Books like The Broken Land

This is one of those books where I have to hold my hand up and admit I was captured by the cover first (it is after all a Jim Burns) and was only later impressed by the story.In this book there is so much is going on - from the style and prose it is written in to the sheer creativity of the world Mr McDonald creates to the subtle messages and subjects he decides to explore and discuss through the storyline - most of which I will not discuss since it gives away the storyline.But what can I say - having read the book (and many of other peoples reviews on the book too) I agree that the internal conflict though obviously fantastic has a resonance to our world today, in fact I could not help seeing correlations to places and situations in the news and yet it didn't feel contrived or artificial.Then again I was fascinated with the creativity of the world to how such an alien world (with its technology and life forms as well as the various characters approach and interaction with them) so quickly became the accepted normal. The style it is written in does take a little while to get used to but once you do the story really comes alive.Now I will admit that Ian McDonald is one of those authors I have heard of but experienced very little (something I must do something about) but what I can say is the gamble was worth it and I think every story can do with character like grandfather.