The Star Fraction - Ken Macleod

When ‘The Star Fraction’ was first published in 1995 Ken Macleod was an unknown writer, and the publication was his first novel. Macleod was a friend of bestselling Scottish novelist Iain Banks, whom he had pestered in the pub with various story ideas when drunk for years before finally working up the courage to actually try publishing a novel. Nowadays Macleod is an author of an entire series of novels, with a new series underway, and with several awards and many more award nominations to his name (The Star Fraction, for example, won the Prometheus Award for best libertarian sf in the US and was runner-up for the Arthur C. Clarke Award in this country). ...  Read the complete review

The first novel by Ken Macleod, this is a book firmly set in the seemingly resurrected cyberpunk mould, albeit with a contemporary spin. The main character is Moh Kohn, mercenary with a political heart, who lives in a socialist area that was once London. Quite a bit happens over the course of the book, but suffice to say that it involves AIs and revolutions. When I first read this book around a year ago, I was pretty confused by a lot of it. This is because to get the most out of it you need to have a good understanding of Communist theory and history. Twelve months (and a couple of reads of Marx's 'The Communist Manifesto') later, I feel I'm in a ...  Read the complete review