This is a difficult book to describe because it's not really about the plot, it's about the exuberant feel of the book and enjoying the characters in it.

It's also a book about different ways of doing family. The family Hopeland is chosen family, a great clan that stretches around the world. If you run across a Hopeland who reveals their family to you, the warning is always "don't fall in love with my family". But if you do, and if you see the signs, then you can be Starred (receiving your own star name to place yourself in the family constellation) and belong, always, to these loving, creative and provident people.

A Hopeland runs across a Brightbourne and these two families swing into each other's orbits. Hopelands do connections, Brightbournes do time, and these two skillsets coming together just might save the world. The Brightbournes have built a musical instrument that plays a song that will take 1000 years to complete. The faith in having something last for that length of time is aspirational and hopeful.

Hopelands and Brightbournes come together and apart. They build in their separate mediums but collaborate in a giant climate rescue effort and social experiment that will affect the entire world.

McDonald loves showcasing different cultures and this book travels from Britain to Iceland to a small South Pacific island. People are people, wherever they are and however they live, he seems to be saying.

This book is about immersing yourself in the idea of these social constructions to see the possibilities. There's a hint of mysticism. The book is a little saggy because it's very much a journey-not-the-destination read. I never attached to Amon and there was a bit too much about him for me, but so it goes.

In these times, it's nice to read something hopeful for building something that will last.

Another fantastic novel from Ian McDonald -- this time, a stand-alone science fiction/fantasy mystery. HOPELAND contains everything one could hope and expect from McDonald: excellent prose, a vividly-told story, original twists on classic SF tropes. The author has a wonderful imagination, and if you're a fan of this work already (and somehow haven't read this), then I highly recommend it.

For those who are new to McDonald, I think this is also an excellent place to start with his work.

Given we’re only 22 days into the new year, it seems to be very faint praise indeed to call “Hopeland” by Ian McDonald my favorite book of the year, though it certainly is. I think it also beats out anything I read in 2022, and I read a lot of great stuff in 2022!

Ian McDonald is one of my favorite authors, and as I’ve said before, I feel like he’s been trying to figure out a way to break into the cultural zeitgeist with his last several books. He wrote a YA series (which I read and liked, though I felt like it was missing the complexity I want in an McDonald novel), and he wrote his “Game of Domes” series (which I enjoyed greatly, but it felt a bit rushed at the end). I liked all of it, but none hit me over the head and dazzled me like “The Dervish House.”

“Hopeland” is a return to form, in my opinion. It is just so good. A generational love story set in the near past, present, and near future. It is also a story of climate change (cli-fi, I guess… though that term grates on my ears), Tesla coils, a large manor house, and magic. Maybe magic? Is it really magic? Could be!

The final chapters made me tear up three times, as did the author’s acknowledgement (the book is dedicated to his partner, Enid, who died of cancer).

I can’t say enough glowing things about this book. I hope that I read a book that tops it this year, but it seems doubtful to me.

“Hopeland” comes out on 2/14/23, and you should read it.

Review copy provided by the publisher.

One of the things that I find important in talking about other people's books is not to get annoyed that they didn't write the book I wanted, that they wrote the book they wanted instead. But sometimes that's very hard, because it's difficult to fathom why they wanted to write that book when another (coughbettercough) book was so close at hand.

Hopeland is about all sorts of things I like to read about. It's got found family and giant scope both temporally and geographically; it's got people coping with the reality of climate change, people making art, people growing things and making music and trying to figure out how best to rear children. It's got Iceland and Tonga (okay, he calls it Ava'u...but really...) and several other locations in between.

And for some reason I will never understand, McDonald has decided to center his tale on Amon Brightbourne, one of the most boring sadsack white men ever to helm a science fiction novel. He believes himself to be living a charmed life, but there is some question about whether that charmed life is a zero-sum game, whether the good things come to him at the expense of others. When I thought this might be dealt with directly, I was cautiously interested, but no, people go on making decades' worth of life choices based on the premise that his superpower is Captain Zero-Sum, and nobody seems to say to themselves, "hey, this guy's life really sucks, so...let's reexamine our premises." Very late in the book there's a moment where another character says of Amon, "Oh, he makes me so angry and he's stupid and entitled and he has no sense about anything." YEP. THAT IS SURE TRUE. And then she goes on, "All that. But I've never...stopped...loving him." And I went: what? literally why???

Everything else in this mildly woowoo science fiction fantasy mashup is framed around the existence and importance of Amon Brightbourne. Raisa and Atli and Morwenna and the princesses and Kimmie and all the other characters...they continue to refer back to him, to constantly care what he's doing and thinking, which means that the elements that might otherwise build a fascinating story just sort of hang around with this guy. I'm not even annoyed with him except as a protagonist, I just find him fundamentally so dull that the rest of the novel is colored by his constant presence. I couldn't wish him ill, but I also couldn't wish him well, and I felt that if I wished him weird, he would leach all the pigment out of that too. So. I dunno. Lots of good stuff in here, but for me the sum was much less than its parts.

I requested a digital copy in order to sample the prose on my phone (since I don't have a eReader) before requesting a physical copy for review. My review will be based on the physical ARC I read (if I qualify)