literary little thing

[rushthatspeaks]

So there's a thing about a book, which I noticed when I read the book, and assumed was a generally known fact, and now have mentioned to four separate intelligent and well-read sf fans who didn't know it, so that now I think it may not be a generally known fact--

anyway, were people aware that Ian McDonald's Desolation Road is a scene-for-scene, character-for-character, no-portions-of-the-plot-different occasional-lines-quoted sfnal retelling of Gabriel Garcia Marquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude?

Or is this a thing that I actually noticed? and should therefore, I don't know, write an essay on or something?

I like the McDonald much better, because, as a rule, if you set things on Mars I am going to like them better; also he fixed some of the gender problems. I suspect the Marquez of being a better book.