New Releases by Ian McDonald

Clarkesworld is a Hugo and World Fantasy Award-winning science fiction and fantasy magazine. Each month we bring you a mix of fiction (new and classic works), articles, interviews and art. Our November 2016 issue (#122) contains: Original stories by Nin Harris ("What The Stories Steal"), Nelly Geraldine Garcia-Rosas ("Where Water Joins"), Samantha Murray ("Of Sight, of Mind, of Heart"), Bo Balder ("Follow the White Line"), Chen Hongyu ("Western Heaven"), Nnedi Okorafor ("Afrofuturist 419"). Reprints by Ian McDonald ("An Eligible Boy") and Paul McAuley ("Reef"). Non-fiction by Mark Cole, an interview with Peter S. Beagle, an Another Word column by Sarah Pinsker, and an editorial by Neil Clarke.

An unabridged collection spotlighting the “best of the best” science fiction stories published in 2015 by current and emerging masters of the genre, edited by Allan Kaster. In “My Last Bringback,” by John Barnes, an expert on restoring the memories of Alzheimer''s patients becomes her own patient.A young man living in a bubble habitat on the ocean floor of Venus must deal with terraforming gone awryin “The Tumbledowns of Cleopatra Abyss,” by David Brin. In“Three Cups of Grief, by Starlight,” winner of the British Science Fiction Association Award, byAliette de Bodard,the death of a scientist in the Dai Viet interstellar empire is mourned. The shipmind of a cobbled together fighter spacecraft and its pilot press on under dire circumstances in “Damage” by David Levine. An aristocrat’s trip to Venus, in search of her disgraced brother, is memorialized by papercuts of flora native to this planet in “Botanica Veneris: Thirteen Papercuts by Ida Countess Rathangan,” by Ian McDonald. In “The Audience,” by Sean McMullen, a spacecraft’s trek to another planet discovers a malevolent species interested in Earth. An AI is on a mission to the outer reaches of the solar system to found a sanctuary in a posthuman universe in “Empty,” by Robert Reed. In “A Murmuration,” by Alastair Reynolds, a scientist struggles to publish a paper on her exhilarating findings on the flocking behavior of birds. In the dystopian future of “Two-Year Man,” by Kelly Robson, a janitor brings a mutant baby home to his wife hoping to fill their lives with love. And finally, an android medical attendant, capable of mimicking family members, cares for an Alzheimer’s patient in “Today I Am Paul,” by Martin L. Shoemaker.

Jonathan Strahan, the award-winning and much lauded editor of many of genre’s best known anthologies is back with his 10th volume in this fascinating series, featuring the best science fiction and fantasy from 2015. With established names and new talent this diverse and ground-breaking collection will take the reader to the outer-reaches of space and the inner realms of humanity with stories of fantastical worlds and worlds that may still come to pass. Featuring Paolo Bacigalupi • Elizabeth Bear • Greg Bear • Jeffrey Ford • Neil Gaiman • Nalo Hopkinson • Nisi Shawl • Simon Ings • Gwyneth Jones • Caitlin R. Kiernan • Anne Leckie • Kelly Link • Usman T. Malik • Ian McDonald • Vonda McIntrye • Sam J. Miller • Tamsyn Muir • Robert Reed • Alastair Reynolds • Kim Stanley Robinson • Kelly Robson • Geoff Ryman • Nike Sulway • Catherynne Valente • Genevieve Valentine • Kai Ashante Wilson • Alyssa Wong

"Ian McDonald, the author of such landmark novels as Desolation Road, Chaga, River of Gods, and The Dervish House, has long been regarded as one of Britain''s finest SF writers. Just like those full-length works, his shorter fiction has commanded much admiration, and now, in this massive retrospective volume, the best McDonald tales are assembled in glittering array. Represented here are all the phases of McDonald''s career: the poetic early retro-visions that in the late Eighties signalled the arrival of a marvellously fluent new stylistic voice; the virtuoso Nineties riffs on themes such as the Irish Troubles, nanotechnology, alternate history, and alien sexuality; the bold post-millennial ventures into the futuristic politics of Third World countries such as Kenya, India, and Brazil, as well as far afield to alien solar systems; and recent, dazzlingly conceived variations on the Arab Spring, the nature of superheroes, and Mars as pulp SF writers once fondly imagined it to be. The treasures are abundant, each presented in McDonald’s addictive, immersive prose--language at once elegantly timeless and edgily contemporary."--Publisher''s statement.

This book is an account of criticism and controversy surrounding modern medicine. Chapter One provides an overview of the contents. Chapter Four explains the contribution of the concept of paradigm'' to the analysis provided. The argument is that, for all its fine accomplishments in medicine, the science has also damaged the art. This view is an echo of views expressed by eminent physicians early in the last Century, including William Osler and Francis Peabody. Concrete evidence of an ailing doctor-patient relationship is manifest in the form of some serious clinical problems. These include patient dissatisfaction, failure to take prescribed medication, failure of a doctor''s reassurance of normality to allay anxiety, resort to alternative medicine, use of patient advocates and defection'' to alternative medicine. These we see as, not only damaging to treatment and health outcome, and very expensive, but indicators of a basic lack of trust. To compound the problem, the clinical process is essentially hermeneutic; an interpretive exercise. Hence it cannot be studied without interview and qualitative data analysis. Such methods are also indispensable for the understanding of the doctor''s management decisions, particularly the social context. The science of medicine is well served by biomedical research and education which has recently been reinforced by the rise of clinical epidemiology and evidence-based medicine. Of great concern is that the skills of sociology and the humanities have been spurned, even denigrated as journalistic'' or unscientific''. Not only has this prevented physicians from fully understanding the patient''s medical views and social predicament, but has robbed us of the humanistic'' research methods needed to research the problems. These problems cannot be explained simply as side-effects of the impact of science. Rather there are much deeper currents. In Thomas Kuhn''s terms, medicine shifted paradigm from superstition to rationality in Ancient Greece, and again to scientific modern medicine at the time of the French Revolution. Medicine, it seems, is on the cusp of a further paradigm shift to a postmodern paradigm. The goal is that this brings the necessary balance between the already revitalised science and the ancient art of medicine. To achieve this, the establishment of centres for the study of clinical practice'' to train reflective physicians'', who will lead clinical practice research'', with multidisciplinary studies of the process of clinical care is needed. This will mean applying research methods of empirical science, clinical epidemiology, biostatistics and evidence-based medicine, already in progress and, in cooperation with relevant academics hosted by the centre, interview techniques involving qualitative analysis or any other appropriate methods. An important function is to act as a catalyst to inject social science and humanities into the current modern medical curriculum.

The Future Is Ourselves The world is rapidly changing. We surf future-shock every day, as the progress of technology races ever on. Increasingly we are asking: how do we change to live in the world to come? Whether it’s climate change, inundated coastlines and drowned cities; the cramped confines of a tin can hurtling through space to the outer reaches of our Solar System; or the rush of being uploaded into cyberspace, our minds and bodies are going to have to drastically alter. Multi-award winning editor Jonathan Strahan brings us another incredible volume in his much praised science-fiction anthology series, featuring stories by Madeline Ashby, John Barnes, James S.A. Corey, Gregory Benford, Benjanun Sriduangkaew, Simon Ings, Kameron Hurley, Nancy Kress, Gwyneth Jones, Yoon Ha Lee, Bruce Sterling, Sean Williams, Aliette de Bodard, Ramez Naam, An Owomoyela and Ian McDonald.

Ist das noch unser Planet? In der Nacht des 22. Dezembers 2032 hörte das Universum, wie wir es kennen, auf zu existieren. Die Menschheit hat es nur noch nicht bemerkt ... Das Chaga, die seltsame Flora, die aus dem All zur Erde geschickt wurde, hat sich weiter ausgebreitet und damit begonnen, die Äquatorregionen der Erde zu verändern. Welchem Zweck das dient und wer – oder was – dahintersteckt, ist immer noch völlig unklar. Die ehemalige Reporterin Gaby McAslan hat inzwischen eine Tochter, Selena, zur Welt gebracht, doch weil sie Kontakt mit dem Chaga hatte, führt sie jetzt ein Leben im Exil. Auch Selena wurde von der Alien-Chemie verändert, und nicht nur Gaby muss lernen, mit diesen Veränderungen zu leben ...

Unless you''ve been living under a dome, you know that The Brutal Blade of Bruno the Bandit is a shining example of great comics! No doubt you''ve had insomnia waiting for the next volume, but you need live in desperation no longer, for here it is! End your misery; make a stand by putting Brutal Blade on your list of needful things! The stories in this volume are guaranteed to transport you to joyland, from the wastelands of "Castle''s Lot" where we meet the dark half of Bruno''s favorite author, to "The Lair of Morpheum" where our heroes get snared by the original dream catcher, to "1001," where Bruno must brave the dead zone of dietary hell! You won''t want to miss this revival of webcomics history, and one of the best comics on the web becomes one of the funniest comics in print.

It all began thirty 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 Chautauqua and Educational ’Stravaganza (complete with its very own captive angel), to the Astounding Tatterdemalion Air Bazaar. Its 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. REVIEWS “Ian McDonald’s Desolation Road is one of my most personally influential novels. It’s an epic tale of the terraforming of Mars, whose sweep captures the birth and death of mythologies, economics, art, revolution, politics... 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.” – Cory Doctorow (Boing Boing) “McDonald’s first novel, it absolutely bowled me over when it came out, and while I have read everything he’s published since, and admire all of it and like most of it, this remains my favourite... some of the most beautiful prose imaginable... If you ever want to demonstrate how different science fiction can be, what an incredible range and sweep of things are published with a little spaceship on the spine, Desolation Road is a shining datapoint, because it isn’t like anything else and yet it is coming from a knowledge of what the genre can do and can be and making something new out of it.” – Jo Walton (Tor.com) “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

A Mars of the imagination, like no other, in a colorful, witty SF novel, taking place in the kaleidoscopic future of Ian McDonald''s Desolation Road, Ares Express is set on a terraformed Mars where fusion-powered locomotives run along the network of rails that is the planet’s circulatory system and artificial intelligences reconfigure reality billions of times each second. One young woman, Sweetness Octave Glorious-Honeybun Asiim 12th, becomes the person upon whom the future -- or futures -- of Mars depends. Big, picaresque, funny; taking the Mars of Ray Bradbury and the more recent, terraformed Marses of authors such as Kim Stanley Robinson and Greg Bear, Ares Express is a wild and woolly magic-realist SF novel, featuring lots of bizarre philosophies, strange, mind-stretching ideas, and trains as big as city blocks. REVIEWS “Ares Express is a long, adventure-filled, extravagantly colorful, often funny, quite moving, highly imaginative, excellently written story, set on a glorious Mars built partly of sharp-edged Kim Stanley Robinson-style extrapolation, but mostly of lush, loving, Ray Bradbury-style semi-SF, semi-Fantasy, Martian dreams.... I loved it wholeheartedly.” – SF Site “Hugo-winner McDonald’s virtues have long been underappreciated by major North American publishers... McDonald’s fantastic Mars is vividly detailed and owes much to Bradbury’s Martian stories. Despite a bit of hand waving around technology that is glibly indistinguishable from magic, this sequel is entirely worthy of its rightly lauded predecessor [Desolation Road].” – Publishers Weekly “One of the strangest, weirdest, fantastic reads of your life.” – SF Crowsnest “McDonald is clever, lyrical... snarky, and utterly wondrous. The characters would be completely unbelievable in our world, but in theirs they are inevitable...” – Night Owl Reviews

A collection of science fiction stories and novelettes by the Hugo and Philip K. Dick Award–winning author of Desolation Road and Luna: New Moon. Published in conjunction with his Locus Award–winning debut novel, Desolation Road, Empire Dreams collects some of Ian McDonald’s finest early short fiction, including a several stories that first appeared in Asimov’s Science Fiction magazine. In “Vivaldi,” an astrophysicist contemplates the death of the universe as he hurtles through space to investigate a black hole. A beach bum in Morocco encounters a woman who is curiously full of life in “Radio Marrakech.” An Irish scientist prepares to make contact with aliens as his daughter dreams of fairies in “King of Morning, Queen of Day.” And in the title novelette, a boy is given an experimental treatment that allows him to fight his cancer via virtual reality gameplaying. As Asimov’sScience Fiction declared, Ian McDonald is “the Frank Herbert, William Gibson, or arguably even Thomas Pynchon of the early 21st century.”

From the top of Mt. Kilimanjaro, an alien force begins to spread, turning the land into an unrecognizable alien landscape. Tendeléo is nine years old when this first package comes down, and before she reaches adulthood the Chaga will change her life forever. REVIEWS "[An] excellent original novella... gazes boldly into the heart of darkness, and finds there a great and galvanising hope." – Infinity Plus "... the Chaga sequence [is] Ian McDonald’s marvellous panorama of Third World plights and possibilities." – SF Site Winner of the Sturgeon Award, 2001.

The third time''s the charm! Or so hopes our hero, Bruno the Bandit, in this issue, as he turns on the charm in an attempt to win the lovely Lydia away from the wizard Maledict. Meanwhile, the demonic Numth''kul sees his troubles increase a thousandfold, and we learn that Elder Gods need love too! Plus, we''re not sure if it serves a purpose clear when Fiona serves up some "Free Will"! All this and much more, including the Charles Schulz memorial story, "When a God Retires" and several new pages of Bruno pinups from Ian McDonald. Presenting nine more stories from the archives of Bruno the Bandit (www.brunothebandit.com), this third swing of the Brutal Blade of Bruno the Bandit continues the tradition of turning some of the best comics on the web into some of the funniest comics in self-publishing.

A history of the Mellotron and discussions by the musicians who were inspired by this unpredictable keyboard.

Explores policy issues relating to copyright owners'' use of technological measures and contractual provisions to control access to, and use of, copyright content.

Takes a patient centred approach, the starting point being the patient''s presenting problem and its evolution. The focus is on clinical diagnosis and principles of management. This is not a comprehensive textbook; it contains what the editors consider to be core knowledge and skills for the practising clinician.

From the vantage point of later middle life, Ian McDonald''s collection looks into the heart of time passing: the coming death of ageing parents, the old men, the ''archive'' of a disappearing Guyana who die one by one, the sight of ''my own lines of age'' and the loss of pleasure in the glittering carnival of the senses. There are rich blessings of the arrival of a new child coming unexpected at this stage of life; and the consolations from books and in the power of art to preserve - at least for a time. But the very joys are made more piquant by the inescapable sense of the transitoriness of all things. Poems of moving domestic intimacy and humour (''To alarm their father''s half to death / New-born babies hold their breath''), valedictory requiems for the characters who have given Georgetown life its flavour and regret for the country''s loss of civility during its darkest recent years and songs in praise of nature are all part of a vision which looks into the darkness but says, ''Yes, it is as you say, / But let us get just one thing straight: / There is beauty in the world / ... And the star-tree blossoms in the night, / Night that will have an end'' and asserts, ''Between silence and silence, there should be only praise.'' Ian McDonald is Trinidadian by birth and Guyanese by long residence and adoption. He is the author of the recently filmed The Hummingbird Tree, four collections of poetry and a play. He edits Kyk-over-Al.

Peter Hamilton brings his trademark flair for narrative sweep and epic ideas to a short novel that tells the story of an near- immortal mankind that grew from the Roman Empire. Paired with WATCHING TREES GROW is TENDELEO¿S STORY the Theodore Sturgeon award-winning new Chaga short novel from the acclaimed Ian McDonald.

The Bucks Start Here reveals the secrets of seven e-champions who have transformed their sectors, either as start-up pioneers (such as Jeff Bezos, Founder and Chief Executive of Amazon.com), Internet business developers (such as Michael Dell) or Internet innovators in long-established companies (such as Mike Harris of the Prudential Corporation). The Bucks Start Here helps Internet entrepreneurs understand how technology is reshaping society and business, and how they can begin to develop their own vision. It explores key social trends and what effects these can have on customer power, but most importantly it provides a set of tools and basic framework for building a digital business.

Digital agenda amendments: a discussion paper (Australian Copyright Council, B109v1).