Ian McDonald‘s acclaimed sci-fi novel DESOLATION ROAD is out now in Russia! Published by ACT as Дорога запустения, it is the first in his Mars Duology. Here’s the synopsis…

Это история города, находящегося на терраформированном Марсе. Это история скандалов и кошмаров, путешествий во времени и религиозных движений, террора и всепроникающей войны всех против всех. Это история плененных механических ангелов, музыкантов, вызывающих дождь, зеркального тахионного лабиринта, который показывает все мыслимые варианты будущего, поездов, одержимых сознанием, марсианских треножников и киберсвятых. Это история того, насколько необычной, неожиданной и всеобъемлющей может быть научная фантастика. Это самая необычная история освоения Марса из всех, что когда-либо были написаны. Это история Дороги Запустения.

The novel is available in English as an eBook, published by JABberwocky (who also publish the sequel, ARES EXPRESS).

It all began thirty years ago on Mars, with a greenperson. But by the time it all finished, the town of Desolation Road had experienced every conceivable abnormality from Adam Black’s Wonderful Travelling Chautauqua and Educational ‘Stravaganza (complete with its very own captive angel) to the Astounding Tatterdemalion Air Bazaar. Its inhabitants ranged from Dr. Alimantando, the town’s founder and resident genius, to the Babooshka, a barren grandmother who just wants her own child — grown in a fruit jar; from Rajendra Das, mechanical hobo who has a mystical way with machines to the Gallacelli brothers, identical triplets who fell in love with — and married — the same woman.

Here are just a few reviews for Ian’s Mars novels…

‘Ian McDonald’s DESOLATION ROAD is one of my most personally influential novels. It’s an epic tale of the terraforming of Mars, whose sweep captures the birth and death of mythologies, economics, art, revolution, politics… Desolation Road pays homage to David Byrne’s Catherine Wheel, to Ray Bradbury’s entire canon and to Jack Vance, blending all these disparate creators in a way that surprises, delights, then surprises and delights again… Pyr Books has done us all the service of bringing this remarkable volume back into print after too long a hiatus.’ — Cory Doctorow (Boing Boing)

‘There’s a fair bit of science fiction that feels like fantasy, and vice versa, but DESOLATION ROAD is the only book I know that holds this particular balance… It was McDonald’s first novel, it absolutely bowled me over when it came out, and while I have read everything he’s published since, and admire all of it and like most of it, this remains my favourite of his books because it’s so unusual. It’s also some of the most beautiful prose imaginable… If you ever want to demonstrate how different science fiction can be, what an incredible range and sweep of things are published with a little spaceship on the spine, DESOLATION ROAD is a shining datapoint, because it isn’t like anything else and yet it is coming from a knowledge of what the genre can do and can be and making something new out of it.’ — Jo Walton (Tor.com)

‘McDonald’s fantastic Mars is vividly detailed and owes much to Bradbury’s Martian stories… entirely worthy of its rightly lauded predecessor.’ — Publishers Weekly on ARES EXPRESS

‘A phantasmagoria of nuclear locomotives and wild Martian awesomeness. It’s a definite must-read… McDonald is furthermore an extraordinary stylist. His prose is clear and lucid, and at once both beautiful and playful. There is an inescapable sense that McDonald enjoys playing with words, building prose like intricate clocks, which can persist wholly on their beauty, regardless of their subject.’ — io9 on ARES EXPRESS

‘ARES EXPRESS is a long, adventure-filled, extravagantly colourful, often funny, quite moving, highly imaginative, excellently written, story, set on a glorious Mars… might be the most fun [novel of the year]. I loved it wholeheartedly.’ — SF Site

ACT also publish the first two novels in Ian’s Luna trilogy (NEW MOON and WOLF MOON), as well as his stand-alone novels BRAZIL and THE DERVISH HOUSE.