Ian McDonald‘s critically-acclaimed LUNA: NEW MOON is out today in Germany! Published by Heyne, here’s the synopsis for LUNA…
Kampf der Fünf Drachen
Die Zukunft: Schon lange ist der Mond den Menschen zu einer zweiten Heimat geworden. Doch auf dem Erdtrabanten geschieht nichts, ohne dass die dort ansässigen, rivalisierenden Wirtschaftsgiganten – die sogenannten Fünf Drachen – davon erfahren. Einer davon ist die Corta Helio Corporation unter dem Vorsitz der Patriarchin Adriana Corta. Als junge Frau musste sich Adriana in der brutalen Mondgesellschaft nach oben kämpfen – und hat sich dabei eine Menge Feinde gemacht. Feinde, die Adriana und ihren Clan nun zu Fall bringen wollen…
NEW MOON is published in the UK by Gollancz, and in the US by Tor Books. Here’s the English-language synopsis…
The scions of a falling house must navigate a world of corporate warfare to maintain their family’s status in the Moon’s vicious political atmosphere.
The Moon wants to kill you.
Maybe it will kill you when the per diem for your allotted food, water, and air runs out, just before you hit paydirt. Maybe it will kill you when you are trapped between the reigning corporations-the Five Dragons-in a foolish gamble against a futuristic feudal society. On the Moon, you must fight for every inch you want to gain. And that is just what Adriana Corta did.
As the leader of the Moon’s newest “dragon,” Adriana has wrested control of the Moon’s Helium-3 industry from the Mackenzie Metal corporation and fought to earn her family’s new status. Now, in the twilight of her life, Adriana finds her corporation — Corta Helio — confronted by the many enemies she made during her meteoric rise. If the Corta family is to survive, Adriana’s five children must defend their mother’s empire from her many enemies… and each other.
Here’s a small selection from the aforementioned praise the novel has received…
‘Superb near-future series… scintillating, violent, and decadent world. McDonald creates a complex and fascinating civilization… Watch for this brilliantly constructed family saga on next year’s award ballots.’ — Publishers Weekly (Starred Review)
‘A compelling fantasy that offers up all the pleasures of a cut-throat soap opera in space… One thing Luna does exceptionally well is to puncture Old Heinlein’s assumption that a frontier society based on the primacy of the family and a disregard of conventional laws would end up like idealised smalltown America. Luna argues that any realistic future colonisation of the moon will be much more The Sopranos than The Waltons. LUNA is as gripping as it is colourful, and as colourful as it is nasty.’ — Guardian
‘No one writes like Ian McDonald, and no one’s Moon is nearly so beautiful and terrible… Ian McDonald’s never written a bad novel, but this is a great Ian McDonald novel… McDonald’s moon is omnisexual, kinky, violent, passionate, beautiful, awful, vibrant and crushing… I’m all a-quiver for the next one.’ — BoingBoing
‘Fans of cerebral, high-concept science fiction will love this… accelerates into a mesmerizing political thriller.’ — RT Book Reviews
‘LUNA: NEW MOON is the best moon novel I’ve seen in many years… Possibly the most chilling lines in the book for an SF reader come from Adriana herself, in her own narrative: “There was no law, no justice,’’ she writes, ‘‘only management. The moon was the frontier, but it was the frontier to nothing. There was nowhere to run”… McDonald’s novel has some formidable SF stingers not far beneath its densely textured surface.’ — Locus
‘The way that Ian McDonald flawlessly adapts his writing to the relevant culture and country at hand is ingenious… compelling and thought-provoking, and all without relying on overbearing sci-fi clichés. Brilliantly done.’ — SciFiNow
‘In its gravitas and tension and, alas, tragedy, it’s damn near Shakespearian… a setting so brilliantly built and deftly embellished…; a vast cast of characters as satisfying and sympathetic individually as they are as part of McDonald’s elaborate ensemble; and a plot composed of so many threads that you never know where it’s going to go — except that when it ends, it’s destined to end terribly… a world as wicked as it is convincing…’ — Tor.com
The novel has also been published in Poland, Spain and Bulgaria.
