ACT - Zeno Agency Ltd.

WHEN ALL IS SAID out now in Russia!

Posted on Friday, August 13th, 2021

WHEN ALL IS SAID, Anne Griffin‘s best-selling and critically-acclaimed debut novel continues its journey around the world — a new Russian edition of the novel is out now! Published by ACT as Когда все сказано, here’s the synopsis…

В баре провинциального отеля теплым летним вечером сидит старый фермер Морис Хэнниган. Пять раз он заказывает выпивку — и каждый раз поднимает тост за человека, сыгравшего важную роль в его долгой, трудной жизни.

За любимого старшего брата, которого еще подростком унесла болезнь.

За душевнобольную невестку, с первого взгляда к нему привязавшуюся.

За дочку, рожденную мертвой.

За талантливого сына-журналиста — каково ему там, в далекой Америке?

И — за нее. Любимую жену и верную подругу. За лучшую из женщин, после смерти которой из жизни его ушли и свет, и смысл.

Пять тостов. Пять историй. А в них — целая жизнь, с любовью и ненавистью, с удачами и катастрофами, днями веселья и скорби. Жизнь, рассказанная так, как это умеют делать только ирландцы!

The novel is published in the UK and Ireland by Sceptre, in North America by Picador, and in an ever-growing number of international and translated edition (check out some of the covers, below). Here’s the English-language synopsis…

Five toasts. Five people. One lifetime.

‘I’m here to remember – all that I have been and all that I will never be again.’

At the bar of a grand hotel in a small Irish town sits 84-year-old Maurice Hannigan. He’s alone, as usual -though tonight is anything but. Pull up a stool and charge your glass, because Maurice is finally ready to tell his story.

Over the course of this evening, he will raise five toasts to the five people who have meant the most to him. Through these stories – of unspoken joy and regret, a secret tragedy kept hidden, a fierce love that never found its voice – the life of one man will be powerfully and poignantly laid bare.

Heart-breaking and heart-warming all at once, the voice of Maurice Hannigan will stay with you long after all is said.

Griffin’s second novel, LISTENING STILL, is out now in the UK, published by Sceptre, and is due to be published in North America by St. Martin’s Press, in March 2022.

Ian McDonald’s THE DERVISH HOUSE Turns 10!

Posted on Wednesday, July 29th, 2020

Ten years ago today, Ian McDonald‘s highly-acclaimed, award-winning THE DERVISH HOUSE was first published in the UK! Published by Gollancz, here’s the synopsis…

In the CHAGA novels Ian McDonald brought an Africa in the grip of a bizarre alien invasion to life, in RIVER OF GODS he painted a rich portrait of India in 2047, in BRASYL he looked at different Brazils, past present and future. Ian McDonald has found renown at the cutting edge of a movement to take SF away from its British and American white roots and out into the rich cultures of the world.

THE DERVISH HOUSE continues that journey and centres on Istanbul in 2025. Turkey is part of Europe but sited on the edge, it is an Islamic country that looks to the West. THE DERVISH HOUSE is the story of the families that live in and around its titular house, it is at once a rich mosaic of Islamic life in the new century and a telling novel of future possibilities.

The novel has racked up a number of great awards and commendations since its release. For example…

John W. Campbell Memorial Award, Winner (2011)
BSFA Award, Best Novel Winner (2011)
SF Site Readers Poll, SF/Fantasy Novel, Winner (2011)
Seiun Award, Translated Novel, Nominee (2015)
Hugo Award, Best Novel Nominee (2011)
Arthur C. Clark Award, Shortlist (2011)
Locus Award, Best SF Novel, 3rd Place (2011)

In addition to UK and North American editions (Pyr Books originally, now available via JABberwocky), the novel has been published quite widely in translation, with editions appearing in Turkey (Pegasus), Poland (MAG), France (Denoël/Gallimard), Hungary (Ad Astra), Bosnia (Paladin), Russia (ACT), Japan (東京創元社), and Bulgaria (Altera)! It is also available as an audiobook. Here are the covers…

And, finally, here are just a few of the great reviews the novel has received since it was first published…

‘… a writer with an unerring instinct for finding resonance between theme and location… a rich and assured novel that, like much of Ken MacLeod’s recent work, revels in the shiny precision of the airport tech-thriller, yet insists on putting forward disquieting ideas rather than offering all-too-neat reassurances that you can somehow put escaped djinns back in bottles. This is as good as contemporary literary SF gets.’ — SFX (5* Review)

‘I know what to expect from Ian McDonald: broad vistas, intricately imagined futures, poetic language that transports and delights, a blend of mysticism and science that thrills and moves. But no matter how much foreknowledge I bring to a new Ian McDonald, I am always, always startled and thrilled by the exciting, moving epic story I find inside… To read McDonald is to fall in love with a place and to become drunk with it (see this free sample from Dervish House for a taste). I you’ve never read him, you’re in for a treat. If you’re a fan like me, you’ll be delighted anew. What a wonderful, wonderful book.’ — BoingBoing

‘[T]hrilling… A master in his own right, McDonald has written some of the best SF of the last fifteen years… a mosaic of a story that can be admired for its finely-wrought pieces but not fully appreciated until the book is finished and looked at again from some distance. The biggest part of the thrill is wondering how the characters will inevitably intersect… As much as THE DERVISH HOUSE is about biogenetics and history, McDonald couches some of his lushest prose in explorations of mysticism… McDonald, who is a native of Scotland, has an uncanny ability to write about other cultures authentically. He is a painstaking researcher and while he cannot always write with absolute authority, his dedication to making settings and characters feel alive is incredibly impressive… Ian McDonald has crafted a gorgeously lush novel, oozing with exciting, relevant ideas, a love letter to the Queen of Cities, to all cities, really.’ — Tor.com

‘A lush, complex and hugely entertaining novel.’ — Guardian

‘… Istanbul, the Queen of Cities, and the setting for Ian McDonald’s near-future story of terrorism, nanotechnology and change rushing over us like a tidal wave of strangeness. Like his novels about the future of Indian, African and Brazilian society, McDonald’s new book is a conscientious attempt to write the Other from the inside and accept the possibility that the Anglo world may be a sideline… a brilliant, jewelled machine of a novel in which lives trigger events in other lives, in a sequence that skirts chaos and disaster, but ends with gorgeous order.’ — Independent

‘Those who have previously enjoyed McDonald’s narrative style will find a great deal to like in THE DERVISH HOUSE… McDonald’s writing has been steadily improving in terms of its lyrical and descriptive quality over the years, and it seems his recent foray into short stories with CYBERABAD DAYS has helped his focus and tightness. Several passages shine with literary flow and power… McDonald keeps his story fresh with every chapter and its flickering viewpoints, giving a series of snapshots that come together to form a panorama of his world. THE DERVISH HOUSE is an excellent sci-fi tale from a phenomenal writer, one who deserves every plaudit that can be heaped upon him. Those who appreciate slow-burning, dense and creative genre work should get this book now.’ — SciFiNow

‘If you only read one SF book this year… make sure it’s Ian McDonald’s THE DERVISH HOUSE… I wish I’d written this!!! … It’s too bloody good for comfort… THE DERVISH HOUSE takes the expansive cultural mosaic of RIVER OF GODS, multiplies it by the driving Latin beat and teetering sense of jeopardy in BRASYL, and gives you a novel that is his best yet by a whole new order of imaginative and sensuous magnitude… I cannot recommend it highly enough.’ — Richard K. Morgan (author of Altered Carbon and The Steel Remains)

‘[I]n THE DERVISH HOUSE, aspects of the geography, socioeconomic, religious and political groups do come alive – perhaps not as full characters, but as not-quite separate personalities within Istanbul – a city suffering and celebrating its multiple personalities… McDonald’s tried and true strategy of exploring the people of emerging economies in combination with the implications of technology on society in a near-future setting succeeds once again… It’s at times powerful, informative, and fun and another example of science fiction alive in our world.’ — NethSpace

‘[B]uilds on the complex, multi-layered narratives that McDonald has already produced in RIVER OF GODS and BRASYL. Like them, the very richness of the bustling world, the differing ways in which a range of characters intersect with the world, makes for a convincing portrait of the near future. In both those earlier novels, the past is the foundation upon which the future has been built, but the new novel goes further, because here the past is inescapable and the future perhaps unreachable. You feel that ten or so years from now, Istanbul could be just the way it is described here. The most important thing, though, is that as a kaleidoscopic portrait of that place at that time, THE DERVISH HOUSE is a very fine, very powerful novel indeed.’ — SF Site

‘[A] beautiful homage to one of most unique cities on earth… Nominated for the Hugo Award last week, THE DERVISH HOUSE is a worthy addition to that tradition. It is certainly one of the best novels I read in 2010. McDonald asks a lot his readers, but he rewards them with a beautiful novel that I believe will appeal to traditional readers in some ways more than lovers of genre fiction.’ — Staffer’s Book Review

‘[A]n audacious look at the shift in the power centers of the world and an intense vision of one possible future.’ — New York Times

Ian McDonald’s Восставшая Луна out now! (Luna: Moon Rising)

Posted on Thursday, March 12th, 2020

The third novel in Ian McDonald‘s acclaimed Luna series, MOON RISING is out now in Russia! Published by ACT as Восставшая Луна, here’s the synopsis…

Финал грандиозной научно-фантастической саги

Пять Драконов – пять семейных кланов, контролирующих ведущие промышленные компании Луны,– ведут между собой настоящую войну. Соперники не гнушаются ничем, чтобы проложить себе путь на самый верх пищевой цепочки – ни браками по расчету, ни корпоративным шпионажем, ни похищениями людей, ни массовыми убийствами. Теперь эта битва подошла к концу, и тот, кто, казалось, потерял все, кто поднялся из руин корпоративного разгрома, захватил контроль над Луной благодаря изощренным манипуляциям и невероятной силе воли. Но война никогда не заканчивается, и теперь против победителя выступает его родная сестра. Вот только мир вокруг не стои т на месте, Луна и Земля никогда не будут прежними, неумолимые силы истории придадут бесконечной борьбе за власть совершенно иной масштаб, а человечество уже готово двигаться дальше – за пределы Солнечной системы.

ACT has also published the first two novels in the series, NEW MOON and WOLF MOON — as Новая Луна and Волчья Луна, respectively. They have also published a handful of Ian’s other acclaimed novels.

The Luna series is published in the UK by Gollancz, in North America by Tor Books, and in a growing number of translated editions around the world. Here’s the English-language synopsis for MOON RISING…

A hundred years in the future, a war wages between the Five Dragons — five families that control the Moon’s leading industrial companies. Each clan does everything in their power to claw their way to the top of the food chain — marriages of convenience, corporate espionage, kidnapping, and mass assassinations.

Through ingenious political manipulation and sheer force of will, Lucas Cortas rises from the ashes of corporate defeat and seizes control of the Moon. The only person who can stop him is a brilliant lunar lawyer, his sister, Ariel.

Witness the Dragons’ final battle for absolute sovereignty in Ian McDonald’s heart-stopping finale to the Luna trilogy.

If you haven’t yet had the chance to try the series, and are daunted by the prospect of a full-length novel, Ian has also written a prequel novella, which is out now via Tor.com, THE MENACE FROM FARSIDE.

Here are just a few examples of the praise the series has received so far…

‘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

‘McDonald’s richly imagined Lunar culture and interplanetary poleconomy make for a superb backdrop for literally dozens of richly realized human dramas, and it’s hard to say which is more fascinating. McDonald’s wildly imaginative worldbuilding (present since his debut novel, the utterly wonderful standout OUT ON BLUE SIX) and his ability to spin out intrigues are both in full flight in this final volume.’ — Boing Boing 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)

‘The fights and vengeance that follow are more vicious and intricate than anything in Game of Thrones, full of great acts of self-sacrifice and viciousness alike, brave cavalry charges and last stands, cowardice and avarice. McDonald’s great gift is to hold the micro- and macro-scale in his hand at once. Starting with his debut novel, 1988’s Desolation Road, McDonald has used his intense, finely crafted and small personal stories of his vast casts of characters as the pixels in an unimaginably vast display on which he projects some of the field’s most audacious worldbuilding — never worldbuilding for its own sake, either, but always in the service of slyly parodying, critiquing or lionizing elements of our present-day world.’ — Boing Boing on WOLF MOON

‘A Howling Good Read… No one builds a world like Ian McDonald does. Piece by piece and brick by brick. Spare, simple, elegant when he needs to be…, deep and meaty when he wants to be…, he does his work like an artisan pulling a sculpture from stone. There are no wasted moves, nothing that isn’t vital because, in the end, everything is vital. Everything matters… it is fascinating, all of it. Because McDonald has made a world that is ruthless in its consistency and living, breathing reality, and then made characters who are not just living in it, but wholly and fully of it… McDonald’s corporate war is a gorgeous thing, fought with every tool available… McDonald is able to wrap the biggest events in constellations of the smallest so that a cocktail party here, a discussion of ’80s retro fashion (all mall-hair and WHAM! T-shirts), a love story and a day at work for a guy who cleans solar panels all build and coalesce to form the background radiation of life in this unstable future. Every moment with his characters makes them precious, real and alive.’ — NPR on WOLF MOON

‘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 on WOLF MOON

‘Smart, funny, passionate and at times quite dark, McDonald brings the touch we’ve seen in RIVER OF GODS and DERVISH HOUSE to an entirely new culture as it evolves in a distant hostile place where business or family rules all… it’s terrific. My only complaint: it leaves you wanting the second book right now!’ — Jonathan Strahan on NEW MOON

‘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

Ian McDonald’s DESOLATION ROAD is out now in Russia!

Posted on Thursday, December 12th, 2019

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.

WOLF MOON out now in Russia!

Posted on Tuesday, June 26th, 2018

Ian McDonald‘s critically-acclaimed second Luna novel, WOLF MOON, is out now in Russia! Published by ACT as Волчья Луна, here’s the synopsis…

Дракон мёртв.

Корта Гелио, одна из пяти семейных корпораций, правивших Луной, пала. Те, кто пережил катастрофу, рассеяны по разным местам; богатства поделены между многочисленными врагами. Прошло восемнадцать месяцев.

Выжившие дети Гелио, Лукасиньо и Луна, находятся под защитой могущественных Асамоа, тогда как Робсон, который всё ещё не в силах оправиться от зрелища жестокой гибели своих родителей, теперь подопечный (практически заложник) клана Металлы Маккензи. Последний назначенный наследник, Лукас, исчез с лица Луны.

Лишь Госпожа Солнце, вдовствующая глава семьи Тайян, подозревает, что Лукас Корта не мёртв, что он всё ещё важный участник игры. В конце концов, Лукас всегда был Каверзником и, даже ценой смерти, пошёл бы на любые ухищрения, лишь бы всё вернуть и воссоздать Корта Гелио заново, ещё более могущественным. Однако Корта Гелио нужны союзники, и чтобы найти их, беглый сын решается на безрассудное, невозможное путешествие – на Землю.

В неустойчивом лунном обществе, полном постоянных измен и политических махинаций, самые многообещающие интриги всех семей, достигнув пика, разрешаются открытой войной.

ACT has also published the first in the series, NEW MOON, as Новая Луна.

The Luna series is published in the UK by Gollancz and in the US by Tor Books. The third book, MOON RISING, is forthcoming. Here’s the English-language synopsis for WOLF MOON…

A Dragon is dead.

Corta Helio, one of the five family corporations that rule the Moon, has fallen. Its riches are divided up among its many enemies, its survivors scattered. Eighteen months have passed.

The remaining Helio children, Lucasinho and Luna, are under the protection of the powerful Asamoahs, while Robson, still reeling from witnessing his parent’s violent deaths, is now a ward — virtually a hostage — of Mackenzie Metals. And the last appointed heir, Lucas, has vanished of the surface of the moon.

Only Lady Sun, dowager of Taiyang, suspects that Lucas Corta is not dead, and more to the point — that he is still a major player in the game. After all, Lucas always was the Schemer, and even in death, he would go to any lengths to take back everything and build a new Corta Helio, more powerful than before. But Corta Helio needs allies, and to find them, the fleeing son undertakes an audacious, impossible journey — to Earth.

In an unstable lunar environment, the shifting loyalties and political machinations of each family reach the zenith of their most fertile plots as outright war erupts.

Ian McDonald’s BRASYL Out Now in Russia!

Posted on Friday, April 8th, 2016

BRASYL, one of Ian McDonald‘s critically-acclaimed sci-fi novels, is now available in Russian! Published as Бразилья by ACT, here’s the synopsis…

2032 год. Случайная встреча вовлекает Эдсона, молодого человека, пытающегося выбиться из нищеты, в опасный мир квантовых хакеров, таинственных двойников и паранойи. Он узнает секрет, способный изменить всю историю человечества, но куда бежать в стране, где царит тотальная слежка? 2006 год. Марселина, амбициозный телепродюсер, в поисках материала для реалити-шоу наталкивается на свидетельства древнего заговора, и вскоре мир вокруг начинает рушиться, угрожая не только ее рассудку, но и жизни. 1732 год. Иезуит Луис Квинн отправляется в Бразилию, чтобы по заданию Святого престола призвать к ответу священника, преступившего законы церкви. Но задание оказывается куда сложнее, и в дебрях Амазонки Луис находит то, что ставит под сомнение не только его веру, но и взгляды на устройство Вселенной. Три героя, три истории, три Бразилии, связанные через пространство и время, в эпическом романе о природе самой реальности, где ничто не случайно, и даже название с секретом.

BRASYL is published by Gollancz in the UK, and by Pyr Books in the US. The novel has also been published widely in translation (see some of the covers, below). Here’s the English-language synopsis…

Think Bladerunner in the tropics…

Be seduced, amazed, and shocked by one of the world’s greatest and strangest nations. Past, present, and future Brazil, with all its color, passion, and shifting realities, come together in a novel that is part SF, part history, part mystery, and entirely enthralling.

Three separate stories follow three main characters:

Edson is a self-made talent impresario one step up from the slums in a near future São Paulo of astonishing riches and poverty. A chance encounter draws Edson into the dangerous world of illegal quantum computing, but where can you run in a total surveillance society where every move, face, and centavo is constantly tracked?

Marcelina is an ambitious Rio TV producer looking for that big reality TV hit to make her name. When her hot idea leads her on the track of a disgraced World Cup soccer goalkeeper, she becomes enmeshed in an ancient conspiracy that threatens not just her life, but her very soul.

Father Luis is a Jesuit missionary sent into the maelstrom of 18th-century Brazil to locate and punish a rogue priest who has strayed beyond the articles of his faith and set up a vast empire in the hinterland. In the company of a French geographer and spy, what he finds in the backwaters of the Amazon tries both his faith and the nature of reality itself to the breaking point.

Three characters, three stories, three Brazils, all linked together across time, space, and reality in a hugely ambitious story that will challenge the way you think about everything.

Here are just a few of the great reviews BRASYL has received…

‘[BRASYL] has been receiving high praise from just about everyone since its publication. It’s easy to see why. Not content with writing just one interesting story, McDonald gives us three… [it] isn’t just a parallel dimensions story; it tackles big issues like free will and the heat death of the universe and places them in intensely personal stories, which serves to humanize these ideas and make them easier to understand… BRASYL rivals RIVER OF GODS story-wise and surpasses it in science fictional terms.’ — SFsignal.com

‘McDonald’s book is like the flipside to the famous Terry Gilliam film — a bright, wheeling carnival that plays on the “multiverse” theory of quantum physics. It implies that, if not exactly utopian, the future might at least be fun.’ — Financial Times

‘Packing his pages with local color and big-picture speculation, McDonald conjures three equally vivid worlds.’ — Entertainment Weekly

‘Ian McDonald’s BRASYL, with its three storylines, is as close to perfect as any novel in recent memory. It works because of great characterization, but also because McDonald envisions Brazil as a dynamic, living place that is part postmodern trash pile, part trashy reality-TV-driven ethical abyss… and yet also somehow spiritual… McDonald’s novel is always in motion. This movement extends through time and alternate realities in ways both wonderful and wise, as the three storylines interlock for a satisfying and often stunning conclusion. McDonald has found new myths for old places; in doing so, he has cemented his reputation as an amazing storyteller.’ — Washington Post

New Russian Cover for Andrew Hodges’s ALAN TURING: THE ENIGMA

Posted on Wednesday, June 24th, 2015

There is a new Russian edition of Andrew Hodges‘s ALAN TURING: THE ENIGMA. As you can see from the image above, it reflects the Oscar-winning movie adaptation, THE IMITATION GAME. Published in Russia by ACT as Игра в имитацию: Биография Алана Тьюринга, here is the synopsis…

О загадочной, «зашифрованной» судьбе великого криптографа снят фильм «Игра в имитацию», который получил главную награду Кинофестиваля в Торонто в 2014 году. В роли Тьюринга – Бенедикт Камбербэтч, прославившийся своей ролью в телесериале «Шерлок». А его несостоявшуюся невесту Джоан Кларк сыграла Кира Найтли.

Национальный совет кинокритиков США и Американский институт киноискусства включили «Игру в имитацию» в топ 10 фильмов 2014 года. Также фильм получил пять номинаций на премию «Золотой глобус».

Настало время миру узнать о Тьюринге.

ALAN TURING: THE ENIGMA is published in the UK by Vintage Books and in the US by Princeton University Press. It has also been published widely in translation (check Andrew’s author page for more details and covers). Here’s the English-language synopsis…

The official book behind the film, THE IMITATION GAME. This is a dramatic portrayal of the life and work of Alan Turing, Britain’s most extraordinary unsung heroes, and the world’s greatest innovators.

Alan Turing was the mathematician whose cipher-cracking transformed the Second World War. Taken on by British Intelligence in 1938, as a shy young Cambridge don, he combined brilliant logic with a flair for engineering. In 1940 his machines were breaking the Enigma-enciphered messages of Nazi Germany’s air force. He then headed the penetration of the super-secure U-boat communications.

But his vision went far beyond this achievement. Before the war he had invented the concept of the universal machine, and in 1945 he turned this into the first design for a digital computer.

Turing’s far-sighted plans for the digital era forged ahead into a vision for Artificial Intelligence. However, in 1952 his homosexuality rendered him a criminal and he was subjected to humiliating treatment. In 1954, aged 41, Alan Turing took his own life.