King of Morning, Queen of Day

By Ian McDonald

Winner of the Philip K. Dick Award and the Prix Imaginales: Three generations of women share a mysterious power—one that threatens to destroy them

In early-twentieth-century Ireland, life for Emily Desmond is that of the average teenage girl: She reads, she’s bored with school, and she has a powerful imagination. Then things begin to change. Her imagination is so powerful, in fact, that she wills a faerie into existence—an ability called mythoconsciousness. It’s this power that opens a dangerous door that she will never want to close, and whose repercussions will reverberate across time.

First to be affected is her daughter, Jessica, who, in the mid-1930s, finds that she must face her mother’s power by using the very same gift against her. Then, in the near future, Jessica’s granddaughter, Enye, must end the cycle once and for all—but it may prove too powerful to overcome.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Media
• Release date: Jul 2, 2013
• ISBN: 9781480432154

Ian McDonald

IAN MCDONALD was born in 1960 in Manchester, England, to an Irish mother and a Scottish father. He moved with his family to Northern Ireland in 1965. He has won the Locus Award, the British Science Fiction Association Award, and the John W. Campbell Memorial Award. His novels include King of Morning, Queen of Day (winner of the Philip K. Dick Award), River of Gods, The Dervish House, the graphic novel Kling Klang Klatch, and many more. In 2019, Ian was named a Grand Master of Science Fiction by the European Science Fiction Society. He now lives in Belfast.

Reviews for King of Morning, Queen of Day

[salimbol · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A rare fantasy from predominantly-SF writer McDonald, set in Ireland and spread across three generations. It's one of his earliest books, but all of his best traits as a writer are on display here: it's bold and intelligent, he plays with language as few writers can, he gives his female characters depth and individuality, the narrative structure is clever, with each of the three sections having a very distinctive feel, and he captures the various time periods very well. I felt that the conclusion to the third section was slightly too pat, but other than that, I thoroughly enjoyed it.

[robertday_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

At the time I first read this, I was unaware of Ian McDonald; so looking at the blurb, the packaging and the fact that here was a UK-Irish writer only (then) published in the USA, I was expecting preciousness and Oirishness. I'm pleased to say I got neither, even though the book gives proper acknowledgement to Ireland's vibrant myth-scape. But there was much more than these things in it, including a 19th-century first contact story that was well-drawn and worked from a totally different cultural background.

[zambaco_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Really quite a good interweaving of three women's lives and their connections with mythoconsciousness - I felt that MacDonald was probably heavily into Robert Holdstock at the time of writing. But quite a different slant from Holdstock with interesting glimpses into modern Irish history and nice thematic and stylistic allusions to Yeats, Joyce and Beckett. The (no longer) present day section was the weakest, I thought, with some rather standard sf and horror tropes, but the first and middle sections are truly magical.

[wyvernfriend · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

myth-centric Ireland with faerie folk of the old school. I must admit to being a little disappointed with it and a feeling of vague dissatisfaction with the conclusion of the story.