When I read Desolation Road I had no idea that I was reading a companion novel to Ares Express. Happily, it doesn't matter what order you read them in - there's no spoilers, and only one character in common... who is fairly central to the plot of both, but in ways that work separately for each novel.

Every time I read a new McDonald novel I'm reminded of just how awesome a creator he is. Here, the focus is a young woman born to a train family - they drive trains around Mars, and everything about the family is focused on the train. It's a weird mix of a society, because it's clearly technologically advanced - or at least, there are aspects of that, since they're living on a terraformed planet and they have various tech things that don't exist for us. At the same time, though, there are archaic aspects to the human side, including, sometimes, arranged marriage. Such is the future looming for Sweetness Octave Glorious-Honeybun Asiim 12th, and she is not having it. And so begins an adventure across Mars that will eventually have enormous repercussions.

The way McDonald gradually reveals his vision of this future world is masterful. There's enough, early on, to understand the basics of society... and then slowly, slowly, enough of the history of the place is revealed that the reader's vision is broadened. It's looking through a keyhole vs eventually looking through a door. But not stepping through that door - there are still lots of tantalising bits that aren't fully explained, which just makes it all the richer.

Sweetness is a great focal character: young, impetuous, smart, unafraid of challenges and usually willing to admit when she needs help. I would have been happy with an entire novel focused on her. But McDonald adds Grandmother Taal, and I love her to bits. Old ladies being feisty, taking up the slack when the younger generation is being a bit useless, fearless and clever and willing to meddle: she's everything I love.

One of the great things about writing a middle-future novel where there's been some loss of tech for whatever reason is that, despite being over 20 years old now, it still gets to feel vital and believable and not at all outdated. Ares Express is magnificent.

Juggles some interesting ideas but never settles down long enough to really make an impact anywhere. Very fitting given the subject matter that the book feels like something very powerful speeding right past you without impacting anything.

Desolation Road was about a town. Ares Express is about a person. I hate to talk about another book too much in a review, but these books are very similar, and Ares is a quasi-sequel. It’s not necessary to read Desolation Road first, but you will catch a few cameos and other things in this book with that background.. They’re both very beautiful, both very lyrical. However Ares Express is just better. It doesn’t suffer from the sudden jarring of character, it doesn’t (excuse the term) go off the rails.

This book is all about Sweetness Octave Glorious Honey-Bun Asiim Engineer 12th. A 9 year old (in Mars years) girl who wants to run a train. But she can’t, because the controls of the train (which generations live on), will go to her brother, because the controls are passed father to son. Then her train/family tries to marry her off to a Stuard on another train and she leaves, making her own destiny rather than being subjected to what her mini-society expects.

Our plucky hero has a story with zombie-like towns, a cult-personality (and, well, the cult itself), mad politicians, angels, slavers, and free-children. It’s a great story with lots of vibrant imagery, great characters, and wonderful action.

This has everything I loved reading in Desolation Road, and none of the things I didn’t. Great story. Great ride.

This is a big, colorful, exuberant adventure story, with the energy and sense of mission of its seventeen-Earth-year-old protagonist; it has inventiveness in plenty, and rejoices in it.

We are on a Mars that's been made habitable, but by art not evolution. Implausible things happen constantly, in fact many events seem like magic, but it's really Sufficiently Advanced Technology. AIs that can manipulate the quantum structure of the world shape reality nearly as they wish, but I imagine there must be limits on their power; after all, things are not quite chaotic, they do have a certain skewed logic, and internal consistency within local patches. The artificial nature of the world might explain the oddly retro nature of the decor -- pop culture seems taken straight from various parts of the 20th century but especially the 1950s (global, though, not just U.S.) It could reproduce chunks of the past if it's implanted rather than evolved. That would (sort of) explain the presence of the Glen Miller Band, which seems to be the actual Glen Miller Band.

I know the author has some thematic reasons for what he chooses to write, he's not just having fun -- but he's having fun too. The whole thing is extremely self-conscious about being Story (the main character ticking off when she goes through the major plot arc points), which may be a reflection on what things would be like if we really could manipulate reality by its quantum structure.

A few brief thoughts:
-This book is very, very funny. The jokes are very well integrated into the characterization and plot, in such a way that it is difficult to quote them out of context. I tried to repeat the jokes to people, because they are so thoroughly excellent, only to find that they required too much set-up to be funny second hand. I have decided this 'not funny second hand' will be a virtue.
-There are metafictional elements to the novel which are quite weak, and are the only thing which stopped me from giving 5 stars. The problem (I have only just now realized) is that metafiction is necessarily expository, rather than descriptive. In a science fictional context, this kind of exposition produces the fatal 'Old Man Explaining to Young Person What's Going On' thing which is a boredom unto death.
-Also, the metafiction reads as if the author felt guilty about writing what might be seen as a conventional picaresque adventure story and so he felt the need to have the characters nod and wink at the reader, to let us know that he knew this was all a bit silly and fun. I'm of a different opinion: if you are going to be silly, be silly. Narratively speaking, once you chose your path, never apologize for it. Ever.
-I could go into more detail on these points, but I've got stuff to do. If you like well-wrought, imaginary worlds populated with clever ideas and fully realized characters and unrepeatable jokes about such things as two thirds of a posh frock or a half eaten romance novel, then *Ares Express* is for you.