CBS options Ian McDonald's LUNA books for TV

In a surprising move, the American CBS network has picked up the TV rights to Ian McDonald's Luna duology. The first novel, New Moon is not even published until 17 September.

Shane Brennan, the showrunner of NCIS: Los Angeles, picked up the right after a bidding war with rival broadcasters. The book is set in 2110 when the moon has been colonised and heavy industry has created a booming economy. Five powerful business families control the moon, one of which is targeted for a hostile takeover. It falls to the matriarch of the family and her five children to defend themselves.

The book has picked up some good pre-release press, but being optioned like this is surprising and good news for Ian McDonald. More than one commentator has picked up on possible similarities to  Dallas (McDonald has even called Luna "Dallas on the Moon") and Fox's family music drama Empire, except that Luna will presumably actually be watchable.

The Dervish House by Ian McDonald

Istanbul, the Queen of Cities, the bridge between east and west, in 2027 freshly-accepted into the European Union and now awash with new money and new technology. Nanotech is the future, tiny machines which can power amazing toys, keep you healthy, dig out that cancer and, whether you want them to or not, rewire your brain.


A suicide bomber destroys an Istanbul tram, but only the bomber dies. The explosion forms a crucible around which the lives of the inhabitants of an old dervish house intertwine: a boy detective with a weak heart and a robot monkey sidekick, a Greek economist burying his head in the wreckage of the past, and an art gallery owner and her trader boyfriend with the ultimate get-rich-quick scheme. For this is an important week for Turkey, as corporations fall, new technology emerges, religious visions occur and vital football games are played.

The Dervish House is one of the more eagerly-awaited SF novels of 2010, the thematic follow-up to McDonald's River of Gods (India in the 21st Century) and Brasyl (Brazil in the 21st Century). This time he tackles Turkey, a country torn between east and west, Islam and secularism, Europe and the Middle-East, and argues that this vibrant nation could become an economic and technological powerhouse in the non-too-distant future. He also makes some pretty bold predictions, setting the book a mere 17 years in the future in a world which is radically more advanced than ours in several areas. Will nanotech explode into being and transform people's lives as completely and as rapidly as he suggests in the novel? It will be interesting to see if this happens.


Beyond the technological aspects, this is a book about the people of the dervish house. Structurally we move between several POV characters who live in the different apartments of the house and follow their stories as they gradually become more intertwined with one another, building to a satisfying climax. The individual stories, centred on multi-layered characters, are compelling. They range from the attempts by Necdet to deal with sudden eruption of djinn visions to Can the Boy Detective and his nanotech-driven robot sidekick's adventures across the Istanbul rooftops to Georgios Ferentinou's melancholy attempts to put right a wrong almost fifty years in the past, and their eventual combination in various and unexpected ways is well-handled.

The book has its moments of cruelty (the dark side of life in Turkey is definitely not glossed over), but there is also a wry humour here, if less overtly joyful than Brasyl's. It is difficult not to compare The Dervish House to its predecessor and find some elements lacking: Brasyl is simultaneously tighter thematically with fewer POV characters, but also lighter, funnier and more immediately intriguing. The Dervish House definitely doesn't really get going until its second half. That said, The Dervish House is also somewhat less out-and-out insane with a more restrained, more believable and much more elegant conclusion. McDonald's prose remains as pleasing to read as ever, with rhythm and cadence changing from character to character satisfyingly.

The Dervish House (****½) is a fascinating, thought-provoking, challenging and engrossing novel. It is available on 27 July in the USA and 29 July in the UK (although some American readers have reported already seeing copies on shelves).

New deals for Joe Abercrombie and Ian McDonald

One of the things to come out at the Gemmell Awards (apparently previously announced, although I couldn't find online confirmation) was that Joe Abercrombie has signed a new four-book deal with Gollancz. This deal with kick-off with a new stand-alone fantasy novel set in the First Law world (the previously-mentioned 'sort-of Western') and will be followed by, "Books, containing words and pages," according to Joe at the event. Joe also confirmed that The Heroes has had its second draft turned in and is well on course for meeting its January 2011 publication date in both the UK and USA.

There was also word that the US release schedule for Patrick Rothfuss' The Wise Man's Fear will be matched in the UK: if he hands the book in before September, the book will be released in Spring 2011. Any later than that and it will fall back to Autumn 2011. They also hope to have a final date for Scott Lynch's Republic of Thieves in the near future, but Spring 2011 remains the hoped-for (but definitely not set in stone) date for that book as well.

Meanwhile, Ian McDonald has signed to write a YA title for Pyr Books in the USA.

Brasyl by Ian McDonald

In River of Gods, Ian McDonald's award-winning 2004 novel, the author explored the future of India, a country not normally noted for its appearances in SF. Brasyl is a thematic sequel, set in another country which receives short shrift in depictions of the century ahead. It is also an accomplished, startling novel which I wouldn't be surprised to see walk off with the Hugo next year.

Brasyl is split into three narrative strands and the novel alternates between them sequentially. In Rio de Janeiro in 2006, a reality TV producer named Marcelina pitches a killer idea for a new show that sees her tracking down a retired footballer blamed for disgracing his country in a former World Cup defeat. However, a mysterious woman seems out to wreck Marcelina's life and her career.

In Sao Paulo in 2032, a city watched over by satellites where criminals must be tech-savvy in order to survive, a thief named Edson finds himself embroiled in a strange sequence of events revolving around quantum computers and a beautiful computer scientist.

In 1732 a Jesuit priest named Quinn is tasked by his superiors to travel up the Amazon in search of a priest who has gone rogue and is carving out his own kingdom as a false messiah. This Heart of Darkness-style journey leads Quinn into a very unusual place, and the key which binds these three stories together.

Brasyl is a remarkably assured, accomplished book. It is an SF epic that explores quantum science more successfully than just about any other attempt at it in fiction to date. It is partly an evocative description of a fascinating country, bringing Brazil to life in a remarkable fashion. The hot jungles, the music, the people, the dances and the whole atmosphere of the country is brought to life in a highly vivid manner, even if McDonald's casual use of Brazilian terminology soon has you scrambling for the Portugese glossary at the rear of the book on a regular basis. It is beautifully written, but not at the expense of a highly intriguing story or fascinating characters. There is a lot of humour here (the opening sequence where one of Marcelina's programme ideas backfires is a prime example), as well as unexpected action, a lot of it involving the Q-Blade, a futuristic energy weapon that makes lightsabres look clumsy in comparison.

What is most impressive is how each of these three storylines develops in turn, involving the reader in each cast of characters before switching to another POV, and then another. I suspect readers will come to like some of these characters more than others, and will be tempted to skip the characters they like less. This would be a major mistake, as the storylines' combined development works both thematically (as the three, arguably four, main POV characters develop in tandem, allowing the reader to contrast their differing reactions to their circumstances) and literally, as McDonald pulls off a late, game-changing plot development that would be lessened by reading any one of the storylines in isolation.

Brasyl is a remarkable novel, causing the reader to think and ponder the significance of the storyline (probably whilst pondering how much a holiday to Rio would cost) for some time after it is finished. There are some very minor flaws - a series of exposition-heavy sequences near the end of the book feel a tad out of place and unnecessary - but it overcomes these with aplomb.

Brasyl (*****) is available in the USA from Pyr Books now (note: please avoid the Harriet Klausner review on the link as it does spoil the major plot revelation from the end of the book). It will be published on 21 June by Gollancz in the UK.