Ian McDonald

Cyberabad Days Nominated for 2009 Philip K. Dick Award

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The judges of the 2009 Philip K, Dick Award have announced the list of nominees, and we are absolutely thrilled that Ian McDonald’s Cyberabad Days made the list! Here’s the press release!

For Immediate Release:

 2009 Philip K. Dick Award Nominees Announced

The judges of the 2009 Philip K. Dick Award and the Philadelphia SF Society, along with the Philip K. Dick Trust, are pleased to announce seven nominated works that comprise the final ballot for the award:

BITTER ANGELS by C. L. Anderson (Ballantine Books/Spectra)
THE PRISONER by Carlos J. Cortes (Ballantine Books/Spectra)
THE REPOSSESSION MAMBO by Eric Garcia (Harper)
THE DEVIL’S ALPHABET by Daryl Gregory (Del Rey)
CYBERABAD DAYS by Ian McDonald (Pyr)
CENTURIES AGO AND VERY FAST by Rebecca Ore (Aqueduct Press)
PROPHETS by S. Andrew Swann (DAW Books)

First prize and any special citations will be announced on Friday, April 2, 2010 at Norwescon 33 at the Doubletree Seattle Airport Hotel, SeaTac, Washington.

The Philip K. Dick Award is presented annually with the support of the Philip K. Dick Trust for distinguished science fiction published in paperback original form in the United States.  The award is sponsored by the Philadelphia Science Fiction Society and the Philip K. Dick Trust and the award ceremony is sponsored by the NorthWest Science Fiction Society.  Last year’s winners were EMISSARIES FROM THE DEAD by Adam-Troy Castro (Eos Books) and TERMINAL MIND by David Walton (Meadowhawk Press).  The 2009 judges are Daniel Abraham (chair), Eileen Gunn, Karen Hellekson, Elaine Isaak, and Marc Laidlaw.

For more information, contact the award administration:
David G. Hartwell (914) 769-5545.
Gordon Van Gelder (201) 876-2551

For more information about the Philadelphia Science Fiction Society, http://www.psfs.org/: 
Contact Gary Feldbaum (215) 665-5752

For more information about the Philip K. Dick Trust: www.philipkdick.com

For more information about Norwescon:  http://www.norwescon.org/
Contact NorthWest SF Society: (425) 686-9737

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More Best of 2009

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Dark Wolf’s Fantasy Reviews have published their Awards for 2009. The UK edition of Jasper Kent’s Twelve, which we’ll be releasing in 2010, comes in #4 in their Top Ten Reads. Meanwhile, Stephan Martiniere’s illustration for Ian McDonald’s Desolation Roadis one of the winners of Best Cover Artwork.

While over at Book Chick City, they list their Top Ten Most Anticipated Reads 2010, and George Mann’s Ghosts of Manhattanshows up at # 7.

Rock on.

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Bookgasm: 5 Best Sci-Fi Books of 2009

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Ryun Patterson of Bookgasm has posted his 5 Best Sci-Fi Books of 2009, and, as in past years, we’re very pleased with the number of Pyr books in (and in this case around) the list. Paul McAuley’s The Quiet Warcomes in at Number 5. Note also the honorable mention for Ian McDonald’s Cyberabad Days, that all three “anticipated” 2010 titles are from Pyr (Geosynchron, Desolation Road,& Ghosts of Manhattan), and the “hypothetical ‘Books of the Decade'” that would include Brasyland River of Gods. Nice!

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Pat’s Fantasy Hotlist: 2009 Year-End Awards

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Pat’s Fantasy Hotlist has posted their 2009 Year-End Awards. Ian McDonald’s Cyberabad Dayscomes in at #8 in their TOP 10 SPECULATIVE FICTION TITLES OF 2009, while the UK edition of Jasper Kent’s Twelve comes in at #6 and gets “BEST DEBUT” (we’re publishing in 2010. Please wait for it.) Kay Kenyon’s City Without End, just misses the Top Ten at #13. Meanwhile, I’m honored to have gotten the MVP AWARD. Pat writes:

The heart and soul behind the Pyr imprint, this man is pretty damn close to being a genius. Though he’s the head of a smaller publishing house and hence cannot compete financially with the genre powerhouses, Lou Anders always managed to put out a wide array of quality speculative fiction titles every year. He’s like the general manager of a small-market team who always finds a way to get the players he needs for the team to make the playoffs. And with what he and the Pyr crew has in store for 2009 as they celebrate the imprint’s 5th anniversary, this could be Pyr’s biggest year yet! Long live!=)

Probably not a genius. But smart enough not to argue with this.

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For Your Viewing Pleasure: The Dervish House

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The Dervish House© Ian McDonald
Cover Illustration © Stephan Martiniere
Design by Jacqueline Cooke
In the sleepy Istanbul district of Eskiköy stands the former whirling dervish house of Adem Dede. Over the space of five days of an Istanbul heatwave, six lives weave a story of corporate wheeling and dealing, Islamic mysticism, political and economic intrigue, ancient Ottoman mysteries, a terrifying new terrorist threat, and a nanotechnology with the potential to transform every human on the planet.

Coming July 2010

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Ian McDonald’s brilliant Mars book, DESOLATION ROAD, finally back in print

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Wonderful praise from Cory Doctorow over at Boing Boing for Ian McDonald’s Desolation Road. Doctorow calls it “one of my most personally influential novel” and compares the book to Kim Stanley Robinson’s famous Mars trilogy, adding, “the two are very good companions, in that McDonald captures almost everything Robinson got (in a third of the number of pages), and adds the poetry and spirituality of Mars in the bargain.”

He goes on to say that 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. Spanning centuries, the book includes transcendent math, alternate realities, corporate dystopias, travelling carnivals, post-singularity godlike AIs, geoengineering, and mechanical hobos, each integral to the plot.”

Yup.

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Give Hope, and Ian McDonald, a Chance

Derek Shearer, Professor of Diplomacy at Occidental College and former US ambassador, writing in The Huffington Post, on “Give Hope A Chance: The Renewal of Summer.” He speaks of his wife’s faith in Obama, the poignant feelings from his sister’s recent passing, and, his summer reading:

“I’ve also begun reading novels by British ‘science fiction’ writer Ian McDonald about other rising powers — India and Brazil. In River of Godsand the sequel, Cyberabad Days,the writer depicts the India of 2047 as a superpower of one-and-a-half billion in an age of climate change and technological advance — water wars, genetically improved children — and a country that has fractured into a dozen separatist states. Similarly, McDonald’s novel Brasylis a portrait of near-future Brazil and the lives of a Rio TV producer, a self-made businessman up from the slums of Sao Paulo, and a Jesuit missionary on a mission in the 18th century. It won the British Science Fiction award. The books are well written, semi-plausible and offer a non-American-centric view of the near future — something that is hard to get from reading or listening to US media cover how the President killed a fly on the air, what Newt Gingrich has to say, or the continuing adventures of Sarah Palin and her family.”

Very glad you are enjoying the books, Derek. Next year will see the release of The Dervish House, set in Turkey in an even-nearer future. In the meantime, I hope you get your wish!

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For Your Viewing Pleasure: Desolation Road

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Cover Illustration © Stephan Martiniere
Design by Jacqueline Cooke

It all began 30 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 Chataqua and Educational Stravaganza (complete with its very own captive angel) to the Astounding Tatterdemalion Air Bazaar. It’s 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.


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Too Much Pyr News to Keep Track of!

You go out of town for a week, and look what happens:

Ian McDonald’s Brasylhas made the short list for the Nebula Awards!! Meanwhile over on Boing Boing, fellow-nominee Cory Doctorow (Little Brother) reviews Ian McDonald’s Cyberabad Days:

“Ian McDonald is one of science fiction’s finest working writers, and his latest short story collection Cyberabad Days, is the kind of book that showcases exactly what science fiction is for. …Cyberabad Days has it all: spirituality, technology, humanity, love, sex, war, environmentalism, politics, media — all blended together to form a manifesto of sorts, a statement about how technology shapes and is shaped by all the wet, gooey human factors. Every story is simultaneously a cracking yarn, a thoughtful piece of technosocial criticism, and a bag of eyeball kicks that’ll fire your imagination. The field is very lucky to have Ian McDonald working in it.”

And Nick Gevers interviews McDonald on SciFi Wire:

“The title Cyberabad Days is a deliberate echo of the Arabian Nights. The stories are fairy tales of New Delhi. River was an Indian—novel, fat, many-voiced, wide-screen; Cyberabad Days is tales. Mumbai movies tell stories in ways that challenge our Western aesthetics and values. They’re not afraid of sentiment, they’re not afraid of big acting, or putting in song and dance, because Bollywood cinema’s not supposed to be a mimetic art form. It’s not about realism—that most pernicious of Western values—it’s a show.”

On io9, Charlie Jane Anders interviews Infoquakeand MultiRealauthor David Louis Edelman:

“I began with a vision of a futuristic world, and worked backwards to figure out how everything came together. Most of the backstory came about when I was writing the early chapters of Infoquake and just started randomly filling things in. When I’d get stuck writing the story proper, I’d just spend some time writing background articles. This kind of thing has always been attractive to me. I was the kid who bought AD&D modules just because I liked to read them, even though I didn’t have anyone to play AD&D with. I’m the guy who always liked The Silmarillion better than The Lord of the Rings.”

On the Adventures in SciFi Publishing podcast episode 75, host Shaun Farrel interviews End of the Centuryauthor Chris Roberson! Here’s the direct download link. (And, as a reminder, here is part one and part two of my massive Tor.com piece on Roberson’s entire career. Part two wasn’t up when I left town.)

These guys are making it hard for me to get caught up!

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