Tag: Ian McDonald

Ian McDonald’s HOPELAND is Out in Two Weeks!

Posted on Monday, January 30th, 2023

The UK and North American editions of Ian McDonald‘s highly-anticipated new novel, HOPELAND are out in two weeks! Due to be published by Gollancz (February 16th) and Tor Books (February 14th), respectively, here’s the synopsis…

Hopeland is not a nation. It is not a cult. It is not a religion.

Hopeland is a community. It is a culture. It is a family.

When Raisa Hopeland, determined to win her race to become the next electromancer of London, bumps into Amon Brightbourne – tweed-suited, otherworldly, guided by the Grace – in the middle of a London riot, she sets in motion a series of events which will span decades, continents and a series of events which will change the world.

Amon falls in love in that moment of chaos, but being loved by him can have a cost. And while Raisa has Hopeland, Amon has a family of his own, and they have their own secrets.

From rioting London to geothermal Iceland to the climate-struck islands of Polynesia, from birth to life to death, from tranquillity to terror to joy, Raisa’s journey will encompass the world. But one thing will always be true.

Hopeland is family.

Ian is also the author of the acclaimed Luna series, also published by Gollancz (UK) and Tor Books (North America): NEW MOON, WOLF MOON, and MOON RISING. A prequel novella is also available — A MENACE FROM THE FAR SIDE — published by Tor.com.

Ian McDonald’s HOPELAND Out Next Year in North America!

Posted on Tuesday, October 25th, 2022

Last week, we shared the UK cover for Ian McDonald‘s highly-anticipated new novel, HOPELAND (due out early next year). Today, we have the North American cover! Due to be published by Tor Books, on February 16th, 2023, here’s the synopsis…

A time-traveling, futuristic saga of a family trying to outlast and remake a universe with a power unlike any we’ve seen before.

When Raisa Hopeland, determined to win her race to become the next electromancer of London, bumps into Amon Brightbourne — tweed-suited, otherworldly, guided by the Grace — in the middle of a London riot, she sets in motion a series of events which will span decades, continents and a series of events which will change the world.

From rioting London to geothermal Iceland to the climate-struck islands of Polynesia, from birth to life to death, from tranquillity to terror to joy, Raisa’s journey will encompass the world. But one thing will always be true.

Hopeland is family — and family is dangerous

The UK edition of the novel is due out on February 16th, via Gollancz. Here’s the cover again…

Ian is also the author of the acclaimed Luna series, published by Gollancz (UK) and Tor Books (North America): NEW MOON, WOLF MOON, and MOON RISING. A prequel novella is also available — A MENACE FROM THE FAR SIDE — published by Tor.com.

Coming Soon: HOPELAND by Ian McDonald!

Posted on Friday, October 21st, 2022

Ian McDonald‘s highly-anticipated new novel, HOPELAND is due out early next year! Above you can see the cover for the UK edition, which will be published by Gollancz on February 16th. Here’s the synopsis…

Hopeland is not a nation. It is not a cult. It is not a religion.

Hopeland is a community. It is a culture. It is a family.

When Raisa Hopeland, determined to win her race to become the next electromancer of London, bumps into Amon Brightbourne – tweed-suited, otherworldly, guided by the Grace – in the middle of a London riot, she sets in motion a series of events which will span decades, continents and a series of events which will change the world.

Amon falls in love in that moment of chaos, but being loved by him can have a cost. And while Raisa has Hopeland, Amon has a family of his own, and they have their own secrets.

From rioting London to geothermal Iceland to the climate-struck islands of Polynesia, from birth to life to death, from tranquillity to terror to joy, Raisa’s journey will encompass the world. But one thing will always be true.

Hopeland is family.

The novel is due to be published in North America by Tor Books, on February 14th. We’ll share the cover for that next week!

Ian is also the author of the acclaimed Luna series, published by Gollancz (UK) and Tor Books (North America): NEW MOON, WOLF MOON, and MOON RISING. A prequel novella is also available — A MENACE FROM THE FAR SIDE — published by Tor.com.

Ian McDonald and Roger Zelazny Get New Italian Editions

Posted on Friday, July 15th, 2022

Italian publisher Urania is celebrating their 70th anniversary publishing great science fiction. To celebrate, the publisher has paired up with Corriere della Sera and La Gazzetta dello Sport to release a selection of 25 notable titles. We’re very happy to report that included in this selection are Ian McDonald‘s THE BROKEN LAND and Roger Zelazny‘s TO DIE IN ITALBAR!

Both books have new covers by Franco Brambilla. Read on for some more details about each book.

Ian McDonald‘s THE BROKEN LAND is published in Italy as LA TERRA INFRANTA. Here’s the synopsis…

Siamo in un futuro lontano, sulla Terra. Il villaggio di Chepsenyt è un’enclave pacifica e autosufficiente i cui residenti vivono in armonia con la natura attraverso le loro conoscenze di ingegneria genetica. Ma quando le truppe dell’Impero scoprono che tra la popolazione si celano dei ribelli, il villaggio viene dato alle fiamme e gli abitanti si disperdono. Da qui parte il doloroso viaggio della giovane Mathembe Fileli verso l’età adulta, per sopravvivere e ritrovare la propria famiglia.

The novel is published in English by JABberwocky. Here’s the English-language synopsis…

Grandfather was a tree, Father grew trux, in fifteen colours. Mother could sing the double-helix song, sing it right into the hearts of living things and change them…

The Land is a living, breathing, sentient world, where careful skills and talent can manipulate its very substance into a myriad different shapes and forms.

This is the world in which Mathembe Fileli grows up, until the conflicts tearing her country apart shatter her village, her home and her family and scatter them to the four winds. Can Mathembe reunite her family in a world full of angels, talking trees, squalor and glory?

Urania have published a number of Ian’s other books in Italy: the Luna series, the India 2047 series, and the Everness trilogy. You can find out more about them here.

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Roger Zelazny‘s TO DIE IN ITALBAR is the second novel in the author’s Francis Sandow duology — the first is ISLE OF THE DEAD (1969). TO DIE IN ITALBAR is published in Italy as MORIRE A ITALBAR. Here’s the synopsis…

«Il sentiero era la sua vita. Le tombe, il simbolo delle centinaia, no, forse migliaia, di morti che si era lasciati indietro. Al suo tocco gli uomini morivano. Il suo alito appassiva intere città. Dove arrivava la sua ombra, talvolta non rimaneva nulla. Pure, era suo potere vincere le malattie. E proprio adesso arrancava faticosamente con questa intenzione. Era conosciuto per questo, anche se solo con il nome H.»

Questo romanzo è stato definito un’avventura assurda: personaggi vividi, un ritmo veloce ed emozioni forti sono scaturiti dalla fertile immaginazione di Roger Zelazny.

TO DIE IN ITALBAR was first published in 1971. Here’s the English-language synopsis…

The Walker in the Valley of the Shadow

H was the name he was known by. H was unique in the galaxy, for he had the healing touch. Where there was plague, sickness, pain, H was the universal cure.

But H also had the slaying touch. Where he went death and disaster often followed. Where there had been health there would be left desolation and desert.

The talent alternated. It reversed itself — and H always warned people of this. To live in Italbar or TO DIE IN ITALBAR, that was always the question.

Three other novels by Zelazny are published by Urania: THE DREAM MASTER, EYE OF CAT, DAMNATION ALLEY; and the publisher has also released DOPPIA DIMENSIONE, which is an anthology including HOME IS THE HANGMAN and HE WHO SHAPES.

Spotlight & Deal: CHAGA by Ian McDonald

Posted on Friday, June 3rd, 2022

CHAGA, the first novel in the eponymous series by Ian McDonald is a Kindle Monthly Deal in the US! First published in 1995, it is now published by JAbberwocky. Here’s the synopsis…

On the trail of the mystery of Saturn’s disappearing moons, network journalist Gaby McAslan finds herself in Africa researching the Kilimanjaro Event: a meteor-strike in Kenya which caused the stunning African landscape to give way to something equally beautiful – and indescribably alien. Dubbed the ‘Chaga’, the alien flora destroys all man-made materials, and moulds human flesh, bone and spirit to its own designs. But when Gaby finds the first man to survive the Chaga’s changes, she realizes it has its own plans for humankind… Against the backdrop of Mount Kilimanjaro, McDonald weaves a staggering tale of keen human observation and speculation, as the Kilimanjaro Event changes the course of the human race by exposure to something beyond its imagination.

Here are some of the reviews the novel has received…

‘McDonald… consistently explores new territory with his breathtaking images and incisive language. Both form and substance blend fortuitously in a work that features strong characters, a suspenseful story, and a profound message of hope and transformation. A priority purchase for SF collections.’ — Library Journal

‘One of the finest writers of his generation, who chooses to write science fiction because that is how he can best illuminate the world.’ — New Statesman

‘Optimistic near-future alien-contact yarn… McDonald’s tale is also inventive and challenging… a dense, complex, rather weighty, often fascinating piece of speculation.’ — Kirkus

The other two novels in the trilogy — and — are also published by JABberwocky.

All three of the novels are also available as audiobooks, published by Audible.

‘This is a huge and ambitious novel, the work of a supremely talented writer approaching the top of his game.’ — SFX on KIRINYA

‘So outstanding a writer that he deserves reading beyond the science-fantasy market … He has such marvellous talent, so vivid an imagination. His prose sings and zings – simultaneously.’ — The Times on KIRINYA

‘[An] excellent original novella… gazes boldly into the heart of darkness, and finds there a great and galvanising hope.’ — Infinity Plus on TENDELEO’S STORY

‘… the Chaga sequence [is] Ian McDonald’s marvellous panorama of Third World plights and possibilities.’ — SF Site on TENDELEO’S STORY

Ian’s latest series is Luna — which includes the prequel novella THE MENACE FROM FARSIDE (Tor.com), and the novels NEW MOON, WOLF MOON, and MOON RISING (Tor Books).

Italian Edition of THE MENACE FROM FARSIDE Out Now!

Posted on Tuesday, May 10th, 2022

A new Italian edition of Ian McDonald‘s THE MENACE FROM FARSIDE is now available! Published by Urania/Mondadori as MINACCIA DA FARSIDE, it’s a prequel novella to the acclaimed Luna series. Here’s the synopsis…

Preparatevi a tornare nel mondo dei Dragoni, i signori della celeberrima trilogia Luna creata dalla penna di Ian McDonald.

A Regina Sud, città della famiglia Taiyang, la società è organizzata tramite “anelli”, ovvero famiglie poliamorose. E per Carid, figlia di un “matrimonio anulare”, l’arrivo di una nuova sorellastra in famiglia è una tragedia.

Sidibe non è solo bella d’aspetto e altera di carattere, ma possiede delle rarissime ali con cui incanta tutti, compresi Jair e Kobe, i fratellastri di Carid. La ragazza ha solo venti giorni di tempo prima che venga sancito ufficialmente il nuovo legame della sua famiglia allargata. E di certo non ha intenzione di restarsene con le mani in mano.

Con la scusa di un originale regalo di nozze, trascina la nuova arrivata e i due fratellastri in un’avventura… alla ricerca della prima impronta umana sulla Luna, lasciata cento anni prima nel Mare della Tranquillità dallo stivale di Neil Armstrong.

Cosa potrebbe andare storto?

Conoscendo Ian McDonald, il George R.R. Martin dello spazio, tutto…

In addition to THE MENACE FROM FARSIDE, the volume also includes translations of two short stories in the same setting: IL QUINTO DRAGONE (THE FIFTH DRAGON, originally published in 2014) and CADUTA (THE FALLS, 2015).

THE MENACE FROM FARSIDE is published in the UK and North America by Tor.com (cover above). Here’s the English-language synopsis…

Ian McDonald returns to his elegantly wound solar system of the twenty-second century, full of political intrigue and complicated families.

Remember: Lady Luna knows a thousand ways to kill you, but family is what you know. Family is what works.

Cariad Corcoran has a new sister who is everything she is not: tall, beautiful, confident. They’re unlikely allies and even unlikelier sisters, but they’re determined to find the moon’s first footprint, even if the lunar frontier is doing its best to kill them before they get there.

Urania also publishes the three Luna novels: LUNA NUOVA (NEW MOON), LUNA PIENA (WOLF MOON), and LUNA CRESCENTE (MOON RISING). An omnibus edition (or, ‘Titan Edition‘) is also available in Italy.

The Luna novels are published in the UK by Gollancz, in North America by Tor Books.

The series has also been published in Poland, Spain, Bulgaria, Germany, France, Romania, Hungary, Russia, Croatia, China, Taiwan, and Serbia. Here are the covers for NEW MOON…

Ian McDonald’s Award-Winning CYBERABAD DAYS Out Now in Italy!

Posted on Tuesday, February 15th, 2022

Ian McDonald‘s Philip K. Dick Award-winning CYBERABAD DAYS is now available in Italy! Published by Urania as I GIORNI DI CYBERABAD, here’s the synopsis…

“I giorni di Cyberabad” è una raccolta di sette racconti ambientati nell’India del futuro.

Cyberabad, fratturata in una dozzina di staterelli in guerra tra loro, è una terra traboccante di affascinanti contraddizioni, che spaziano dall’estrema povertà alle più innovative tecnologie, dalla siccità dilagante alle piscine lussuose, da antiche credenze a nuovi sgargianti orizzonti sul futuro dell’umanità.

E mentre un ragazzino di Ahraura sogna di diventare un robotwallah e poter pilotare un bot da guerra nel conflitto che si abbatte sul suo villaggio, il figlioletto di un ingegnere americano sgattaiola fuori dalle alte mura dell’Accantonamento per sbirciare quel mondo esterno e tanto estraneo, come un Siddharta in miniatura, immergendosi in una cultura per lui aliena, che sulle sponde del fiume Gange mescola i colori della vita e della morte in modi inimmaginabili, avvolti in una accecante quanto struggente bellezza.

Allo stesso modo, la solitudine di una innocente dea bambina, scongiurata da folle adoranti di far scendere la pioggia su un mondo flagellato dalla siccità e dai cambiamenti climatici, è fin troppo simile a quella provata dall’unica figlia di una ricca e potente dinastia che l’acqua la controlla, e che ha trasformato la bambina in un’arma contro la famiglia rivale.

Tra IA di contrabbando e una nuova casta di brahmini geneticamente modificati, ogni racconto si schiude e richiude come un fiore di loto, una carezza e un pugno al tempo stesso, nel drammatico chiaroscuro di tradizione e futuro tracciato dalla penna di uno dei migliori scrittori di fantascienza del nostro tempo.

Ecco i titoli dei racconti contenuti nel volume:

    • “Sanjeev e i robotwallah”
    • “Kyle incontra il fiume”
    • “L’assassino di polvere” 
    • “Un buon partito” 
    • “La piccola dea”
    • “La moglie del djinn”
    • “Vishnu e il circo dei gatti”

CYBERABAD DAYS, the second novel in McDonald’s India 2047 duology (the first is RIVER OF GODS), is published in the UK by Gollancz, and in North America by JABberwocky. Here’s the English-language synopsis…

The world: ‘Cyberabad’ is the India of 2047, a new, muscular superpower of one and a half billion people in an age of artificial intelligences, climate-change induced drought, water-wars, strange new genders, genetically improved children that age at half the rate of baseline humanity and a population where males out-number females four to one. India herself has fractured into a dozen states from Kerala to the headwaters of the Ganges in the Himalayas. Cyberabad is a collection of 7 stories:

    • The Little Goddess. Hugo nominee Best Novella 2006. In near future Nepal, a child-goddess discovers what lies on the other side of godhood.
    • The Djinn’s Wife. Hugo nominee and BSFA short fiction winner 2007. A minor Delhi celebrity falls in love with an artificial intelligence but is it a marriage of heaven and hell?
    • The Dust Assassin. Feuding Rajasthan water-rajas find that revenge is a slow, subtle process.
    • Jasbir and Sujay go Shaadi. Love and marriage should be plain-sailing when your matchmaker is a soap-star artificial intelligence
    • Sanjeev and Robotwallah. What happens to the boy-soldier roboteers when the war of Separation is over?
    • Kyle meets the River. A young American in Varanas learns the true meaning of ‘nation building’ in the early days of a new country.
    • Vishnu at the Cat Circus. A genetically improved ‘Brahmin’ child finds himself left behind as he grows through the final generation of humanity.

Here are some of the reviews CYBERABAD DAYS has received since it was first published, in 2009…

‘The sheer number of ideas and plotlines can sometimes make McDonald’s novels seems dense, but the stories here are sharp, focused and witty.’  —  BBC Focus

‘McDonald’s partitioned India of 2047, which he returns to in the seven stories in CYBERABAD DAYS, is a heaving, complexly imagined society that is, helplessly of course, the work of a westerner.’  —  Deathray

‘McDonald’s India engulfs you with an overwhelming, perfumed, stinky embrace. A hugely impressive collection. Seven nifty, witty stories.’  —  SFX

‘He considers India’s political future as a rising superpower and the cold realities of ethnic and religious diversity turning hot and divisive, with obvious analogies to the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. As with all short-story collections, some work better than others, but taken as whole, this is a fascinating read, rich in texture, imagery and language.’  —  Dreamwatch Total Sci-Fi

‘All in all, CYBERABAD DAYS is a terrific book and a satisfying return to the world of RIVER OF GODS. Ian McDonald is a genius, pure and simple.’  —  Pat’s Fantasy Hotlist

‘McDonald excels at conveying, in a gorgeous melange of sensory impressions, an India transformed by AIs, nanotech, robots and cybernetics: the subcontinent is chaotic and lurid, shot through with devotion to eternal Hindu gods and divided by internecine conflict. McDonald gives a refreshing take on the future from a non-western viewpoint.’  —  Guardian

‘McDonald gives sci-fi its sense of wonder back, and creates a landscape in which nothing can be taken for granted.’  —  Independent

‘One of the great pleasures of science fiction is the escape it offers readers from commonplace, everyday surroundings into strange new worlds, and nobody does it better than Ian McDonald. Although CYBERABAD DAYS is set on Earth, and only a few decades into the future, McDonald’s vision of a newly repartitioned India, warring over water and at the cutting edge of technologies based on artificial intelligence, is practically hallucinogenic in style and intensity.’  —  Times

Ian’s acclaimed latest series, Luna, is also published in the UK by Gollancz, is published in North America by Tor Books, and is available in a growing number of translated editions around the world. Below is a selection of covers for the various editions of NEW MOON, book one in the series…

Ian McDonald’s MESEČEV OSVIT Out Now in Serbia!

Posted on Wednesday, December 22nd, 2021

MOON RISING, the third novel in Ian McDonald‘s acclaimed Luna series is now available in Serbia! Published by Laguna as MESEČEV OSVIT, and translated by Goran Skrobonja, here’s the synopsis…

RAT ZA MESEC BESNI. NJEGOV ISHOD ODREDIĆE SUDBINU CELOG ČOVEČANSTVA.

Stotinu godina u budućnosti, vodi se rat između Pet Zmajeva – pet porodica koje kontrolišu vodeće industrijske kompanije na Mesecu. Svaki klan čini sve što je u njegovoj moći da se uzvere na vrh lanca ishrane – ugovorenim brakovima, korporativnom špijunažom, otmicama i masovnim ubistvima.

Domišljatim političkim manipulacijama i pukom snagom volje Lukas Korta se diže iz pepela i grabi kontrolu nad Mesecom. Može ga zaustaviti jedino njegova sestra Arijel, briljantna lunarna pravnica.

Prisustvujte konačnoj borbi Zmajeva za apsolutnu vlast u finalu trilogije Luna Ijana Mekdonalda od koje će vam zastati srce.

Laguna have also published the first two novels in the series, in Serbia: MLAD MESEC (NEW MOON) and VUČJI MESEC (WOLF MOON).

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.

Ian McDonald’s VUČJI MESEC Available in Serbia!

Posted on Friday, December 3rd, 2021

WOLF MOON, the second novel in Ian McDonald‘s acclaimed Luna series is now available in Serbia! Published by Laguna as VUČJI MESEC, and translated by Goran Skrobonja, here’s the synopsis…

JEDAN OD ZMAJEVA JE MRTAV.

Pala je Korta helio, jedna od pet porodičnih korporacija koje vladaju Mesecom. Njena blaga podelili su brojni neprijatelji, a preživeli su se razbežali.

Prošlo je osamnaest meseci. Preostala deca senjore Korte, Lukasinjo i Luna, pod zaštitom su moćne porodice Asamoa, dok je Robson, u šoku jer je prisustvovao očevoj nasilnoj smrti, sada štićenik – praktično talac – Makenzi metala. A poslednji naslednik Lukas nestao je s površine Meseca.

Samo gospa Sun, udova Taijanga, podozreva da Lukas Korta nije mrtav, i još važnije – da je i dalje jedan od glavnih igrača. Najzad, Lukas je oduvek bio Spletkaroš, pa čak ni u smrti neće prezati ni od čega kako bi povratio sve i izgradio novi i moćniji Korta helio. Ali Korta heliju su potrebni saveznici, a da bi ih pronašao, odbegli sin će se drznuti na nemoguće putovanje – na Zemlju.

U nestabilnom lunarnom okruženju proračunate odanosti i političke mahinacije svake porodice dosežu zenit u njihovim najplodonosnijim zaverama usred erupcije pravog rata.

Laguna also publishes the first novel in the series in Serbia, as MLAD MESEC.

WOLF MOON and the other two Luna novels (NEW MOON and MOON RISING) are published in the UK by Gollancz, in North America by Tor Books, and are also available in a growing number of translated editions around the world. A prequel novella — THE MENACE FROM FARSIDE — is also available, published by Tor.com.

Here’s the English-language synopsis for the novel…

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 from 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.

Here are just a few of the great reviews WOLF MOON has received so far…

‘… 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

‘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

‘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

‘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

‘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

Ian McDonald’s LUNE MONTANTE is Now Available in Paperback!

Posted on Wednesday, September 29th, 2021

The third novel in Ian McDonald‘s acclaimed Luna series, MOON RISING is now available in a new French paperback edition! Published by Folio SF as LUNE MONTANTE, here’s the synopsis…

Lucas Corta, que tout le monde croyait mort, a réussi l’impossible : survivre, lui, le natif de la Lune, à un long séjour sur la Terre. Revenu en orbite pour se venger, il a triomphé. Désormais la Lune lui appartient. Mais il a également beaucoup perdu, à commencer par son fils Lucasinho, plongé dans le coma et atteint de lésions cérébrales irréversibles. Sans compter que les Mackenzie rescapés n’ont pas dit leur dernier mot et espèrent bien rendre à Lucas la monnaie de sa pièce. Les Sun, quant à eux, fourbissent toujours leurs armes pour éliminer tous leurs concurrents. Plus que jamais, sur la Lune, la guerre entre les Cinq Dragons fait rage.

Après le succès des précédents tomes, Ian McDonald conclut avec brio l’univers violent et sans concession de Luna.

Folio SF has also published the first two novels in the series in France: NOUVELLE LUNE (NEW MOON) and LUNE DU LOUP (WOLF MOON)

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

The continuing saga of the Five Dragons, Ian McDonald’s fast-paced, intricately plotted space opera…

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.

Here are just a few of the reviews that MOON RISING 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

‘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

‘… 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 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

‘[T]here are few excuses for not reading Ian McDonald’ — Cheryl Morgan

Ian McDonald’s MOON RISING Available in Hungary!

Posted on Tuesday, May 18th, 2021

MOON RISING, the third novel in Ian McDonald‘s acclaimed Luna series, is available now in Hungary! Published by Gabo as HOLDKELTE, and translated by Tamás Gábor, here’s the synopsis…

Száz évvel a jövőben háború dúl az Öt Sárkány – a Hold vezető ipari vállalatait irányító öt család – között. Mind az öt klán foggal-körömmel igyekszik a tápláléklánc csúcsára jutni, és ehhez bevetnek érdekházasságokat, ipari kémkedést, emberrablást és tömeges merényleteket is.

Lucas Corta, a családfő zseniális politikai machinációi és akaratereje révén a veszteségből győzelmet kovácsol, és magához ragadja a Hold feletti uralmat. Az egyetlen, aki útjába állhat, páratlan ügyvéd húga, Ariel.

Ian McDonald Luna-trilógiájának lélegzetelállító fináléjában a Sárkányok ismét összecsapnak a végső hatalomért.

Gabo has also published the first two novels in the Luna series — NEW MOON and WOLF MOON — in Hungary, as ÚJHOLD and ORDASHOLD.

The Luna series is published in the UK by Gollancz and Tor Books in North America. A prequel novella, THE MENACE FROM FARSIDE, is published by Tor.com.

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.

Here are just a few of the great reviews 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)

‘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

‘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

‘… 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

‘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

‘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

New Edition of Ian McDonald’s LUNE DU LOUP available now!

Posted on Thursday, May 13th, 2021

The second novel in Ian McDonald‘s acclaimed Luna series, WOLF MOON, is now available in a new French mass-market paperback edition. Published by Folio SF as LUNE DU LOUP, here’s the synopsis…

Sur la Lune, deux ans après les événements qui ont précipité la chute de la famille Corta, les Mackenzie se sont approprié les restes de leur entreprise. Il n’y a donc plus que quatre « Dragons », ces consortiums familiaux qui se partagent l’exploitation des ressources lunaires et, donc, le pouvoir. Pourtant, les Mackenzie se déchirent sur les cadavres encore frais de leurs ennemis de toujours. Les Sun continuent, discrètement, à élaborer des plans visant à affaiblir leurs adversaires. Les Vorontsov vendent toujours leurs indispensables services au plus offrant. Et les Asamoah tentent tant bien que mal de préserver leur neutralité de façade. Mais le statu quo, même sous gravité réduite, n’est jamais acquis. D’autant que les rares survivants de la famille Corta – blessés, en fuite ou sous la protection d’autres Dragons – n’ont pas dit leur dernier mot.

Avec le deuxième tome de sa trilogie, Ian McDonald continue, sans temps mort, l’exploration minutieuse de sa colonie lunaire, nouveau Far West où tous les coups (bas) sont permis.

Folio SF has also published the first novel in the series, NEW MOON, as NOUVELLE LUNE.

WOLF MOON and the other novels in the Luna series — which also includes MOON RISING (#3) — are published in the UK by Gollancz, in North America by Tor Books, and in a growing number of translated editions. Here’s the English-language synopsis for WOLF MOON…

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 from 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 a 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 between the families erupts.

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

‘… 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

‘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

‘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

‘No one builds a world like Ian McDonald does… 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… 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

‘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

A prequel novella to the series, THE MENACE FROM FARSIDE is also available, published by Tor.com.

Folio also publishes French editions of Ian’s KING OF MORNING, QUEEN OF DAY, RIVER OF GODS, CYBERABAD DAYS, and THE DERVISH HOUSE.

Ian McDonald’s LUNA: MLAD MESEC Out Now in Serbia!

Posted on Tuesday, April 20th, 2021

NEW MOON, the first novel in Ian McDonald‘s acclaimed Luna series, is now available in Serbia! Published by Laguna as MLAD MESEC, here’s the synopsis…

Mesec želi da vas ubije.

Možda će vas ubiti kad ostanete bez dnevnice koja vam je dodeljena za hranu, vodu ili vazduh. Možda će vas ubiti kad ste u klopci između vladajućih korporacija, takozvanih Pet Zmajeva. Na korak od bogatstva, u sumanutom futurističkom feudalnom društvu, na Mesecu morate da se borite za svaki pedalj koji želite da steknete. I upravo je to učinila Adrijana Korta.

Kao vođa najmlađeg Mesečevog Zmaja, Adrijana je preotela kontrolu nad industrijom helijuma 3 od korporacije Makenzi metali i borila se da stekne novi status za svoju porodicu. Sada, pred kraj života, Adrijana shvata da je njena korporacija, Korta helio, suočena sa brojnim neprijateljima koje je stekla tokom svog meteorskog uspona. Ako porodica Korta misli da preživi, petoro Adrijanine dece moraju da odbrane majčino carstvo od brojnih neprijatelja… i jedno od drugog.

This edition is translated by Goran Skrobonja.

NEW MOON and the other novels in the series are published in the UK by Gollancz, in North America by Tor Books, and also in a wide range of translated editions around the world. (See below for a selection of the covers.) Here’s the novel’s English-language synopsis…

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.

Finally, here are just a few of the great reviews NEW MOON has received so far…

‘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

‘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)

‘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

‘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

‘Fans of cerebral, high-concept science fiction will love this exploration of society on the moon many decades after it has been colonized. The focus is more on concept and plot than on character, but the former are compelling enough to make this an addictive page-turner. Including the stories of many characters gives the reader important insights into different facets of society, and although the book starts at a slow pace, it accelerates into a mesmerizing political thriller.’ — RT Book Reviews

‘LUNA: NEW MOON is the best moon novel I’ve seen in many years, but it’s also something of a piece with the recent movement on the part of Paul McAuley, Kim Stanley Robinson, and oth­ers to confine novels to the solar system, out of a realistic assessment that this is likely all we’ll have to work with – but McDonald takes this a step further. 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.’’ Inasmuch as it challenges one of the cherished master narratives of SF, in which the moon is only a stepping-stone, and despite what it owes to the tropes of ’70s-era social melodrama, 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, and he showcases this perfectly in his much-lauded previous work. In LUNA: NEW MOON though, McDonald has clearly perfected this skill… McDonald certainly shows off the well-developed Cortas to illustrate his knack for creating dynamic human relationships that encompass the whole Moon… LUNA: NEW MOON is a world that has been intricately woven together by its author. It’s 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 that buying into it isn’t ever an issue; a vast cast of characters as satisfying and sympathetic individually as they are as part of McDonald’s elaborate ensemble… a world as wicked as it is convincing…’ — Tor.com

Short Fiction Watch: New Stories by Ian McDonald & Lavie Tidhar!

Posted on Tuesday, December 29th, 2020

In the final instalment of Short Fiction Watch of 2020, we want to draw your attention to two recent sci-fi anthologies featuring work by Zeno clients. Specifically: Ian McDonald and Lavie Tidhar.

First up, both authors have stories included in THE 2020 LOOK AT MARS FICTION (pictured above), edited by Allan Kaster. In Ian’s story, THE OLD COSMONAUT AND THE CONSTRUCTION WARKER DREAM OF MARS, which first appeared in 2002’s MARS PROBES collection…

… the lives of a young Indian construction worker and an old Estonian cosmonaut collide during the terraforming of Mars by quantum machines.

Lavie’s TERMINAL, which was first published on Tor.com in 2016, is about…

An improbable group of astronauts are slingshot to Mars in cheap one-person, one-way jalopies…

Finally, Ian has another story in THE 2020 LOOK AT SPACE OPERA BOOK, also edited by Allan Kaster. The collection ‘highlights 20 stellar space operas published over the past 20 years by top-notch authors of the science fiction genre’. Ian’s contribution is BOTANICA VENERIS: THIRTEEN PAPERCUTS BY IDA COUNTESS RATHAGAN, which was first published in Clarkesworld in 2017…

An aristocrat’s trip to Venus, in search of her disgraced brother, is memorialized by papercuts of flora native to the planet…

Ian McDonald’s latest series is Luna, published by Gollancz in the UK and Tor Books in North America — NEW MOON, WOLF MOON, and MOON RISING are all out now. The prequel novella, THE MENACE FROM FARSIDE, is published by Tor.com.

Lavie Tidhar’s latest novel is BY FORCE ALONE, published by Head of Zeus in the UK and Tor Books in North America.

Ian McDonald’s DESOLATION ROAD SF Masterwork Edition is Out Now in the UK!

Posted on Thursday, December 10th, 2020

Today, Ian McDonald‘s DESOLATION ROAD joins the ranks of Gollancz‘s SF Masterworks! The first novel in Ian McDonald‘s Mars duology, which also includes ARES EXPRESS, it was originally published in 1988 and has remained an acclaimed favourite. Here’s the synopsis…

It all started thirty years ago on Mars. By the time it was finished, the town of Desolation Road had been witness to every abnormality yet seen on the Red Planet. From Adam Black’s Wonderful Travelling Chautauqua and Educational ‘Stravaganza, to the Astounding Tatterdemalion Air Bazaar, nowhere else boasts such sights for the wandering lucky traveller.

Its inhabitants are just as storied. From Dr. Alimantando — founder and resident genius — to the Babooshka, a barren grandmother with a child grown in a fruit jar; from Rajendra Das, mechanical hobo whose way with machines bordered on the mystic, to the Gallacelli brothers, identical triplets who fell in love with – and married – the same woman.

There’s nowhere quite like Desolation Road. Once you go there, you may never be the same again.

DESOLATION ROAD joins RIVER OF GODS, Ian’s other SF Masterwork title.

Here are just a few reviews that DESOLATION ROAD has received since it was first published…

‘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.’ — 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.’ — Tor.com

‘This is the kind of novel I long to find yet seldom do. DESOLATION ROAD is a rara avis… Extraordinary and more than that!’ — Philip José Farmer

‘Flavoured with a voice that blends the delightful prose of Jack Vance with the idiosyncratic stylings of Cordwainer Smith, this novel is, most of all, about the dusty town of Desolation Road in the middle of the red Martian desert. Episodic in scope, it would also work as short stories. An elderly couple get lost in the infinite space of their garden, a baby growing in a jar is stolen and replaced with a mango, a man called The Hand plays electric guitar for the clouds and starts the first rain for one hundred and fifty thousand years.’ — SF Site

‘DESOLATION ROAD is a rich, rewarding novel that occupies territory of its own in science fiction. Like Bradbury’s The Martian Chronicles and Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude, it utilizes untamed creativity for literary purpose, wholly succeeding in telling an imagined history that directly comments on the real world with characters as genuine and colorful as those we meet in our daily lives. The fact the story takes place on a Mars where machines come to life, time can be twisted, and the air can crackle with purple and blue static makes no difference; the realism is all there beneath the sparkling surface… if you are looking for the literary side or something wildly unique in the genre, this is it.’ — Speculiction

DESOLATION ROAD and ARES EXPRESS are published in North America by JABberwocky.

Ian’s latest series, Luna, is published by Gollancz in the UK, Tor Books in North America, and in a growing number of translated editions around the world.

Gollancz also publishes Ian’s NECROVILLE, BRASYL, CYBERABAD DAYS and THE DERVISH HOUSE in the UK.