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The Star Fraction
Ken MacLeod's vision of the 21st century - and beyond - is highly politicized. He has won two Prometheus awards for libertarian science fiction despite his positive appraisal of much of the Left in his writing. His four published novels involve a society very different politically from our own. His work has fanned out from his first novel, The Star Fraction to offer alternative viewpoints - often sympathetic but possibly contradictory - on where humanity could be heading. The breadth and cross-pollination between the books gives each a greater depth, regardless of the order in which they are read.
The Star Fraction opens around the middle of the 21st century. Britain has been fractured by turbulence at home and abroad. Division on every issue and the failure of central government has left independents of every stripe in enclaves throughout the country, from London to the Scottish Highlands. Many of these have a broad sympathy for the former Socialist government and the attitudes of the Left but are involved in feuds at the expense of the dream of a re-united Republican Britain. A Royalist government retains power over the rump of the country, but their power is further limited by the U.S./UN. The U.S./UN itself maintains global power through space based weaponry and control of new technology which has paralyzed the development of biotechnology and artificial intelligence.
The primary underlying "science" of this science fiction is politics. The interference patterns created by such a thought experiment are the very lives and livelihoods of the people in the book. Characters include a communist mercenary who works for a collective protecting (capitalist) property, a university researcher and a programmer/stockbroker from a Christian fundamentalist group. These people are powerfully realised. They care deeply about the society they live in and their political beliefs are a deep and genuine expression of their concern. The process of exploring politics through character makes the factional complexity of ideology more accessible. It also results in a visceral experience rather than a novel of ideas.
The speculative elements of The Star Fraction are in no way limited to politics. Space is a place where people go to work. This is significant, both for the influence that this all-seeing perspective offers the major powers and for the increasing freedom from Earth of those above. On the ground, the Green movement is seen to be deeply affected by global warming - what can they do when the environment is so clearly falling apart and it seems that still too few respect Gaia? There is also machine consciousness which works its way towards full artificial intelligence. The centre of this novel has much to say about artificial intelligence and its possible relationships with humanity. The idea of a life form springing from the silicon is opposed by those - both ignorant and computer literate - who fear the potential power of AI.
In the final third of the book the plot languishes somewhat as the populus works to reach a future bright with possibility. This final outcome remains open to re-interpretation and revelation. This novel brims with political pizzazz, wry humor and unusual insight. The struggle of the masses is brought to life in a manner which matches its fervency for a better world with brilliant action and convincing description.
It's only availible overseas, however.
Ok, maybe not quite that, but Ken MacLeod is the best thing to happen to science fiction in a long time. All four of his books are unbelievably great and those not available in the US are well worth special ordering from the UK.
I've written reviews of all of them, available on my web site:
The Star Fracion
The Stone Canal
The Cassini Division
The Sky Road
Note that the Star Fraction is available in bookstores in Canada. A $10 paperback edition is also available in the US via mail order from Laissez-Faire Books
One of the things I find refreshing about MacLeod -- sort of in the way a slap in the face can be refreshing under the right circumstances -- is how casual he is about exterminating whole virtual civilizations; how callously his characters can say "consciousness is an emergent property of carbon" and deny AIs or 'uploaded' humans any sort of civil rights or social equality just because they ain't natural-born human.
The consensus in SF ever since, oh, the Blade Runner days is that a mind is a mind is a mind, and natural/artificial, carbon/silicon, wetware/software makes no difference. MacLeod's work highlights the fact that this is really just one of SF's social conventions, and just because we hold this particular truth to be self-evident doesn't mean the rest of humanity is going to... and not just the screaming anti-science mobs (has anyone actually seen a screaming anti-science mob?) but the smart, competent, and ruthless good guys, too.
And it's also damned refreshing to read something that doesn't take fin-de-millenaire corporate capitalism as the end-all be-all of human existence, for good or evil. Long live the Last International!
-- Some things are to be believed, though not susceptible to rational proof.