Old Mars

British author Ian McDonald is an ambitious and daring writer with a wide range and an impressive amount of talent. His first story was published in 1982, and since then he has appeared with some frequency in Interzone, Asimov’s Science Fiction, and elsewhere. In 1989 he won the Locus “Best First Novel” Award for his novel Desolation Road. He won the Philip K. Dick Award in 1991 for his novel King of Morning, Queen of Day. His other books include the novels Out on Blue Six and Hearts, Hands and Voices; Terminal Café; Sacrifice of Fools; Evolution’s Shore; Kirinya; Ares Express; and Brasyl, as well as three collections of his short fiction, Empire Dreams, Speaking in Tongues, and Cyberabad Days. His novel River of Gods was a finalist for both the Hugo Award and the Arthur C. Clarke Award in 2005, and a novella drawn from it, “The Little Goddess,” was a finalist for the Hugo and the Nebula. He won a Hugo Award in 2007 for his novelette “The Djinn’s Wife,” won the Theodore Sturgeon Award for his story “Tendeléo’s Story,” and in 2011 won the John W. Campbell Memorial Award for his novel The Dervish House. His most recent books are The Dervish House, the starting volume of a YA series, Planesrunner, and another new novel, Be My Enemy. Born in Manchester, England, in 1960, McDonald has spent most of his life in Northern Ireland, and now lives and works in Belfast. He has a website at http://​www.​lysator.​liu.​se/​~unicorn/​mcdonald/.

In most recent wars, entertainers have visited the frontline troops, often putting themselves in considerable danger. None have ever visited a battlefield as strange, though, or performed for an audience as bizarre and inhuman, or put themselves in as much imminent danger, as do the hapless entertainers in the brilliant and slyly funny story that follows …