Review of The Sky Road by Ken Macleod

For those who have read the first three books in Ken Macleod’s Fall Revolution series, The Sky Road will be a sublimely satisfying last bow.  None of the books connected linearly in a strong sense of the expression (in other words, it’s not necessary to read them in order but it goes a long way toward manifesting the overall vision), The Sky Road offers yet another perspective on the future of humanity through the splintered lens of politics and technology.  The novel is a delicately pointed end to the series, and while certainly the most subdued, may be the best of the four.

Like The Stone Canal, The Sky Road is divided into two stories told in alternating chapters.  The first focuses on a young man named Colvis colha Gree and is set at a time centuries in the future when the world has re-built itself to a pleasantly bucolic/industrial state many years after a major civilization-destroying apocalypse.  Though a history major at the local university, Colvis is working his summer vacation as a welder on a crew building the first rocket the world has seen in ages. Technology beyond mechanical considered “black knowledge”, the rocket represents mankind’s first excursion back into space since the Deliverer saved humanity.  Meeting a young woman while drinking at the town market one day, Colvis suddenly finds his studies and work have a connection. 

Review of The Cassini Division by Ken Macleod

The Stone Canal, predecessor to The Cassini Division, saw a flurry of technical, and as a result, social developments, move one part of humanity to post-human status.  And so while Wilde and Reid’s personal matters were resolved, larger matters, that is, an agreement between standard and post-humans was left hanging, a peaceful resolution far from certain.  Focusing precisely on this schism, The Cassini Division, Ken Macleod’s third novel in the Fall Revolution sequence, brings the implications of Singularity to full head.

Set 350 years after the events of The Star Fraction, The Cassini Division is told through the eyes of Ellen May Ngwethu, captain of the spaceship Terrible Beauty and one of Cassini Division’s most prominent officers.  Assigned the protection of humanity, she and her comrades occupy the moon Callisto, dutifully guarding the wormhole and the hive-like construction on Jupiter from any post-human incursion.  At the outset of the novel, Ellen is sent to Earth to bring back Sam Malley.  A brilliant physicit responsible for the mathematics supporting the engineering of the wormhole, Cassini Division has a mind to enlist his help for a sortie through the ‘hole to meet with New Mars.  A non-cooperator—capitalist, that is, finding Malley amongst the dirty underbelly of London’s non-Socialists on Earth proves tricky, while convincing him to join their team proves moreso.  Ellen fully believing the fate of humanity hangs in the balance, she pursues her mission with confidence and stubbornness, and ultimately takes her fight to other star systems.  Whether the post-humans have good intentions, well, that the reader will have to discover alongside Ellen.

Review of The Star Fraction by Ken Macleod

Back cover copy claims Ken Macleod’s debut The Star Fraction (1995) is like “modern-day George Orwell”, and there is some truth in it.  Not an examination of totalitarianism, the novel is rather a thought experiment on technology in an environment as rife with subtly variegated politics as the scene Orwell covered in WWII Spain in Homage to Catalonia.  Given the dry wit and experimentatal mode, however, I would say that Macleod is more Heinleinian.  Regardless of classic parallels, however, the first of the four books which comprises the Fall Revolution sequence, The Star Fraction, is an astonishingly confident debut which examines poly-sci in a way neither author did: the Singularity.

Before jumping to the review, I think it is necessary to position the The Star Fraction within the context of the series given it is certainly not an A-B-C-D affair.  When I picture the Fall Revolution sequence in my mind’s eye, a lobster claw appears.  The Star Fraction being the wrist from which two stories branch, The Stone Canal forms the claw and The Cassini Division its pointed end, while The Sky Road forms the second storyline, the pincer.  Setting the tone (style, pace, mode of presentation, etc.), The Star Fraction introduces readers to Macleod’s brand of sci-fi and presents the major themes at work in the three books which follow.  Thus, if you are thinking of reading Macleod, it is strongly encouraged to begin with this novel.

Review of The Stone Canal by Ken Macleod

The Stone Canal, second in Ken MacLeod’s Fall Revolution series, is a difficult book to write a review of.  The reason is the story’s structure.  Broken in half, the chapters alternate to tell the first and second halves separately, with the ending joining the two together at the middle into a single whole.  The details at the end of one revealing important information about the beginning of the other, and vice versa, it’s quite easy to wander into spoiler territory writing a summary.  (Be warned, the majority of reviews I have read spoiled large portions and some of the major surprises in the novel.)  It’s best to start with Macleod’s introduction, and leave the rest to instinct and hope. 

 

In classic sci-fi style, the opening page of The Stone Canal features a man waking from the dead in the middle of a desert on a strange planet.  Named Jonathan Wilde, the last memory he has is being shot by a fair weather friend, David Reid, on Earth.  A robot is standing beside Wilde waiting for him to come to consciousness, and together the two wander into the nearest town.  Feeling like the wild west, the town is on a planet called New Mars and is riddled with canals, rundown concrete buildings, and a healthy mood of chaos and freedom amidst the robots, net tech, and biological misfits.  Also walking the streets of the town is a cyborg woman.  Named Dee Model, she is fleeing her owner after experiencing the epiphany that she has the right to her own autonomy.  Seeing Wilde in a bar, the two have a brief ‘don’t I know you moment’ before the goons arrive.  It is not the last time the two cross paths.

Review of "The House of Storms" by Ian R. MacLeod

The breadth of English language reading material not always readily available in Poland, particularly sci-fi and fantasy, I often must resort to reading whatever I can lay my hands on.  It was thus when Ian MacLeod’s 2005 The House of Storms came available on the Polish equivalent of ebay, I bid and won.  (The flip side to being an English language reader in Poland is there’s not much competition for said material.)  I knew it was a loose sequel to The Light Ages, but all the reviews stated the books were not necessary to read in order.  Individually and as a whole, yes, they were right: The House of Storms is self-contained, and like the reviews in comparison to one another, yes, quality fluctuates.

The setting of the alternate history novel is deliciously steampunk.  All the action located in a Victorian-esque England, an intriguing substance called aether has permeated societal development to the same point oil has ours.  Fueling an industrial boom that has improved communication, transportation and technology, the substance also causes harm to those who are exposed for too long, even mutating unborn children.  A valuable resource, it causes its share of conflict, and as the telegraph is being wired over England, bloody clashes as to who controls the all-important communication lines.  The lower class involuntary a member of the conflict, The House of Storms covers all layers of society toward examining, amongst other things, industrial revolutions and the existence of the supernatural.