Book Author :: Ian McDonald

You may have already noticed, but there’s this little fever burning through the public at large right now concerning a certain speculative fiction series. Its novels are door-stoppers, its HBO episodes are reportedly hitting $15M a piece to produce, and it doesn’t take a rocket scientist (heh-heh) to realize that hitching your ride to such a wagon might not be the worst idea in the world if you’re looking to make a few bucks. It’s also available for attaching parallels that can instantly make a connection to the minds of many readers. So, seeing this book’s predecessor described as “A Game of Moons”, is sure to pull in more than a few readers, yeah? You’d think. But the difficult part in all of that would be the actual story, and whether it can stand up to such a comparison to a story that is loved by, literally, millions. Maybe you all can see where I’m going with this, and if you happen to remember my review of that last book, it’ll probably even be an easier line to pick up.
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After getting a taste of all of the excitement surrounding the SyFy production of The Expanse, it came as no real surprise to me that other TV networks might want to try and jump on the proverbial band wagon. CBS recently announced that they are going to be producing a new TV series based on this novel, and thus I was more than a little intrigued to read this one and see just what kind of “competition” CBS would be trying to bring to the table.
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You know him for his Science Fiction like THE DERVISH HOUSE (EBR Review) and others, but now Ian McDonald invades YA territory with PLANESRUNNER (Amazon) and a world where the Earth exists in almost limitless parallel universes.

Our PoV character is teenage Everett Singh, soccer goalie, science smarty-pants, and son of the brilliant Tejendra Singh, who created the infundibulum–a sort of map to the parallel universes, or “planes”. Before now only the ten Earths that have been able to create gateways can visit each other, but with Tejendra’s invention any earth can be jumped to. But agents from the E2 plane will do anything to get the infundibulum, even kidnap Tejendra from under Everett’s very nose. Little do they know that it’s Everett who his dad left it to for safekeeping, and he’ll do anything to rescue his dad.
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THE DERVISH HOUSE (Amazon) is Ian McDonald’s latest near future SF tale set in an up-and-coming country. Recently he has covered the near future of India in RIVER OF THE GODS (Amazon) and then Brazil in BRASYL (Amazon). Both of those books made the Hugo Award shortlist for their respective years and I have no doubt that this one will too.
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