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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
(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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