The Dervish House: Too Bloody Good

Richard Morgan (The Steel Remains, Altered Carbon) has posted his thoughts on Ian McDonald's The Dervish House to his blog, in a piece entitled "If you only read one SF book this year….".

"….make sure it’s Ian McDonald’s The Dervish House...Ian McDonald is one of a very small and select number of writers whose work actually makes me jealous – I read him and catch myself thinking over and over goddamnit, I wish I’d written this!!! Well – turns out The Dervish House is no exception to this tendency. It’s too bloody good for comfort. ...The Dervish House takes the expansive cultural mosaic of River of Gods, multiplies it by the driving Latin beat and teetering sense of jeopardy in Brasyl, and gives you a novel that is his best yet by a whole new order of imaginative and sensuous magnitude. Look – I lived and worked in Istanbul for a year and a bit, I’ve written it, both overtly and covertly, into my fiction myself, and I’m telling you, Ian has captured the city in a way I’ve never seen so convincingly done in genre or – more importantly – by any non-Turkish author in the mainstream either. ...More than ever before, Ian McDonald has written a book about Now – and I cannot recommend it highly enough. Just glad I’m not competing against it for awards this time around! Nice one, Ian – you talented fuck"