The Broken Land (Magill’s Guide to Science Fiction and Fantasy Literature)
At a glance:
- Author: Ian McDonald
- First Published: 1992
- Type of Work: Novel
- Type of Plot: Science fiction—cultural exploration
- Time of Work: The far future
- Setting: The empire of the Proclaimers
- Genres: Long fiction, Science fiction
- Subjects: Girls, Future, Other worlds, Speech, Bioengineering or biotechnology
- Locales: Mythical lands
The Plot
From its bravura opening line—“Grandfather was a tree”—and its initial image of a living house running amok through a village, Ian McDonald’s fourth novel quickly establishes a bizarre setting and a haunting tone that seem to owe as much to surrealism as to earlier science fiction. The Broken Land essentially is the tale of a young girl’s quest across a planet whose shifting landscapes and political structures alternately call to mind Southeast Asia, Eastern Europe, South Africa, and contemporary Ireland.
These vividly realized settings and...
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