A British science fiction writer.
Born 1960 in Manchester, England, McDonald now lives in central
Belfast; his alleged interests include cats, bonsai, bicycling
and comics.
McDonald's literary debut was the short story "The Island of the
Dead" in the Extro magazine. His first novel,
Desolation Road came out in 1988. An unique blend of science
fiction and magic realism in the finest A Hundred Years of
Solitude vein, Desolation Road takes place on a surreal
version of Mars, where Wellsian war machines, time travellers, AIs, saints and
Glen Miller are equally at home. The novel demonstrates McDonald's
amazing command of language and ability to evoke strong, poetic
images.
Sacrifice of Fools (1996)is a lighter work, and seems to be
McDonald's idea about how Alien Nation should have been done. Set
in a near-future Belfast, it depicts the cultural clash between
the Irish and an ancient alien race from the stars, the
Shian.
Chaga (1995) and it's sequel Kirinya (1998) paint a
vivid picture of a future Africa transformed by an alien
self-replicating terraformer organism. A third book set in the same
universe, Ananda is in the works.