Desolation Road (1988)

Cover of Bantam Spectra edition (by Jerry Lofaro). Cover of Bantam UK edition (by Les Edwards).
Cover of Drunken Dragon Press edition (by Les Edwards).
Cover of Bantam Spectra edition with afterword (by Mark Harrison).
Cover of Simon & Shuster/Earthlight edition (by Paul Youll).
Cover of Livre de Poche edition (France).
Cover of Bastei Lübbe edition (Germany).
Cover of Hayakawa edition (Japan).
Cover of Serbian edition.

In the red, sun-drenched sands of the Martial desert is a little town on the edge of nowhere that should never have existed at all. Founded by accident and nurtured on the bizarre and wondrous dreams of the planet's outcasts, Desolation Road sprang into being. And in its short, thirty-year history it entertained every concievable cosmic abnormality the Multiverse had to offer, from Adam Black's Wonderful Travelling Chautauqua and Educational 'Stravaganza (with captive heavenly angel) to The Amazing Scorn - Mutant Master of Scintillating Sarcasm and Rapid Repartee. And in this inconsequential place was fought a battle so extraordinary that time itself had to be readjusted.

Cover blurb of Bantam Spectra edition

Desolation Road is, most of all, about the town of Desolation Road which is in the middle of the red Martian desert. Some of the chapters in it would also work as short stories. An elderly couple get lost in the infinite space of their garden, a baby growing in a jar is stolen and replaced with a mango, a man called The Hand plays electric guitar for the clouds and starts the first rain for one hundred and fifty thousand years. Ian has also written a few short stories set in the same environment as Desolation Road. Desolation Road topped the 1989 Locus poll for best first novel in 1988 and was nominated for the Arthur C. Clarke Award 1990.

Editions

  • Bantam Spectra (paperback)
    1988
    355 pages. $3.95. Cover by Jerry Lofaro.
    ISBN 0-553-27057-5.
  • Bantam UK (paperback)
    1989
    355 pages. £3.99. Cover by Les Edwards.
    ISBN 0-553-17532-7.
  • Drunken Dragon Press (hardcover)
    1990
    373 pages. £14.95. Cover by Les Edwards.
    ISBN 0-947578-02-1.
  • Drunken Dragon Press (limited edition hardcover; signed, numbered and slipcased)
    1990
    373 pages. £42.50. Cover by Les Edwards.
    ISBN 0-947578-52-8.
  • Bantam Spectra (paperback)
    1991
    359 pages. $4.99. Cover by Mark Harrison. Includes a four-page author's afterword "The Last Train to Kajiado Station".
    ISBN 0-553-27057-5.
  • Simon & Schuster/Earthlight (paperback)
    2001
    373 pages. £6.99. Cover by Paul Youll.
    ISBN 0-671-03753-6.
    Republished simultaneously with the release of Ares Express.

Translations

  • French Desolation Road, translated by Bernard Sigaud.
    1990
    Editions Laffont.
    1994
    Editions Le Livre de Poche. Foreword by Gérard Klein (in French).
  • German Strasse der Verlassenheit, translated by Michael Kubiak.
    1991
    Bastei Lübbe SF Special, 24141. 445 pages, ISBN 3-404-24141-X. DM 9:80. Cover art by David B. Mattingly.
  • Japanese Japanese title (Kasei Yasokyoku (Mars Nocturne)), translated by Yoshimichi Furusawa.
    1997
    Hayakawa Publishing, Inc.
  • Serbian Bespuce, translated by Goran Skrobonja.
    1999
    Polaris (500 copies).

Reviews

I'm very interested to get cover scans of the German translation.


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