Ian McDonald is a Science-fiction, fantasy and (now!) horror writer living just outside Belfast in Northern Ireland. He's a multiple award winner across the genre and has taught and mentored from Seattle to Dingle to (this year) Chongqing.

His first novel was Desolation Road, in 1988. His most recent is The Wilding, (Gollancz 2024). His interests are global and cosmopolitan and focused on the near future, particularly in taking science fiction outside its western anglophone mindset.

The Marriage of Space and Time: micro-nations and long-term thinking in Hopeland.

Hopeland is a love-story of the early Anthropocene, between 2011 and 2033, where two unusual families: one a non-geographical 'family' that grows constantly and no one ever has to leave meets an older family with a long-term music project that takes it to the edge of deep time. In it I argue that nation-state approaches to climate are vulnerable to the electoral cycle and that better, more human-scaled solutions may arrive through non-governmental groups and projects, joining up. Lots of small-scale changes can achieve long-term change. And oh yes, love and Tesla coils!