Hopeland

Ian McDonald has crafted a story that weaves across generations, families (chosen and born) and storylines in a way that feels both real and magical at the same time. It's a love letter to growing up, growing older, and changing.

I have a sense that this book was so close to what it could have been, but falters in the final chapters - that said, the real beauty is in the little moments and the world that he builds. The chase through the city, the coils, the music.

This is a legend in book form.

This novel really set a hook early in with crazy parkour electromancer battles, then sort of jumps sideways in a disconcerting series of lines of love stories, epic familial curses, climate emergency, corporate empires, heroic coups and and and and.

I am a huge fan of most of Ian McDonald's stuff, but unfortunately this one hit kind of flat and was a major struggle to finish.

I had a little trouble with the whole magical reality aspect of the book, for starters. It seemed incredibly present in the first section, and then largely disappeared into the background until near the end, so it felt rather jarring when it returned after so long.

Also, the whole Hopeland thing wasn't quite strongly enough envisioned for me to get a handle on it?

Honestly, this may largely be me. Like I said, I had a lot of trouble connecting to this book and the characters so I might have just drifted off and lost details that are actually obviously there.

But that's my 2¢ FWIW…

Hard to give this many stars to a book that I got badly stuck in the middle of, more than once. Each of the characters and their stories would hook me, but then it would switch to something else and I'd lose interest.

But in the end it all came together well, and it's got some great themes.