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Desolation Road (Desolation Road Universe #1)

3.86 of 5 stars 3.86 · rating details · 526 ratings · 86 reviews

"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

"Flavoured with a voice that blends the delightful prose of Jack...more

Mass Market Paperback

Published by Spectra Books (first published 1988)

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Apr 18, 2013 Richard rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This review has been revised and can now be found at Shelf Inflicted and Expendable Mudge Muses Aloud.

28 likes · like · see review

Aug 10, 2009 Jacob rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 2008-2009, sci-fi-fantasy-etc

August 2009

This is the story of Desolation Road, a ramshackle, hodgepodge little town of misfits that, over the course of its decades-long existence, would grow to be the home of scandals, time travelers, a religious movement, terror cells, labor disputes, a baby in a jar, and an all-out war which would, briefly, turn the accidental colony into the most important place on Mars.

Despite its sci-fi setting, Desolation Road fits more in the magical realism genre with its colorful setting and dreamli...more

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Aug 18, 2007 Eva rated it 4 of 5 stars

I have five words for you: Gabriel Garcia Marquez on Mars.

If that doesn't make you want to read this book, I don't want to know you.

13 likes · like · see review

May 21, 2012 Daniel Roy rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: sf, taw-bookclub, magic-realism

Desolation Road is a the magic realist tale of the birth, life, and ultimate destiny, of a desert town. It just so happens that this town is set on a terraformed Mars.

I'm a big fan of Ian McDonald since reading the brilliant The Dervish House, and this, his first novel, has many of the hallmarks of his future talent. There's the stellar prose, of course; often brilliant, sometimes good enough that you want to put down the book to applaud. There's this sense of worldliness: his futuristic Mars is...more Desolation Road is a the magic realist tale of the birth, life, and ultimate destiny, of a desert town. It just so happens that this town is set on a terraformed Mars.

I'm a big fan of Ian McDonald since reading the brilliant The Dervish House, and this, his first novel, has many of the hallmarks of his future talent. There's the stellar prose, of course; often brilliant, sometimes good enough that you want to put down the book to applaud. There's this sense of worldliness: his futuristic Mars is not a mere projection of Western culture, but a cool patchwork of many different societies, including Middle Eastern, South Asian, and African. There's the plethora of characters, sometimes barely more than a sketch, but never boring nor cliché. And, above all, there's a powerful sense of place, of location as character, as we see the town of Desolation Road grow from a one-man outpost, to an industrial hotbed and beyond.

There isn't much about this book that's conventional SF in any way. Despite being set on something approaching Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars, McDonald takes Arthur C. Clarke's "any sufficiently advanced technology" maxim for a spin, by using SF brushes to paint a deeply fantastic world. The foundations of the novel may be hard science fiction, but the execution is fantastic, even mythological and messianic in parts. A sense of wonder permeates the story's fantastical elements, a sense that miracles are possible, that magic exists in this technological world. The narrative keeps the reader off-balance, as it introduces new SF concepts at inopportune moments, instead of laying them out early on and staying consistent with them. Elsewhere it would be a terrible flaw, but here it's sheer brilliance.

The novel evolves more as a patchwork of individual stories than a series of linear events. Throughout the course of the narrative, we meet three generations of Desolation Road inhabitants, and the side-characters keep piling on. Almost all chapters function as snapshots or short stories using Desolation Road as its setting, which makes for a whimsical though uneven read. Eventually the stories coalesce; but paradoxically, this is where the book loses some of its impact. When all the characters converge for a final act, it becomes hard to keep track of who is who. Furthermore, the whimsical tone of the previous chapters means that it's hard to take sides when a real conflict erupts. Given the gentleness of the tone of the first 300 pages, the final act of the novel are filled with a terrible amount of noise and blood.

If there's one major flaw to the novel, it's the sheer volume of inventiveness and characters that McDonald throws in. There's enough here for at least five different novels, and some of the ideas and characters begin to trip on one another after a while. Characters who had been introduced fifty pages earlier pop up unexpectedly, sometimes so out of context that it's hard to remember who they are. SF concepts struggle for breathing space.

But when it's not trying to stir up a reality-shattering conflict, in the quieter parts of its narrative, Desolation Road is brilliant in its evocative restraint, in the wonders it pulls from the terraformed Martian soil. Some stories, like that of the guitar-wielding Hand, or the emprisoned angel, were beautiful SF of a sort I had never read before. And in this, Desolation Road far exceeds its biggest flaws.(less)

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Jun 11, 2012 Terry rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Recommended to Terry by: Richard

Shelves: sci-fi, fantasy

4 – 4.5 stars

I was reminded, while reading _Desolation Road_, of two authors in particular: John Crowley and Gene Wolfe. This is not to say that I think Ian McDonald was in any way aping them or merely writing some kind of amalgamated pastiche, but there were elements to his tale that made both author’s names spring to mind. I think the first one was Wolfe, largely because of the way in which McDonald made the magical seem almost commonplace (or was it that the commonplace was made to seem magic...more 4 – 4.5 stars

I was reminded, while reading _Desolation Road_, of two authors in particular: John Crowley and Gene Wolfe. This is not to say that I think Ian McDonald was in any way aping them or merely writing some kind of amalgamated pastiche, but there were elements to his tale that made both author’s names spring to mind. I think the first one was Wolfe, largely because of the way in which McDonald made the magical seem almost commonplace (or was it that the commonplace was made to seem magical?) in a way that reminded me of the inversions of the various aspects of the world in both Wolfe’s New Sun and Long Sun series, not to mention the presence of time-travelling Green Men, technological angels and various other oddities. It is almost as though Clarke’s 3rd law has undergone an apotheosis and is not merely a case of technology being incomprehensible such that it seems magical, but that it truly has melded with the magical to produce a sort of moebius strip in which we don’t know where the technology ends and the magic begins. I was reminded of Crowley primarily in the poetic prose and gently fable-like aspects of the story which called to mind some elements of my favourite Crowley work Engine Summer. There is also the fact that this is a generational epic, telling the story of Mars from the perspective of the families that make up the founding members of the tiny habitation of Desolation Road and their descendants, not altogether unlike Crowley’s own generational epic Little, Big, though I enjoyed McDonald’s efforts far more than Crowley’s in this case.

Many reviewers have noted that this book is a kind of sci-fi magical realist novel, even explicitly comparing it to the work of Gabriel García Márquez. I have not read that author’s work, but will take their word for it. To me, though, it may be a bit of a misnomer. I imagine that the whole point of magical realism is that the author is incorporating elements of the “unreal” or “magical” into what is otherwise “everyday” life and thus creating a juxtaposition that is saved from being jarring by the poetic way in which the story is written. This can certainly apply to _Desolation Road_, but McDonald’s novel does seem to differ in one significant element: here we have a science fiction tale set in a world whose basic accepted tenets are already well beyond the “everyday” experiences of what we perceive as a “normal life” and I think the real surprise is simply the way in which McDonald expresses himself as opposed to the elements themselves. In this way I think the aspects mentioned above that reminded me of Wolfe and Crowley melded, or reacted, to create something new. If you want to call this “magical realism” I will not argue with you (and granted there are distinctly magical elements that may fit comfortably here such as a snooker match with the devil or a guitar-playing rainmaker that are definitely more magic than sci-fi in feel), but I think it might be more a label of convenience than a case of true generic affiliation.

The first chapters of _Desolation Road_ have the feel of inter-linked short stories since they tell the individual tales of the various people who will become the founders of the eccentric community of Desolation Road. It is an unsanctioned community of misfits on a recently terraformed Mars (also known as Ares, or simply Earth to those who live there, our own planet being called the Motherworld). This beginning may strike some readers as very slow, and it is true that McDonald takes his time in building up to what could be considered the novel’s plot and ultimate conflict. I think this is a virtue and not a vice in this case, however, since it allows us to get to know not only the founding members of the place, but also their children as we watch the tiny and haphazard conglomeration of huts and caves grow into a true community. We are thus able to get a necessary feel for the community itself as an organic thing, a living organism that impacts those whose lives are made there as much as it is impacted by them. As I mentioned above this is a generational epic of sorts and we need to learn about the lives of all of those whose actions will shape not only the town in which they lived or were born, but also the very planet on which it exists. There is a lot going on in this book, though much of it is simply the everyday experiences that go to making up life in Desolation Road. Slowly, however, these events start to build towards a larger purpose. Members of this small outback community start to move into the wider world, both by happenstance and by design, and the impact they have on their entire planet is not negligible. Whether they learn to master the chronodynamics of time and space, become the greatest snooker player the universe has ever known, or commune with the numinous machine powers that created the world to become cybernetic saints the people of Desolation Road find that their small-seeming lives can lead to great world shaking events.

Ultimately Desolation Road becomes the hotly contested heart of the planet, a battleground for greedy megacorporations, self-interested pilgrims, megalomaniacal warriors, and ambitious politicians. McDonald handles all of this deftly and manages to combine a lyrical telling with some very down to earth occurrences and over-the-top action. Indeed, for a writer of such a fable-like story wrapped in poetic prose style, McDonald is surprisingly good at writing action scenes where things go boom in a big way and combatants have a cinematically super-heroic style. Somehow he manages to make it all work instead of ending up with an ungodly mess. This was a great read, both fun and thought provoking in the tradition of the best sci-fi. Highly recommended.
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Feb 20, 2012 Paul marked it as did-not-finish

Shelves: science-fiction, e-book

Not rated because I abandoned it halfway through. If I were to rate it, a two star read at best.

I'm very disappointed. I recently read Ian McDonald's novel The Dervish House and thought I'd found a new author to recommend to all my friends. But this one? It purports to be science fiction, but it's really just a bunch of magical hoo-hah: impossible and unreal. McDonald's writing is friendly and engaging, as are almost all of this characters, good and bad alike, but the story has nothing really to...more

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Sep 07, 2009 Ralph rated it 5 of 5 stars

An excellent book. Superbly weird and weirdly superb. It's a sort of magical realist/sci-fi book of a sort I've never read before. Or even heard of. Very original.

The characterization and thematic development are especially outstanding 'for a sci-fi book' as well as in general. If his name was 'Borges', he'd be read in literature departments instead of just winning award in the SF ghetto.

There's no hyperbole in the entire history of hyperboles that can adequately capture how much I appreciated...more

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Jan 18, 2011 figura4 rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Ho deciso di dedicare l'ultimo gorno di queste vacanze natalizie alla lettura di McDonald. Avevo bisogno di qualcosa per combattere la malinconia della fine delle feste.

Pessima idea. Non perchè Desolation Road non sia un bel romanzo (tutt'altro), ma perchè ho finito per leggerlo tutto, quindi alla malinconia della fine delle vacanze si è aggiunta quella di aver terminato un bel libro. E i bei libri non crescono mica sugli alberi. E io sono schizzinoso di brutto in fatto di libri.

Basta delirii e...more

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May 05, 2013 Ben Thurley rated it 2 of 5 stars

Desolation Road is the first novel by one of my favourite science fiction authors. It demonstrates the concerns and style that make McDonald such a breath of fresh air in science fiction, particularly the heightened, almost poetic prose, and the embrace of cultures and voices other than the stereotypical Anglo-American, male, science fiction persona.

Set in the Martian frontier town of Desolation Road, and telling the story of this community through a cast of vagrants, refugees, prospectors and...more

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Oct 20, 2012 Klytia rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Desolation Road è il soprendente romanzo d’esordio di Ian McDonald
Desolation Road è una città che non dovrebbe esistere: ad un solo passo da Paradise e sulla strada per Wisdom; una fermata non prevista per i treni della Bethlehem Ares Corporation; un’oasi di verde, pannelli solari e mulini a vento nel mezzo di un deserto rosso.
Con toni evocativi McDonald mette al centro della storia le vite dei numerosi personaggi, come sempre descritti con magistrale realismo. E’ una saga familiare quella che v...more

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May 05, 2012 Lori L (She Treads Softly) rated it 4 of 5 stars

Desolation Road by Ian McDonald follows thirty years in the lives of the citizens from one small town in Mars. This is a future Mars, after Mars has undergone terraforming to prepare it for human habitation. The town of Desolation Road, a remote oasis in the desert, was founded by Dr. Alimantando when he was following a green person across the desert. At the beginning we meet the characters in short chapters as each new town person stumbles into Desolation Road, a town that should not exist, and...more Desolation Road by Ian McDonald follows thirty years in the lives of the citizens from one small town in Mars. This is a future Mars, after Mars has undergone terraforming to prepare it for human habitation. The town of Desolation Road, a remote oasis in the desert, was founded by Dr. Alimantando when he was following a green person across the desert. At the beginning we meet the characters in short chapters as each new town person stumbles into Desolation Road, a town that should not exist, and then follow the pivotal roles each person plays in the destiny of the town and the Martian civilization. And, while all the characters are quite interesting, not all of them are sympathetic.

Desolation Road was originally published in 1988 and then re-released for a new audience in 2009. Several reviewers have pointed out that McDonald is the first writer to successfully apply elements of magical realism to science fiction. In many ways this gives the novel almost the feel of a folktale, but at other times it had the feel of a western. Basically, this is a difficult novel to describe. Really, read the description - we go from Adam Black's Wonderful Travelling Chautauqua and Educational 'Stravaganza to the Babooshka who just wants her own child-grown in a fruit jar to the Gallacelli brothers, identical triplets who fell in love with and married the same woman. In some ways it is almost a collection of short stories based on the town but in the end it does pull itself together for a very complete novel.

I also need to note that McDonald's characters follow a Martian year for their ages, but that is never explained. (A Martian year is almost twice as long as Earth's year, so , when a 9 or 11 year old is having adult experiences it might be good to note that they are, in fact, adults. There was one drawback to this newer edition - the proof reading is lacking

McDonald has a way with words that I really appreciated so it made reading Desolation Road a pleasure.
Obviously, as seen from the description, I think it should also be clear that it is at times quite funny. For example, this is the reason for the name of the town:
"Desolation Road," he slurred, drinking down the final glass of peapod wine. "You are Desolation Road. And Desolation Road it remained, even though Dr. Alimantando realized when he sobered up that he had not meant Desolation Road at all, but Destination Road. pg. 18

Highly Recommended; http://shetreadssoftly.blogspot.com/
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Jul 07, 2010 Hugo rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: fantasy, dying-earth, sci-fi

I'm not really sure how to categorize this one. On the surface, it's sci-fi - it's set on Mars and there are robots, artificial intelligence and fusion-powered trains, but story-wise it is more like fantasy, much in the vein of Jack Vance. The language is beautiful, and paints a colorful picture of a Byzantine and highly imaginative world. If this novel should ever be filmed, Terry Gilliam would be an excellent choice of director. The first half of the book reads like a collection of short stori...more

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Feb 02, 2010 Libby rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: year-of-genre-fiction, sci-fi

Each chapter of this book reads like a standalone short story, and even though the McDonald's elevated figurative language only really works for me about 50% of the time, it's an ambitious book that largely succeeds in what it's trying to do, which is to combine science fiction with magical realism.

The book has much in common with Garcia Marquez's "One Hundred Years of Solitude" in that the book centers on a group of families in a geographically isolated village and spans the village's founding...more

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May 01, 2010 Rob rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: random-comments-review

...Despite the ending Desolation Road is a very interesting novel. Especially once we reach the point where McDonald zooms out from the little town and Desolation Road's inhabitants start to make a name for themselves in the world. It is not the sprawling, technology fuelled, near future science fiction McDonald presents in his more recent work however. If I had to put a label on it I'd say it leans to magic realism. So depending on what you expect from this book it could be a terrific read or a...more

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Jun 10, 2010 Jack rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: sf

A marvelous book.

Picked up at the library on a whim, I found the first couple of pages promising so I checked it out. Later I discovered that this was McDonald's first published novel. (More recently his Cyberabad Days and Brasyl have been well-received.)

I like the way McDonald treads the lines between adventure and allegory, between the rational and the mystic. I like the way he turns away from making the villains hateful or the heroes entirely heroic. I like the way the story has a history an...more

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Apr 11, 2008 Julie rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Recommended to Julie by: Bryon

Shelves: science-fiction

This book is ....indescribable. I read it because my boyfriend read it years ago and said it was really entertaining. I suppose it was, but... there's just so many characters and strange tangents that it's difficult to follow at times, and even when you DO understand what's going on, it doesn't make much sense. There are some interesting characters, and some amusing parts; I may give it another try later on, now that I know what to expect.

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Aug 31, 2011 uroš rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: read-in-2011, science-fiction

This book is similar to One Hundred Years of Solitude by G.G. Márquez, only better. It starts with the foundation of Desolation Road, a small western-like settlement in the middle of nowhere by an enigmatic Dr.Alimentado, who's working on an arcane theory of space and time. One by one we get to know the strays and castaways who trickle in and help to found the settlement. But Desolation Road isn't focused on anyone in particular, it's focus is the town itself and what transpires in it. We follow...more

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Aug 09, 2012 Mitchell rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction, won-t-reread, public-library

I've had this book checked out for a LONG time - at least as far back as last November. I took three tries on reading it. What a grand disappointment. Ian McDonald is a relatively new author for me and up until this book I've been very impressed. But this one I hated. And I finished it though it was an absolute struggle. So what was wrong with this book? It was a funny book that wasn't funny. It was allegory without any real message. The writing was stupid. The characters interesting but I never...more

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Jul 27, 2009 Psychophant rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: fantasy, far-future, reviewed

This is a book that is tailor made for me. A well done mix of Magic Realism and Science Fiction, with homages and small details from many writers I enjoy, from Borges to G. Wolfe, from Vance to Zelazny, going through Bradbury. The short chapters really grip you and keep you reading a little more, till the night is almost gone.

It tells the story of a place through the lives of several of its inhabitants. Some of them are unforgettable, and all are special in their own way. In a way, it presents H...more

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May 22, 2012 Michelle rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Recommended to Michelle by: the alternative world

Shelves: award_winner, dtb-own, book_club, sci-fi

a strange, meandering, lyrical book that wanders along for about 2/3 of its length before feeling the need to burden itself with a linear plot, 'desolation road' tells the tale of a small town that springs up in fits and starts around an oasis in the middle of a vast desert. broken people, crooks on the lam, ambitious schemers, and renegade scientists that were never looking for the place all eventually settle in to farm their patch of heaven watching the years go by. whispers of unexpected magi...more

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Feb 18, 2010 Brennan rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: science-fiction

If I had to pick one book as my absolute favorite work of fiction ever, this one would not only be a serious contender, but I'm about 99% sure that it would be the inevitable winner.

It's been described as Gabriel Garcia Marquez on Mars, but I've never read any Marquez (which I should remedy, I know), so I'd have to describe it as a much more compelling and unusual Martian Chronicles, a mismatch of folktale and character study, a novel approach to nearly every classic trope of pulp science ficti...more

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Dec 11, 2012 zxvasdf rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: favorites

I was so thirsty for something of the same flavor of magic when I finished A Hundred Years of Solitude. Desolation Road would have soothed that thirst, but it was better I read it later. Magical Realism on Mars, of Ideas founded upon Science yet beset with impossibilities. It's a wonderful, leaping book, that is a mish-mash of cultures and genres. You can see tongue in cheek references to sources of inspiration (one particularly obvious is Gilliam's Brazil). This should always be the first book...more

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Sep 16, 2009 Meredith rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: dystopian-futures

This was a great, interesting read - it had time travel, talking trains, supernatural aspects, fables combined with futurism, and fighting The Man. In short, all the things I normally love in several books condensed into one. There are a lot of unforgettable characters - in fact, possibly too many. It was hard to settle down into the story, as the point of view shifted from moment to moment. Instead, I enjoyed it almost like a collection of short stories that all had to do with one town. Definit...more

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Feb 12, 2010 Matthew Stepp rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2010-reading-list

Hmm...this is a tough review to write for it is not written in a traditional novel format. The best I can describe Desolation Road is it is like watching a TV show. There are individual episodes that have a short story arc and moral message, while there is usually some overall story arc that binds them all together.

Each chapter follows an individual character. The initial dozen or so stories chronicle the creation of Desolation Road - a small town in the Martian Desert along a transplanet railr...more Hmm...this is a tough review to write for it is not written in a traditional novel format. The best I can describe Desolation Road is it is like watching a TV show. There are individual episodes that have a short story arc and moral message, while there is usually some overall story arc that binds them all together.

Each chapter follows an individual character. The initial dozen or so stories chronicle the creation of Desolation Road - a small town in the Martian Desert along a transplanet railroad track - and how each character came to find themselves in the town. The overall story arc is that of town founder, Dr. Alimintando, who was led to the site of the town by a little green martian. His character is central to the time traveling theme (he leaves early in the book to time travel search for the green martian) that is dispersed throughout the chapters (and plays a significant role in the closing stories).

The 30 or so chapters in the books middle follow each original character or the children they breed as each face different issues both normal and science fiction. Each are often as simple as falling in love and any consequences that fall out from it or as fantastical as one of the characters becoming a temporary god of machines (because the usual god needs to take a break essentially). Some of these stories are excellent, engrossing, and I wish were longer (any story involving the Mandella's, Tenebrae's, and Jericho). Others seemed almost like fillers and just slowed down the books rapid pace (Stalin, some of the Adam Black stories).

The final 20 chapters or so bring all of the characters stories together in a very action packed and interesting finish. The town itself is brought full circle and there is a nice twist at the end that brought a smile.

Overall, this all may seem quite random - and it is at times - but in the grand scheme of the book it makes sense. I felt a great sense of wonder - something that seems to be missing from some of the more recent science fiction bestsellers - and for this it is a must read. Each chapter, or episode, provides a short story that never drowns itself in detail, but really gives a sense of how unique each character is and how that transforms their decision making. There are villains and heroes and many in between. There are stories about politics, bureaucracies, angels, gods, the dying planet Earth, family bickering, stealing children, murder, love, secret societies, war, aliens, lasers, and really anything else you can think of from modern day science fiction stories.

It really is a grab bag of science fiction wrapped in a great world building story. Any fantasy/sci-fi reader should check it out.(less)

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Mar 29, 2010 Mikolaj Habryn rated it 3 of 5 stars

It's a beautiful book, slowly mounting to an epic climax through many sub-plots and turnings, but I somehow wasn't captivated. Possibly the episodic style moves too quickly over too many changes for one accustomed to epic fantasy potboilers, and the grand disdain for any underlying consistency of magic or technology is slightly jarring - you never can tell what's going to happen next, and while that's initially lapped up with eager incredulity, one's eyes tend to glaze over a little after a whil...more

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Jun 06, 2010 Simon Hedge rated it 4 of 5 stars

Wow.
This book just blew me away. In so many ways. Sometimes it is a fascinating character study, of characters adorable and characters repellent. Sometimes it is like a really good anime, with crazy people doing crazy things and winding up in a crazy climactic battle to rival 'Akira'. There is time-travel and mysticism and robots and murder and religion and incest.
But the real star of the show is the language. Rarely has any book demonstrated such mastery of prose and timing and emotion and.......more

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Jan 20, 2013 Jasonk Kolbrich rated it 5 of 5 stars

Amazing interweaving of stories and details.

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Dec 28, 2012 William rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

“Desolation Road” was Ian McDonald’s first novel. The title refers to a village that was never meant to exist, a small community on the Bethlehem Ares Railroad in the middle of the Martian desert. It becomes home to a small number of eccentrics and outcasts from across Martian society and this book describes their lives over several decades as the fortunes of the town rise and then fall.

The characters are an interesting mix, including an eccentric scientist, the world’s greater snooker player,...more “Desolation Road” was Ian McDonald’s first novel. The title refers to a village that was never meant to exist, a small community on the Bethlehem Ares Railroad in the middle of the Martian desert. It becomes home to a small number of eccentrics and outcasts from across Martian society and this book describes their lives over several decades as the fortunes of the town rise and then fall.

The characters are an interesting mix, including an eccentric scientist, the world’s greater snooker player, a circus pilot, a rebel leader, an ambitious politician and many others. Although there are some interesting and memorable characters, in some ways the characterisation is a bit of a disappointment when compared to McDonald’s later works such as “River of Gods” or “The Dervish House”. There often seems to be a lack of character development and arguably many of the characters don’t really change their basic personality throughout the course of the novel. The characters are also not particularly realistic and their behaviour feels like it is more determined by the demands of the plot or the whim of the author rather than them being believable characters in their own right. This does fit with the whimsical style of the novel, but it does often make it hard to really care about what happens to the characters.

The plot is fairly episodic with chapters covering events both small and large, ranging from the visit of a travelling show and the murder of one of its citizens to the town becoming the focus of a major religious pilgrimage and also the site of a major mining operation. Some of the subplots are interesting and entertaining and there is plenty of imagination shown in both the plotting and the world-building, but sometimes the plot developments are trying a bit too hard to be quirky and since it is hard to take the plot entirely seriously the book often isn’t particularly compelling. Other than sharing a common setting and some common characters the different episodes also feel a bit disconnected from each other and although the last section of the book does put the entire existence of Desolation Road in peril the plot still feels a bit incoherent.

The strongest feature of the book is the writing itself, McDonald’s prose is excellent, particularly for a debut novel and there are some evocative descriptions of the Martin landscape and the strange people who inhabit it. However, while in his later work McDonald manages to combine that good prose with good storytelling, this novel doesn’t quite manage that. It is entertaining and with some memorable moments but ultimately a bit unsatisfying and the whole feels like it is less than the sum of its parts.
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Aug 08, 2012 Dan Schuna rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: sci-fi, speculative-fiction

Good lord, what do I even say about this book? This is like nothing else I've ever read, in the best possible way. Ostensibly this is a novel about the rise and fall of a small town on the Martian frontier but there's a lot more going on here.

The cast of characters is enormous and each character is unique and vibrantly drawn. At turns hilarious, alarming, and sad, Ian McDonald's first published novel is a bit hard to get a grip on and impossible to label or pigeonhole. The plot moves incredibly...more Good lord, what do I even say about this book? This is like nothing else I've ever read, in the best possible way. Ostensibly this is a novel about the rise and fall of a small town on the Martian frontier but there's a lot more going on here.

The cast of characters is enormous and each character is unique and vibrantly drawn. At turns hilarious, alarming, and sad, Ian McDonald's first published novel is a bit hard to get a grip on and impossible to label or pigeonhole. The plot moves incredibly fast and is structured very unconventionally. The first several chapters seem to be almost stand-alone character vignettes describing how the various founding members of Desolation Road happened to find their way to the town. While very entertaining, this might at first seem a bit disjointed. After a hundred or so pages of this, however, the threads start to come together and a coherent, linear plot develops.

The story is absolutely massive, spanning three generations and, as previously mentioned, a ridiculously large cast of characters. This plot structure and cast size shows up in McDonald's later work as well (River Of Gods, which, if you've not read it RUN, don't walk, to your local bookstore and get it NOW) and it's something he pulls off better than anybody in SF I've read with the possible exception of Neal Stephenson's Baroque Cycle. The difference being that McDonald pulls it off in a comparatively slim 500-odd pages versus Stephenson's 3000. Leaving the character achievements aside, the craftsmanship alone is very impressive.

This novel showcases the potential that really great SF has to take you places you never expected and show you wondrous events and people. Wondrous in the sense of a PT Barnum Side Show (which Desolation Road also has, the side show) or a really elegant physics concept explained for the layman.

I can't really describe anything more of the characters or story without having it come across as trite or pulpy trash so I'll just shut up because if the above hasn't convinced to at least get this from the library and give it a shot then nothing more I can say will do the job.

This is HIGHLY recommended for anybody looking for something completely different than anything they've read before. Out of control escapism at it's finest.(less)

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Jul 02, 2012 Suz rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Recommended to Suz by: Jeff

Shelves: award-winner, book-club, borrowed, science-fiction

This is the first work I’ve read by Ian MacDonald and I (mostly) really enjoyed it. McDonald knows how to write. He knows how to write fluidly and beautifully and have fun with his words, which I really appreciate. Most of the book is lyrical and fun, and I loved the imagery and magical realism he presents.

This book is about the town of Desolation road... it starts with the founding and the slow addition of characters. The writing about founding of the town, the new characters rolls around your...more

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About Ian McDonald

Ian Neil McDonald (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.

McDonald was born in 1960, in Manchester, to a Scottish father and Irish mother, but moved to Belfast when he was five, and has lived there ever since. He therefore lived throu...more

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