John Lennard, Ian McDonald: 'Chaga' / 'Evolution's Store'

Ian McDonald

Ian McDonald is a major SF writer, whose River of Gods (2004) won the British Science Fiction Association award for Best Novel, and was shortlisted for the corresponding Hugo, Arthur C. Clarke, and British Fantasy Society awards. Chaga (published in the US as Evolution’s Shore) is the first novel of his ‘Chaga Saga’ (1995–2000), about a very unusual alien invasion of Kenya and the southern hemisphere. It was short-listed for the John W. Campbell Memorial Award for Best Novel in 1996.

As with all Sightlines there are four sections. The Notes cover Ian McDonald’s life and work, including residence in Belfast during the ‘Troubles’ of 1968–98; the Wa-Chagga people of Kenya and Tanzania; the literary history of space invaders; United Nations special missions; and SF as a vehicle for satire. The Annotations pay special attention to the African cultures McDonald portrays and his strong science (especially astronomy), as well as to some important literary allusions. The Essay, called ‘The Heart of Chaganess’, details and investigates McDonald’s use of Heart of Darkness, Joseph Conrad’s famous novella of imperialism in Africa, as a central part of his devastating indictment of the ‘First World’s’ AIDS policy. The Bibliography provides a full listing of works by McDonald, and has sections on works about ‘Ian McDonald and SF’ and ‘Useful Reference Works’.

John Lennard

John Lennard is now Professor of British & American Literature at the University of the West Indies—Mona. His publications include But I Digress: The Exploitation of Parentheses in English Printed Verse (Clarendon Press, 1991), The Poetry Handbook (1996; 2/e, OUP, 2005), with Mary Luckhurst The Drama Hand¬book (OUP, 2002), and the Literature Insights Hamlet (2007). He is the general editor of the Genre Fiction Sightlines and Genre Fiction Monographs series, and has written several Sightlines titles, and a critical collection Of Modern Dragons and other essays on Genre Fiction (2007).

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