The Best of Ian McDonald

The Best of Ian McDonald
Author: Ian McDonald
Publisher:
Total Pages: 546
Release: 2016-04
Genre: Science fiction, English
ISBN: 9781848638907

"Ian McDonald, the author of such landmark novels as Desolation Road, Chaga, River of Gods, and The Dervish House, has long been regarded as one of Britain's finest SF writers. Just like those full-length works, his shorter fiction has commanded much admiration, and now, in this massive retrospective volume, the best McDonald tales are assembled in glittering array. Represented here are all the phases of McDonald's career: the poetic early retro-visions that in the late Eighties signalled the arrival of a marvellously fluent new stylistic voice; the virtuoso Nineties riffs on themes such as the Irish Troubles, nanotechnology, alternate history, and alien sexuality; the bold post-millennial ventures into the futuristic politics of Third World countries such as Kenya, India, and Brazil, as well as far afield to alien solar systems; and recent, dazzlingly conceived variations on the Arab Spring, the nature of superheroes, and Mars as pulp SF writers once fondly imagined it to be. The treasures are abundant, each presented in McDonald’s addictive, immersive prose--language at once elegantly timeless and edgily contemporary."--Publisher's statement.

River of Gods

River of Gods
Author: Ian McDonald
Publisher: Prometheus Books
Total Pages: 658
Release: 2009-09-18
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1591028116

As Mother India approaches her centenary, nine people are going about their business — a gangster, a cop, his wife, a politician, a stand-up comic, a set designer, a journalist, a scientist, and a dropout. And so is Aj — the waif, the mind-reader, the prophet — when she one day finds a man who wants to stay hidden. In the next few weeks, they will all be swept together to decide the fate of the nation. River of Gods teems with the life of a country choked with peoples and cultures — one and a half billion people, twelve semi-independent nations, nine million gods. Ian McDonald has written the great Indian novel of the new millennium, in which a war is fought, a love betrayed, a message from a different world decoded, as the great river Ganges flows on.

Chaga

Chaga
Author: Ian McDonald
Publisher: Jabberwocky Literary Agency, Inc.
Total Pages: 536
Release: 2013-11-21
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1625670702

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. Note: Chaga was published in the UK under the title Evolution's Shore. REVIEWS "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 "...inventive and challenging... [an] often fascinating piece of speculation." – Kirkus

Luna: Moon Rising

Luna: Moon Rising
Author: Ian McDonald
Publisher: Tor Books
Total Pages: 448
Release: 2019-03-19
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0765391473

A LOCUS AWARD FINALIST FOR SCIENCE FICTION The continuing saga of the Five Dragons, Ian McDonald's fast-paced, intricately plotted space opera pitched as Game of Thrones meets The Expanse 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. Luna 1. Luna: New Moon 2. Luna: Wolf Moon 3. Luna: Moon Rising

Luna: Wolf Moon

Luna: Wolf Moon
Author: Ian McDonald
Publisher: Macmillan + ORM
Total Pages: 428
Release: 2017-03-28
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1466847646

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. Luna: Wolf Moon continues Ian McDonald's saga of the Five Dragons. Luna 1. Luna: New Moon 2. Luna: Wolf Moon 3. Luna: Moon Rising At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

Cyberabad Days

Cyberabad Days
Author: Ian McDonald
Publisher: Prometheus Books
Total Pages: 300
Release: 2010-03-19
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1591028418

This collection of seven stories and a thirty-one thousand word original novella revisits the vivid world of near future India that McDonald so successfully depicted in River of Gods (a BSFA Award winner). Readers will discover 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 outnumber females four to one. This future India has fractured into a dozen states from Kerala to the headwaters of the Ganges in the Himalayas. Includes one Hugo Award nominee and one Hugo Award winner. From the Trade Paperback edition.

Brasyl

Brasyl
Author: Ian McDonald
Publisher: Prometheus Books
Total Pages: 397
Release: 2010-01-28
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1591028221

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.

Kirinya

Kirinya
Author: Ian McDonald
Publisher: Jabberwocky Literary Agency, Inc.
Total Pages: 562
Release: 2013-12-11
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1625670710

The end of the universe happened at around ten o’clock at night on 22 December, 2032. It’s just that humanity hasn’t realized it yet. And the Chaga, the strange flora deposited from the stars, is still busy terraforming the tropics into someone else’s terra. Gaby McAslan was once a hungry news reporter who compromised her relationship with UNECTA researcher Dr. Shepard for the sake of her story... but Gaby is no longer a journalist and she doesn’t want to be a full-time mother, even though her child Serena is her last link with Shepard. Gaby’s fire has gone out; she’s gone soft. But the massive political and military upheavals rocking the world are about to drag her back into the action. REVIEWS "This is a huge and ambitious novel, the work of a supremely talented writer approaching the top of his game." – SFX "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

Time Was

Time Was
Author: Ian McDonald
Publisher: Macmillan + ORM
Total Pages: 95
Release: 2018-04-24
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0765391457

Ian McDonald weaves a love story across an endless expanse with his science fiction novella Time Was A love story stitched across time and war, shaped by the power of books, and ultimately destroyed by it. In the heart of World War II, Tom and Ben became lovers. Brought together by a secret project designed to hide British targets from German radar, the two founded a love that could not be revealed. When the project went wrong, Tom and Ben vanished into nothingness, presumed dead. Their bodies were never found. Now the two are lost in time, hunting each other across decades, leaving clues in books of poetry and trying to make their desperate timelines overlap. At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

Scissors Cut Paper Wrap Stone

Scissors Cut Paper Wrap Stone
Author: Ian McDonald
Publisher: Jabberwocky Literary Agency, Inc.
Total Pages: 246
Release: 2019-04-05
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1625674031

“Cyberpunk’s first lyrical poem, mixing Kabbalah, manga, pop-culture trivia and Zen with enough style and dexterity to actually pull it off . . . [McDonald] does more in a page than most writers do in a chapter.” —Neal Stephenson Words can control you, words can make you act against your own will...and words can kill. Ethan Ring discovers computer graphics with profound effects on human minds—fracters. Dark political forces want his power, and Ethan must face the consequences of his creation, and his actions. In search of redemption, he embarks on an ancient thousand-mile pilgrimage, but can he ever escape the forces that once controlled him, and can he resist the power of the deadly images tattooed onto his hands? This ebook edition also includes the 2008 novella, The Tear.