Ian McDonald (British author)

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Template:Short description Template:EngvarB Template:Use dmy dates Template:Infobox writer Ian McDonald (born 1960) is a British science fiction novelist, living in Belfast. His themes include nanotechnology, postcyberpunk settings, and the impact of rapid social and technological change on non-Western societies.

Early life

Ian McDonald was born in 1960, in Manchester, to a Scottish father and Irish mother. He moved to Belfast when he was five and has lived there ever since. He lived through the whole of the Troubles (1968–1999), and his sensibility has been permanently shaped by coming to understand Northern Ireland as a postcolonial society imposed on an older culture.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

Career

McDonald sold his first story to a local Belfast magazine when he was 22, and in 1987 became a full-time writer.<ref>John Lennard, Ian McDonald: Chaga / Evolution's Shore (Tirril: Humanities-Ebooks, 2007), p. 7.</ref> He has also worked in TV consultancy within Northern Ireland, contributing scripts to the Northern Irish Sesame Workshop production of Sesame Tree.Template:Citation needed

McDonald's debut novel was Desolation Road (1988), which takes place on a far future Mars in a town that develops around an oasis in the terraformed Martian desert.<ref name="Desolation">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> He published a sequel, Ares Express, in 2001.<ref name="Ares">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}Template:Dead link</ref>

Published between 1995 and 2000, the novels Chaga (US title Evolution's Shore) and Kirinya, with the novella Tendeléo's Story, form the 'Chaga Saga', which chronicles the effects of an alien flora introduced to Earth, and also analyses the AIDS crisis in Africa. The protagonist is Ulster journalist Gaby McAslin, whose outsider's eye both observes the African landscape and sees what the "UN quarantine zone" is doing to Kenya and Kenyans. Gaby's story, with that of her daughter, continues in Kirinya. Tendeléo's Story is seen through the eyes of a young Kenyan girl who escapes to the UK, only to be deported back to Kenya as an unwanted alien.

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McDonald's River of Gods (2004) is set in mid-21st-century India; it won the BSFA Award, and was nominated for a Hugo Award and a Arthur C. Clarke Award. Brasyl (2007) is set in the 18th and 21st centuries in Lusophone South America; it won the BSFA award,<ref name="WWE-2007">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> and was nominated for a Hugo Award and the Warwick Prize for Writing. McDonald began his Everness series of young adult fiction novels in 2011 with Planesrunner.<ref name="PW Planes">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref name="KR Planes">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> He said in a 2014 interview, "I didn't want to get stuck doing the same SF books over and over, successful though they may be. I didn't want to keep writing books about the developing economy of the year—India, Brazil. I could feel myself getting trapped in that."<ref name="Locus Xeno">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> He has written two Everness sequels, Be My Enemy (2012),<ref name="KR Enemy">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref name="enemy">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> and Empress of the Sun (2014).<ref name="empress">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

McDonald published Luna: New Moon, the first volume of a proposed science fiction duology, in 2015.<ref name="Locus Xeno"/><ref name="Tor 2015-09">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref name="Doctorow">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> It explores the dangerous intrigue that surrounds the five powerful families who control industry on the Moon.<ref name="Locus Xeno"/> McDonald said of the novel in August 2014, "I’m still writing about developing economies, it’s just that this one happens to be on the Moon."<ref name="Locus Xeno"/> Before critics called the novel "Game of Thrones in space",<ref name="Tor 2015-09"/><ref name="io9 review">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref name="Guardian 2015">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> McDonald himself dubbed it "Game of Domes" and "Dallas in space".<ref name="Locus Xeno"/> Luna was optioned for development as a television series before its release.<ref name="io9 review"/><ref name="DL 2015-08">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> The sequel, Luna: Wolf Moon, was released in March 2017.<ref name="Tor Wolf Cover">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> A third novel, Luna: Moon Rising,<ref name="Verge">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> was released in March 2019.<ref name="Macmillan Moon Rising">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> McDonald previously published the novelette "The Fifth Dragon", a prequel to Luna in the same setting, in the 2014 anthology Reach for Infinity.<ref name="Locus Xeno"/><ref name="Fifth Dragon">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref name="Tor Infinity">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

McDonald's Time Was, a time travel romance novella about two men, was released in April 2018.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

Awards

Won

  • Locus Award – First Novel (1989): Desolation Road
  • Philip K. Dick Award – Best Collection (1991): King of Morning, Queen of Day<ref name="WWE-1991">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

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Nominations

Ian McDonald at Eurocon/Swecon 2011 in Stockholm.

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Selected bibliography

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Desolation Road series

Chaga saga

India in 2047

Everness series

Luna series

  • Luna: New Moon (2015)<ref name="Locus Xeno"/><ref name="Tor 2015-09"/><ref name="Doctorow"/>
  • Luna: Wolf Moon (2017)<ref name="Tor Wolf Cover"/>
  • Luna: Moon Rising (2019)<ref name="Verge"/><ref name="Macmillan Moon Rising"/>
  • The Menace from Farside (novella) (2019)<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

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Other novels

  • Out on Blue Six (1989)
  • King of Morning, Queen of Day (1991)
  • Hearts, Hands and Voices (1992, US: The Broken Land)
  • Necroville (1994, US: Terminal Café)
  • Sacrifice of Fools (1996)
  • Brasyl (2007)
  • The Dervish House (2010)
  • Time Was (2018)
  • Hopeland (2023)
  • The Wilding (2024)
  • Boy, with Accidental Dinosaur (2026)

See also

References

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External resources

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