Tuesday, 24th of December, 2002

I’ve just finished the loosely-connected first four novels by Ken MacLeod, referred to collectively as the Fall Revolution. He’s a Scottish author, socialist and libertarian (but not in the American sense of conservative free-marketeers), and there’s a huge amount of politics in his books; there are generally two time-streams, one being near-past/future political stuff, and the other being far-future space-opera in the style of Iain M Banks (of whom he is a long-time friend). There’s a certain seeming virulent anti-Green sentiment in the first novel, The Star Fraction, but it’s partially an expression of the attitude of both left and libertarian sources, and partially one can understand it as not exactly an anti-green sentiment so much as being against those who are against technology, against humanity, etc. There’s plenty I’m not sure I agree with in the first book, but I think that’s the sign of good writing. In any case, it’s stimulating to read such vociferously left-wing and political stuff in hard science-fiction. The fourth book has, in a sense, a “green utopia” as its future setting - MacLeod likes to play with all sorts of points of view within the revolutionary/left/liberal axis, which is part of why he’s such a fantastic author…

Apologies if this extended review reads a bit oddly - I read the four books over some length of time, and I put up little review-lets as I went, so I’m pieceing it all together now…
The second novel, The Stone Canal, is fantastic. FANTASTIC. Still my favourite. Two time-lines, one starting in the late ’70s with socialist and libertarian Uni students having arguments in pubs (and suchlike), the other set in the far-future and involving artificial intelligences (robots and cloned humans and all sorts of bizarreness) in an anarchist society. The political ruminations are fascinating (the central character John Wilde is a very sympathetic character despite claiming to be a purely selfishly-motivated libertarian…), as are the philosophical and scientific speculations. What’s most fascinating is how MacLeod explores different political and philosophical viewpoints in each novel. This one, to me, had the most engaging characters, as well as being the most favourably inclined towards artificial intelligence…

The third one, The Cassini Division, is set in a kind of anarcho-socialist utopia (of sorts), and presents a completely different attitude to technology and artificial intelligence from the previous one, one which I found somewhat troubling, as well as a rather twisted attitude to morality (whereby “good” means “good to us” - whoever “us” might be). But there’s always a sense of the ambiguity of it all, and usually one can enjoy it and be swept along without too much stress from one’s own opinions - especially because MacLeod is thoroughly exploring all sorts of concepts and positions without resolutely coming down on any particular side… I know a lot of people like this novel, but I found it very much the least satisfying. There were some fun technological marvels and plenty of adventure, but the protagonist was such a completely unsympathetic character, I found it difficult going.

The final novel, The Sky Road, competes well with The Stone Canal for best of the lot. This time it’s set in a kind of far-future Green utopia about to make its first steps into space, in which the “tinkers” (computer programmers and theoreticians) are a somewhat outcast minority group, and most people believe in a strange quasi-religion of “Reason” (in which the events of the early 21st century are mythologised). There’s a linked near-future time-line which involves many of the characters from previous books. The morality and politics is nicely muddled up, making for very realistic characterisation and a very realistic near-Armageddon for the near-future world… I enjoyed it very much.

I’ve learnt a huge amount about both socialist and libertarian politics through reading these books, and not a small amount about human nature too. The fact that MacLeod can bounce between different viewpoints so convincingly, and can often make the reader disagree vehemently, is proof that he’s an extraordinary talent. Equal thanks go to acb and Charles Stross for putting me on to MacLeod.

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