Ian McDonald‘s critically-acclaimed Luna series is now available in a brand new omnibus edition in Italy! Published by Mondadori’s Oscar Fantastica imprint as LUNA: LA TRILOGIA, here’s the synopsis…
NEL XXII SECOLO LA LUNA è stata ormai colonizzata dall’uomo e industrializzata. Le sue preziose risorse – l’elio-3, il carbonio, il ghiaccio e i metalli rari – vengono estratte ed esportate sulla Terra. A controllare il proficuo commercio sono i “Cinque Draghi”, cinque famiglie tanto potenti quanto spietate e pronte a tutto pur di difendere la propria posizione e i propri privilegi. La società spaziale è tornata alle lotte e ai valori feudali, come sa bene Adriana Corta, a capo di una delle corporazioni, che è riuscita a sottrarre il controllo dell’elio-3 alla Mackenzie Metals. Ormai anziana, deve difendere la florida azienda di famiglia dai moltissimi nemici che si è fatta negli anni. Ma basta un niente, nel difficile ambiente lunare, perché le mutevoli lealtà e le macchinazioni politiche dei cinque clan raggiungano il punto di rottura e si scateni una guerra dagli imprevedibili risultati
Una saga grandiosa, ricca e stratificata di echi letterari, da Martin al García Márquez di Cent’anni di solitudine. Un’acclamata trilogia, piena di avventura, che ci spingerà a guardare con occhi nuovi al nostro solo apparentemente innocuo e pacifico satellite.
Mondadori’s Urania imprint has also published the three novels individually in Italy: LUNA NUOVA, LUNA PIENA, and LUNA CRESCENTE.
The Luna series is published in the UK by Gollancz, in North America by Tor Books: NEW MOON, WOLF MOON, and MOON RISING. The series is also available in a growing number of international, translated editions. Here’s the English-language synopsis for the first novel…
In Ian McDonald’s Luna: New Moon, 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 are just a few of the great reviews the series has received so far…
‘McDonald… begins his superb near-future series… scintillating, violent, and decadent world. McDonald creates a complex and fascinating civilization featuring believable technology, and the characters are fully developed, with individually gripping stories. Watch for this brilliantly constructed family saga on next year’s award ballots.’ — Publishers Weekly (Starred Review) on NEW MOON
‘Mafia-style mining families clash in a compelling fantasy that offers up all the pleasures of a cut-throat soap opera in space…That McDonald is able to spin a compelling story from this unforgiving set-up is testament to his skill as a writer… 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 on NEW MOON
‘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 has ten details for every detail proffered by other sf writers. Not gratuitous details, either: gracious ones. The fashion sense of William Gibson, the design sense of Bruce Sterling, the eye for family drama of Connie Willis, the poesie of Bradbury, and the dirty sex of Kathe Koja and Samuel Delany… McDonald’s moon is omnisexual, kinky, violent, passionate, beautiful, awful, vibrant and crushing. As the family saga of the Cortas unravels, we meet a self-sexual ninja lawyer, a werewolf who loses his mind in the Full Earth, a family tyrant whose ruthlessness is matched only by his crepulance, and a panoply of great passions and low desires. LUNA: NEW MOON is the first book of a two-book cycle. Now I’m all a-quiver for the next one.‘ — BoingBoing
‘Luna: New Moon was a “magnificent bastard of a book,” as I put it in my review. Part two, it’s my pleasure to tell you, is just as awesome, and just as masterfully nasty.’ — Tor.com
‘… powerful sequel… compelling throughout. Each of McDonald’s viewpoint characters is made human in fascinating and occasionally disturbing detail, and the solar system of the 22nd century is wonderfully delineated. Fans of the first volume will love this one and eagerly look forward to the next.‘ — Publishers Weekly on WOLF MOON
‘NEW MOON was one of the most interesting sci-fi novels of 2015, with smart ideas on humanity and economies matched by street smarts, political brawls and murder in the streets. LUNA: WOLF MOON turns that up to eleven – it’s a fascinating story, which is also a tense, enthralling read.’ — Sci-Fi & Fantasy Review
‘McDonald concludes his Luna space opera trilogy in triumphant style… The political intrigue never feels too abstract or removed from 21st-century Earth. Readers will appreciate the care McDonald takes with both worldbuilding and characterization, and will enjoy little touches such as giving an assassin the job title of Corporate Conflict Resolution Officer… fans of the prior books will find this wrap-up rewarding.’ — Publishers Weekly on MOON RISING
‘The Luna trilogy is a masterpiece of worldbuilding. Ian McDonald has created an incredibly developed, complex and astonishingly plausible future for the Moon… What stands out, though, are its threads of gorgeous storytelling… as a whole, this is an extraordinary trilogy. Ian McDonald always writes beautifully. I love what he has to say. I’ll always remember his vision of the Moon, which at times is horrifying and violent and yet at others is so heartwarming and wondrous.’ — For Winter Nights on MOON RISING
‘… cinematic set-pieces… so much fun to read… these entertaining, and intelligent novels, capped off by the very satisfying Luna: MOON RISING, have been about establishing a society, a community, a family that looks to the future, that lives and prospers in an environment that must always be treated with respect.’ — Locus (Ian Mond)