You are listening to a Clarksville magazine podcast with your host and narrator Kate Baker.

Greetings Clarksville Citizens. I hope this podcast finds you extraordinarily well.

It's our last story for the month of December 2017, issue 135.

And like every single year that Clark's World has been with you, we kick off a new one, starting in January 2018 with

Issue 136. We hope you can come back and join us for that one. A last story is titled Botanica Veneris. 13

paper cuts by Ida Countess Rathangan. It is by Ian McDonald.

Ian McDonald is an ambitious and daring writer with a wide range and impressive amount of talent.

His novel River of Gods was the finals for both the Hugo Award and the Arthur C Clark

award in 2005, and a novella drawn from it, The Little Goddess, was a finalist for the

Hugo and Nebula.

He won a Hugo Award in 2007 for his novel at The Jin's Wife.

He also won the Theodore Sturgeon Award for his story,

Tandaleo's Story.

And in 2011, won the John W Campbell Memorial Award for his novel, The Dervish House.

His most recent novels are the starting volume of a YA series, Plains Runner, and two sequels,

Be My Enemy, an Empress of the Sun. His most recent book is a big retrospective collection, The Best of E.N. McDonald.

Born in Manchester, England in 1960,

McDonald has spent most of his life in Northern Ireland and now lives and works in Belfast.

You can find Ian at his website, Ian McDonald. Live journal.com.

And Ian is no stranger to Clark's World? January 2013 brought you

driftings. July 2013 brought you the Dust assassin and November 2016 brought you the Dust Assassin and November 2016 brought you an eligible boy.

So my dear listener I hope you can sit back, relax and let me tell you a story.

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