Midway through I found myself intimidated by the book’s length, the dense prose, the randomness of the plot, the number of characters. The concept of the Hopeland family itself was fascinating and I loved it as a worldbuilding exercise in creating a different, but believable and perhaps functional, society that exists within our own.

Hopeland (Library Edition) by Ian McDonald | Goodreads Hopeland (Library Edition) by Ian McDonald | Goodreads

which anybody can join, across time, space and cultures and which has its own centres, or 'hearths' everywhere, its own ways of doing things, even its own religion. She is parkour-ing her way across the rooftops of London, in a race against her ‘‘kynnd” Finn, in a bid to claim her inheritance as the ‘‘Arcmage of the Great [Tesla] Coil of Soho. A collection of 20 short, experimental, playful and philosophical stories from the highly praised Mexican author of Signs Preceding the End of the World. I believe that this hairless embryo with the aching, oversize brain case and the opposable thumb, this animal barely up from the apes will endure. It’s a picaresque novel of climate change, taking us from the South Pacific to Greenland, via a riot torn London and a sprawling Irish family estate that isn’t always there.Hopeland wasn't the depressing climate change epic I vaguely anticipated, with the result that I had much more fun than expected. At some point in eternity random quantum fluctuations will re-create this universe in its every detail and this moment will present itself again. HOPELAND is a massive, world-spanning, multi-century-spanning book, that gives the reader HOPE that there's a way forward for humanity. Alti is one of the more intriguing characters, and possibly the foremost expression of what it means to be a member of the Hopeland family. When a young woman from a nearby village is spirited away, her only hope of rescue from another realm lies with the two experts in faery lore.

Hopeland by Ian McDonald - Books - Hachette Australia Hopeland by Ian McDonald - Books - Hachette Australia

Not only are the Hopelands a karass, but the concept derives from a man, Karl-Maria Lindner, who studied a tropical culture—the Polynesian islands of Ava’u—just as Vonnegut’s Bokonism arose from the tropical Caribbean island of San Lorenzo. In Hopeland, the climate is more of a character — not a protagonist, but also not a minor character. The book takes us to Iceland, to Greenland, to the Pacific kingdom of Ava'u and to points in between as humanity struggles to move into its future. This is fine, as optimistic solar punk goes, but the problem with optimistic books about humans is that without an antagonist they’re just meandering series of events. I've always been a fan of Ian McDonald, but he really pulled out all the stops, giving me a loving taste of Mysterious London a-la Gaiman or even Alan Moore, keeping it fast paced and quirky and delightful.This techy thriller opens with a desperate heart-pumping race through 20th century London, where the lives of Amon Brightbourne and Raisa Hopeland collide in the midst of anarchy.

Hopeland by Ian McDonald Paul Di Filippo Reviews Hopeland by Ian McDonald

by commentators, guest bloggers, reviewers, and interviewees are solely their own and do not reflect the opinions of Locus magazine or its staff. The story is animated by a complicated love story involving (not exclusively) the electrifyingly spunky Raisa Hopeland and the cursedly fortunate Amon Brightbourne.Locus continues to be the central point for all serious authors, artists, and fans of both fantasy and science fiction. Their meeting is quite brief then they split protagonist duties for much of the remaining narrative, which sprawls decades into the future. The fictional experiments, involving brain surgery and a form of lucid dreaming, do not convince as proof of anything except that it is possible to change people’s minds, but it’s still a compelling story filled with believable characters and interesting ideas. Instead, and amongst all the tumult, ‘‘love falls from the summer sky” in the form of Raisa Peri Antares Hopeland.