Paul McAuley at Tangled Web UK

Page Updated: 28/01/2008

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Paul McAuley - Page 2

First British Edition Voyager (2001)

The Secret of Life
There is life on MArs. Will it end life on Earth?
A Chinese expedition finds microbial life deep under Mars’s polar cap and secretly brings it back to Earth. Chinese biotech companies want to exploit the extraordinary potential of this tough, ancient life, but industrial espionage leads to the escape of a genetically altered version, the Chi, into the Pacific Ocean. Able to adapt and change at high speed, the Chi’s ever-mutating, fast-growing slick is threatening ecological meltdown.
Microbiologist Dr Mariella Anders finally realises her ambition to travel to Mars when she joins a NASA team racing a second Chinese expedition to the site where life was first found. Mariella is famous for having discovered the infective agent behind the Muses Plague, but her uncompromising attitude has made her plenty enemies, not least the expedition’s self-appointed leader, Penn Brown.
She soon discovers that political expediency, ruthless commercial manipulation and Penn Brown’s vested interests not only compromise scientific truth, but threaten the expedition’s survival. And she learns that while discovering the secret of the Chi is hard enough, knowing what to do with it is even harder.
The Secret Of Life is a gripping near-future thriller for the Age of the Genome, blending the wonder of classic science fiction with the terrifying implication of biotechnology.
'McAuley is part of a spearhead of writers who for pure imagination, hipness, vision and fun have made Britain the Memphis Sun Records of SF' Mark Thomas, Mail on Sunday
‘McAuley is one of the best’ Independent
‘McAuley matches the best of his American rivals for zest and scope’ Guardian
‘A crafty and inventive writer’ Locus
‘Usually you get ideas or voice. With McAuley you get both – in spades. Without question, the most exciting of Britain’s new-edge writers’ Michael Marshall Smith

Paperback - Gollancz Millenium (1999)

Ancients of Days
Second Book of Confluence
The artificial world of Confluence orbits an obscure star beyond the edge of the Galaxy. It is home to ten thousand alien races raised to intelligence by the Preservers, god-like descendants of humanity. Although the last humans, the Ancients of Days, left Confluence aeons ago, the world is now riven by civil war fired by the heresies they left behind.
Yama was found as a baby on the breast of a dead woman in a white boat floating on the Great River. Leaving his childhood home for Ys, he has two ambitions: to fight against the heretics, and to solve the mystery of his birth.
But Yama is not the only one searching for his bloodline: there are those who covet his mysterious powers, and there are those for whom he is the fulfilment of ancient prophecies, a messiah for the end of time.
'Destined to be a classic' SFX
'Excellent ... a superb, wholly engaging story told by a talented and influential writer' Express on Sunday.
'A lusciously scenic quest for the past' Daily Telegraph

Paperback - Gollancz (2007)

Paperback
Vista (1999)

Fairyland
In the 21st century change is the certainty amidst endless civil wars and technological revolutions. Europe is divided between the First World bourgeoisie, made rich by nanotechnology and the cheap, versatile slave labour of the genetically engineered Dolls, and the Fourth World of refugees and homeless displaced by war, terrorism and economic upheavals. FAIRYLAND is a giddily baroque journey across landscapes where nanotechnology and genetic engineering have turned the archetypes of fantasy into fact.
`SF has seen fashions come and go, but there are still a few out there who keep the faith, and McAuley is one of the best’ The Independent
`Paul McAuley pulls off that rare balancing act of exploring big concepts while telling an absorbing and entertaining story’ New Scientist
‘McAuley is part of a spearhead of writers who for pure imagination, hipness, vision and fun have made Britain the Memphis Sun Records of SF’ Mail on Sunday
'Rich, complex... a thoroughly imagined future clearly connected to our own world and yet radically transformed through nanotechnology and VR' Locus
'Deft and sophisticated' Time Out
'Sheer narrative verve and ingenious future making… Mickey Mouse, Ronald McDonald and the Internerds have never been so shown up' Kim Newman
'A wild and bizarre vision of the future - I LOVE this book' Pat Cadigan, twice winner of the Arthur C, Clarke Award

Paperback - Gollancz Millenium (1999)

Pasquales Angel
Winner of the Arthur C.Clarke Award
Florence, 1518. Leonardo da Vinci's astonishing machines work, and the Industrial Revolution has happened centuries early. When Pasquale, a young painter, teams up with the hard-drinking journalist Machiavegli to investigate a murder in a locked tower room, they stumble into a conspiracy of politics, necromancy and assassination. As they pursue the ever-more-twisted case through Florence's acetylene-lit streets, the only certainty is that they could be next on the hit list.
Pasquale's Angel, winner of the Sidewise Award, is part thriller, part historical novel and part novel of ideas, this is the Renaissance as it might have been if da Vinci had worked as an engineer rather than an artist. It is compulsively readable and convincing in every detail.
'Beautifully written' New Statesman
'McAuley matches the best of his American rivals in zest and scope' The Guardian 'Stalks a cosmic playground previously mapped out by Arthur C. Clarke and Greg Bear' Time Out, Year's Best Books
'Rich in textures, teeming with fascinating sights and sounds and situations. With this book McAuley proves he's an artist of uncommon depth and range' Pat Cadigan, twice winner of the Arthur C. Clarke Award
'McAuley's spectacularly realised chiaroscuro world is a highly entertaining tour de force' Publisher's Weekly

Paperback - Gollancz Millenium (1999)

Eternal Light
In the aftermath of an interstellar war an enigmatic star is discovered, travelling towards the Solar System from the galactic core. Its appearance adds a new and dangerous factor in the turbulent politics of the inhabited worlds as the rival factions – the power-holders of the ReUnited Nations, the rebels who secretly oppose their power, and the Religious Witnesses - all see advantages to be gained.
But what awesome technology started the star on its journey half a million years ago - and why?
From the endless carnival on Titan to an earth ruled by the fanatic Witnesses; from the depths of space and the galactic core to the border between reality and the manifold infinity between universes, Eternal Light is huge in scope, breathtaking in ideas and packed with life, character, atmosphere and incident.
'Eloquently told. A wonderful book' John Clute, Interzone
'Science fiction has seen fashions come and go, but there are still a few out there who keep the faith, and McAuley is one of the best' Independent
'Ambitious... awe-inspiring... grandiose... great ideas... impeccable' Publisher's Weekly