tiptree Jr. Award, Sacrifice of Fools depicts a city at once familiar and peculiar. Belfast resident Ian McDonald’s interpretation of his hometown is one in which the people live their lives to the best of their abilities; one in which they have to deal with the basics of life with extraterrestrials, from language barriers to surprising new fetishes. Here, Belfastians discover how little things truly change.

Genres: Science Fiction, Fiction, Aliens, Ebooks, Audiobook, Fantasy

286 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1996

About the author

Ian Neil McDonald was born in 1960 in Manchester, England, to an Irish mother and a Scottish father. He moved with his family to Northern Ireland in 1965. He used to live in a house built in the back garden of C. S. Lewis's childhood home but has since moved to central Belfast, where he now lives, exploring interests like cats, contemplative religion, bonsai, bicycles, and comic-book collecting. He debuted in 1982 with the short story "The Island of the Dead" in the short-lived British magazine Extro. His first novel, Desolation Road, was published in 1988. Other works include King of Morning, Queen of Day (winner of the Philip K. Dick Award), River of Gods, The Dervish House (both of which won British Science Fiction Association Awards), the graphic novel Kling Klang Klatch, and many more. His most recent publications are Planesrunner and Be My Enemy, books one and two of the Everness series for younger readers (though older readers will find them a ball of fun, as well). Ian worked in television development for sixteen years, but is glad to be back to writing full-time.

Reviews

[Timons Esaias · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm an Ian McDonald fan, and I'm rather surprised that I haven't heard more about this novel, which is part of the reason it took me so long to get around to reading it. I see that it won the major German SF prize in its year, but I don't see it getting a lot of other attention.

Terminal Cafe was my introduction to McDonald, quickly followed by Out On Blue Six. (I understand the author's criticisms of OOBS, but it's still my favorite, still a classic, still underappreciated...even by its author.) I was waiting for more books to come out, and then learned that only a few of his titles had been made available in America. So, it being the early days of the Interwebery, I found a UK listing of his books in print, and bought them there and had them shipped here. (In those days books traveled by 4-masted schooner, exclusively, stopping at the Canaries and Bermuda on the way.) I never got to this one or Kirinya, and so (for a vacation trip) I plucked this one from my unread bookshelves (alas for the plural) and gave it a whirl.

Well, it starts ugly. Some readers probably put it aside after the first scenes. The protagonist kills a girl, accidentally, during a "political action" in Belfast's Troubles. On the radio, while these events are going on, we hear snatches of an announcement that aliens have been encountered out in Jupiter orbit. Quick jump to three years later, only three years, and our guy is out of prison, the aliens are settled in various places, including Northern Ireland, and our guy speaks their language and dialect.

And then things get uglier than the death of the child.

The rest of the book follows his attempts to partially redeem himself. Let me quickly say that the book allows that interpretation, but it is so involved in the gritty details of his life (and the co-protagonist female cop assigned to tail him) that you don't spend time thinking about the bigger picture. This thing absorbs the reader right in. I won't tell you how the protagonist learned the language, but you don't really see it coming -- except for the detail that it happened in prison. I will tell you that the aliens don't have an economy, they've been self-sufficient for millennia, so they have real trouble learning to live in our world. One of their lawyers delivers pizza for the day job, as an example. There are quite a few interesting kinks about the aliens, a device which both controls the plot and keeps the reader intrigued.

Indeed, this is an excellent primer in how to write a science fiction novel, or any popular fiction story. It starts bad and goes way worse from there. It focuses on the particular, rather than the big picture, so you get wow, but you find it convincing because the camera is really aimed at something in particular. You believe the character because he can't afford a cab for the big chase scene. You believe the policewoman because she has to get somebody to take care of her kids because her husband is shite when the fate of mankind is hanging, possibly, in the balance. And it doesn't get tied up in lovely bows with cuddly puppies for all.

An excellent work of the imagination, despite employing the word grimace four times.

Favorite paragraph (and an example of how describing just any old thing can be made into a major exercise in Point of View):

It is a damn fine adventure playground, Gillespie thinks. The view alone is probably worth two fifty. The designers have built it into the castle park on the side of Cave Hill; even from his safe parent's seat, Gillespie can appreciate the sweep of his city laid out before him. It is a soft April day; shower clouds move fast and threatening, they cast their rain shadows over other parts of the city but they miss Cave Hill. She is some queen bitch, this city, he thinks. She's ugly, she's small, she's mean, she treats you like shit, but you can't leave her, you keep coming back to her. She fucks you like nothing else. She's not even faithful, she fucks everyone who comes to her.

[Snakes · Rating 1 out of 5]

I think I can... I think I can... I think I can... I think I can...nope...I just can’t. Great idea...a handful of his other novels are apparently built around great premises. But this was a slog fest. So slow. I’m moving on to something else.

[Kat Hooper · Rating 4 out of 5]

Originally posted at Fantasy Literature. 3.5 stars
http://www.fantasyliterature.com/revi...

Ian McDonald grew up in Belfast, a city known for the turmoil and unrest it has endured because of the conflict between Catholics and Protestants. Some of McDonald’s novels allegorically explore the causes and results of a divided city. In Sacrifice of Fools, McDonald presents a vivid and lively conflicted Belfast, and then he throws a third element into the mix: aliens.

The Shian are a peaceful alien species who, upon arrival on Earth, are allowed to settle in Belfast in exchange for sharing the secrets of their technological superiority. The Shian are humanoid in appearance, but have enough biological differences that they cannot successfully mate with humans. They also have very different languages, laws, culture, and customs. While their similarities make them attractive to many humans (and weird fetishes evolve), the differences cause misunderstandings and culture clashes.

The Shian Welcome Center is manned by Andy Gillespie, a human (Protestant) ex-con who knows more about the Shian than almost any other human because of something that happened to him while he was in prison. Andy is able to understand much, but not all, of the Shian language, so he can help them transition to life on Earth and to navigate through the oddities of human civilization. Especially Belfast.
When some of the Shian are murdered at the Welcome Center, Andy, who has a felony on his record, is the prime suspect. If Andy doesn’t figure out who the actual culprit is, not only is his personal freedom at stake, but so is the peace of his city and, in fact, the world. As he investigates he is joined by a Shian lawyer and followed by police detective Dunbar, a (Catholic) woman who has her own personal struggles and prejudices to deal with.

Once again Ian McDonald gives us a fascinating what-if scenario set in a familiar city that has become almost unrecognizable due to the influence of advanced technology and, in this case, an influx of aliens. As the humans try to understand their new alien neighbors, the Shian, in turn, try to understand Belfast and the humans who live there. This is not an easy thing to do since even Belfast’s human citizens have trouble understanding and getting along with each other.

Sacrifice of Fools is a murder mystery that has a lot to say about language, dreaming, psychology, eugenics, gender, sexuality and genetics. Children play a major role in the story. They’re not point-of-view characters, but they’re often in the background and the three main characters’ actions are affected by the children they are responsible for. This is perhaps a metaphor that represents the entire story (I need to be vague here so as not to spoil the mystery), but I’m not sure if McDonald actually intended that.

Sacrifice of Fools is often violent, gruesome and ugly. It’s disturbing in so many ways which, of course, is exactly how Ian McDonald wants it to be. I listened to the audio version produced by Audible Studios. It’s narrated by English actor Sean Barrett who sounds (at least to this American) like he was born and raised in Belfast. He’s brilliant. If you’re going to read Sacrifice of Fools, I definitely recommend the audio version.

[Raj · Rating 4 out of 5]

An alien fleet is detected at the edge of the solar system, but they come not as invaders, but as settlers. Here to trade their advanced technology for land, to live amongst us. In Northern Ireland, people barely notice, wrapped up as they are in their own petty dispute, until an 80,000 strong colony of the Shian is deposited amongst them. Reformed ex-con Andy Gillespie works with them, helping to integrate them with the Human communities around them, and when a Shian family is brutally murdered he takes it upon himself to hunt down the killer.

To me this felt like quite a personal book for McDonald, set in the country that he's called home for most of his life (and my own homeland, even if I've made the migration in the opposite direction). He's scathing about it being wrapped up in its own politics of bigotry and fear that the "community leaders", and some parts of the community are in this Province. It's the old joke updated: "yeah, but are they Catholic aliens or Protestant aliens?" The first contact scenario lets him rake an outsider's critical eye over Ulster and he finds us wanting.

The Shian were pleasingly alien, in mind, if not necessarily in body. Although they are sexless apart from two mating seasons a year, they are humanoid and can pass well enough that sub-cultures spring up, attracted to them. The idea of encoding language in chemistry and being able to pass it on by exchanging bodily fluids is fascinating (and pleasingly icky).

Of our two point of view characters, ex-con Gillespie is easy to like. He's the real hero of the book, trying to find a new family to replace the one that fell apart with his marriage and he thinks he's found it amongst the Shian, until the murders begin. Our other protagonist, Detective Sargent Roisin Dunbar is much less likeable for most of the book. She has entrenched, old-fashioned policing ideas (not necessarily good, when the old police is the RUC) and her prejudices lie near the surface. But as we spend time with her, and get under her skin we start to empathise with her. A neat trick that McDonald pulls off well.

The book, set as it is in the first decade of the 21st century, has now become alt history. It was written in 1996, when the peace process that would lead up to the Good Friday Agreement was still in its early stages, and the Joint Authority (shared sovereignty of Northern Ireland between the UK and the Republic of Ireland) is an interesting alternative, although one that, I think, would have been much harder to get through, than the devolved settlement that we eventually got.

McDonald never shows us how the rest of the world is coping with the Shian, and that also can be a metaphor for Northern Ireland: parochial, petty and wrapped up in its own affairs. Maybe I'm being harsh on my homeland, and maybe the same can be said of most nations but given that apart from a brief mention in the prologue of how the UN was reacting to the news, our focus never leaves Northern Ireland (except for a brief trip to Dublin).

A good first contact story and a good murder mystery. I've been a fan of McDonald for some time and this book does nothing to change that.

[Vasha7 · Rating 4 out of 5]

A thoroughly enjoyable first-contact story. It's not biologically plausible; the aliens are way too much like humans, in both appearance and chemistry; the idea that a whiff of alien pheromones would make humans horny is more than merely far-fetched. However, the uneasiness caused by similar-yet-different is crucial to the story, as is the confusion of attraction. Although the alien psychology and culture are pretty well-developed, the real attraction is the reflections on humans; also, the Belfast setting is incredibly vivid. I know nothing of that city and very little of Irish politics (seems like it's diverging very rapidly from what might have been predicted when this book was written hardly more than ten years ago); but Nicholas Whyte, a native of Belfast and a political analyst by profession, says that this book is a favorite of his, which is more than enough for me.

[BobA707 · Rating 3 out of 5]

Summary: Hard core gritty book. Really well thought out premise and an inspired location for the action. The plot is very clever and wrapped around the prenise. The writing is really good though didn't particularly flow well for me at times. Nicely tied up at the end

Plotline: Complicated and really well thought out

Premise: Stunning future, the possibilities of this are endless

Writing: Robust, not always to my tastes

Ending: Oh yes

Pace: Never a dull moment!

[Matthew Fray · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very unusual setting and realistic handling make this a distinctive read. Although, I sometimes found the prose hard work I felt it was worth the effort and came together in an exciting and effective climax.

[H. Givens · Rating 3 out of 5]

The worldbuilding, pace, and noir plot of this book are fantastic and fascinating. I always think sci-fi doesn't pay enough attention to its aliens, but this book absolutely does, exploring their culture and biology with a very realistic ebb and flow between "they're like us after all" and "they're incomprehensibly alien."

That said, I gave it a comparatively low rating for two reasons: First, I mostly came across this book because it was referenced in discussion of aliens as transgender analogues -- there's a character representing a demographic of people who are undergoing surgery to become Shian -- and from that perspective, it's problematic. (The metaphor is explicitly made in the text, so I don't think it's an inappropriate criticism). Second, it's extremely Irish. That's not necessarily a criticism, but it does mean that I didn't understand an awful lot of it. I read enough Irish lit, and watch enough UK media, that I understand a good bit of the slang, but I don't have the context to understand the layers he's building up or the tensions he's constantly referencing among Irish groups. I think there's probably a whole level to this book that would be much more meaningful to someone who understood that context and those metaphors that he's creating with the alien presence in Ireland, and I just wasn't able to access that level.

CN: Rape, murder/serial killing

[Thomas · Rating 4 out of 5]

McDonald, Ian. Sacrifice of Fools. 1997. Open Road, 2013.
In Ian McDonald’s Sacrifice of Fools, aliens have landed, not in Moscow or Washington, but in Belfast, and their colony has partially integrated itself into Belfast society. Just as in Alien Nation, the two species must find ways to work together when bodies are discovered that suggest interspecies violence. If protestants and Catholics have a hard time getting along in Belfast, throwing into the mix aliens, who put out pheromones that stimulate human urges and who have a rutting season, is not going to make policing any easier, even if the Anglo-Irish conflict seems in abeyance. As interesting as alien physiology and culture are here, we know that we are being given a case study in human relations that is especially meaningful in Belfast. McDonald is a pro who knows how to tell a story, and he tells a good one here.

[Macha · Rating 4 out of 5]

published in 1996 but set in Northern Ireland in the 2000s decade, this novel marries a story about technologically-advanced aliens choosing to settle on Earth to a tale about Andy Gillespie, an ex-con from Belfast who is drawn into the aliens' orbit. human law and Shian law clash after violence ensues, Gillespie sets out as a kind of advocate to investigate, and the law charges after him trying to pin the crime on him. the result, fictionally speaking, is an entertaining mix of genres: detective sf. McDonald is an important writer of sf, and this is for him a very different and intriguing offering that considers what cross-cultural traits might be common to two distinct species of hunters disparate in chemistry and anatomy, sexuality and views on violence.

[Charles Harrison · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is probably the richest setting I have read within science fiction. The setting? Post troubles Northern Ireland. The characters are unusually rich and human and all kinds of challenging social issues are tackled, bear in mind this is not a classic dystopia in that it actually happened (but without the aliens).
The aliens are fun and the implications of their arrival interesting (not invaders or slaves simply mutually agreed settlers). Hard going in places but that is a fair price to pay for such hard hitting story telling.

[Dennis (nee) Hearon · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5. Sort of a fusion of a Jack Higgins story of Ireland and the Irish Republican army during The Troubles with the culture clash of the movie District 9 with a dash of Silence of the Lambs. One of McDonald's earlier works and not among his best. Nevertheless, the story still displays McDonald's flair for immersing the reader in a complex and fascinating world full of cutting edge ideas and concepts. For those new to this author's works I would recommend some of his other books such as River of Gods or Brysil. Still for fans of McDonald, immanently worthwhile.

[Shaz · Rating 4 out of 5]

Three and a half stars

A fascinatingly complicated setting with aliens in Northern Ireland, this is grim but thought provoking in many directions. The writing is excellent with vivid descriptions, the plot is essentially a murder mystery which at its core is fairly straightforward but it allows very interesting character studies. I'll likely be thinking about this one for a while.

[Weenie · Rating 2 out of 5]

Interesting ideas, both the physical attributes of the 'Outsiders' and their society norms. Good topical parallels with immigrants moving en-masse to a country.

However, the NI political backdrop, while interesting,felt a bit like a distraction to the story.

[Rosemary Standeven · Rating 5 out of 5]

excellent twist on a scifi crime novel

[Steve · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the best reads I've had for a long time. Most enjoyable

[Sue Chant · Rating 3 out of 5]

Tiptree shortlist 1997. A bit rant-y and confusing in places but pretty good.

[Mark · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent. This one slipped by when it came out. McDonald's language is marvelous, as always. Murder mystery, first contact, acculturation, all manner of cognitive dissonance. Really good.

[Maya Chhabra · Rating 5 out of 5]

Reviewed here: https://mayareadsbooks.wordpress.com/...
This was my first Ian McDonald book, and I’m afraid to read any more because I don’t think they can top this one.

At the time it was written (1997) it was set in the future (2004) but now it’s a sort of AU/AltHist. What if aliens landed just as the Troubles in Northern Ireland were coming to an end, and a large number settled in that area? The political future McDonald projects is different from the one that came to pass (joint sovereignty rather than power-sharing, and on a more minor note, the PSNI are instead the much more mockable NIPS). So, obviously, is the arrival of aliens.

Andy Gillespie, former getaway driver for Loyalist paramilitary hits, gets out of jail thoroughly disillusioned with sectarian politics, and fluent, due to a series of traumatic circumstances, in the aliens’ language. He starts a new life as a mediator between aliens and humans, but due to his past, when an alien family he works with is murdered, he’s the prime suspect. So he sets out to find the real murderer, teaming up with an alien lawyer or “knight-advocate” who’s investigating a disappearance, and followed by Roisin Dunbar, a Catholic cop whose marriage is under strain.

Along the way he re-encounters a prison friend of his, who is trying to assimilate to the alien culture and become one of them. The process is compared to sex reassignment, and the book as a whole is in dialogue with the trans serial killer trope. The book has a lot to say about the dark side of assimilation– as the aliens encounter human culture, they pick up the link between sex and violence, a link previously foreign to their culture. By contrast, when Andy Gillespie plans to become a knight-advocate himself, it’s presented as positive that he’s not doing this to feel a sense of belonging in the alien culture.

The alien culture is well-developed and so was Gillespie’s character. I don’t read a lot of books by men or with male protagonists, so this was a nice change for me- a male hero and former “tough guy” whose emotional journey is depicted with nuance. The climax was incredibly intense and full of dread, but the denouement/final chapter was a bit confusing and abrupt. Both Rosin and the alien lawyer’s threads are dropped without much resolution, which makes me disagree with how Jo Walton’s post presents them as equal protagonists with Andy Gillespie (who gets more resolution). I should say, however, that Jo Walton’s review inspired me to read this, and that it is every bit as good as she says it is. Read it.

[Jaime · Rating 4 out of 5]

Esta es una novela no muy conocida de Ian McDonald. Ya que esta ubicada en 1994 se podría decir que es una obra de historia alternativa. En 1991 la humanidad hace contacto con una raza extraterrestre llamados Shian, quienes son parecidos a los humanos, aunque solo externamente.

Andy Gallespie es el protagonista de la historia, un delincuente de poca monta que recibio el don de hablar la lengua Shian en prisión (Los shian trasmiten conocimiento a través de los fluidos, sí, es creepy) y se dedica a ayudar en la relaciones humanas-shian en Belfast, la capital de Irlanda del Norte.

Un día se comete un atroz crimen en el departamento donde vive Andy, alguien aniquila a una familia de Shian y Andy es el culpable más lógico, por lo que se dedica a limpiar su nombre y se involucra en una intriga mortal.

Una novela mediana de McDonald es mejor que una gran obra de alguien más.

[Gerard Costello · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'm from Belfast and was amused at the depiction of sparring political factions, but the book itself reeks of poor dialogue and I found the plot very unengaging. I got half way through the book and was too bored to continue reading. Some funny stuff in there and the initial concept is good but overall it was too dull to keep going with.

[Pat · Rating 4 out of 5]

Take an already divided city, namely Belfast, and throw 80 thousand alien refugees/colonists into the mix. The novel explores the political, religious & cultural ramifications along with a decent detective story when a serial killer emerges that could be republican, loyalist or alien. A very cleverly put together novel that has a hell of a lot going on but never gets bogged down.

[Howard]

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[Fantasy Literature · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 stars. Reviewed by Kat: http://www.fantasyliterature.com/revi...