Skipping out on the Beatles before they would go on to become one of the greatest rock groups of the twentieth century, John moves to Birmingham. In the reality-altering novella “Snodgrass,” John Lennon sidesteps his musical destiny and instead becomes a civil servantĪfter spending his adolescence like so many others had, playing in a band with friends, John Lennon knows it’s time to grow up. If that’s not enough, I’d toss in Gene Wolfe as a benchmark that MacLeod easily reaches.As seen on Sky Arts’ Playhouse Presents: Imagine there’s no Lennon.

Then I would say he’s a peer and heir to Aldiss, Peake, Ballard, Priest, and Moorcock. “How best to convey to the uninitiated the contours and pleasures of Ian MacLeod’s fiction? I would start by saying it’s elegant, complex, mysterious, empathetic, melancholy, mystical, and, somehow, quintessentially British full of startling ideas often verging on the surreal. Limited: 1000 signed numbered hardcover copies

He lives in the riverside town of Bewdley in England. His work has won the Arthur C Clarke award for the Year’s Best Novel, along with the Sidewise Award for Alternate History (twice), the World Fantasy Award (again twice), the John W Campbell Memorial Award and the Locus Award for the Year's Best First Novel. MacLeod is the author of seven novels and five short story collections spanning the entire spectrum of fantastic fiction which have been critically acclaimed, widely anthologised and translated into many languages.

On travels that will take you from cluttered attics and strange shorelines to star-flung civilisations and beyond, let Ian R. What holds all these pieces together, including the gripping long new novelette “Downtime” and its vision of a near-future penal system, are vivid writing, strong characters and a sense of awe and surprise. MacLeod, highlighted by a never-before-published novelette, “Downtime.”įrom furthest reaches of deep space in “The Memory Artist” to the jungles of Yucatan in “Lamagica,” and from the strange suburbia of “Stuff” to a Vatican where a dying pope awaits deliverance in “Sin Eater,” the worlds mapped out by these stories range far and wide.Īs, from the mythic ancient city of “The God of Nothing” to the post-human futures of “Ephemera” and “The Fall of the House of Kepler,” via alternate pasts and some very twisted presents in such tales as “Selkie,” “The Mrs Innocents” and “The Chronologist,” do the times. We’re delighted to present Ragged Maps, a huge (over 450 pages) new collection by Ian R. (preorder-to be published in Spring 2023)ĭust jacket illustration by Dominic Harman.

The Chronologist by Ian R. MacLeod