From Library Journal
ea. vol: Spectra: Bantam. Feb. 1988. sf Founded by accident in the Martian desert by a scientist obsessed with the nature of time, the town of Desolation Road grows from a whistle stop on the Bethlehem Ares Railroad to a stronghold of freedom ranged against the ROTECH bureaucracy. The loves, hates, and intrigues of the town's residents come to life and build to a vivid climax in this compellingly executed novel. In Empire Dreams , McDonald's craft as a storyteller takes on smaller dimensions but remains intact. Ranging from the inner torment of Vincent Van Gogh ("Unfinished Portrait of the King of Pain by Van Gogh") to a young boy's private battle for life in modern Belfast ("Empire Dreams"), the author finds evidence of the fantastic in unlikely settings. Both books are highly recommended. JC
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Review
"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." --
SFSite"Ian McDonald's
Desolation Road is one of the books that has influenced me the most as a writer. Funny and sad and wildly imaginative... What a book!" --
Cory Doctorow"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
