Here are a few words onKen McLeod's magnificent first novel, The Star Fraction, the first in a series of 4 (or, at least, that's the most usual count – it's not straight-forward apparently) called The Fall Revolution. More than worth the read, and something I should have read long ago, but how many books can this be said about! Either way, this is a recommendation for those who have not been here before.
Moh Kohn is a mercenary, working for the Felix Dzershinksy Worker's Defense Collective, taking on contracts to protect research establishments from Crawls (AI abolitionists) and Creeps (animal protectionists). Or, in his own words: those who considered anything smarter than a pocket calculator a threat to the human race, and those who considered anything with a central nervous system a honorary member of it.
Here are my notes from reading Cowl, a stand-alone novel (save for a short story in the same universe) by Neal Asher, and can recommend it as the best Asher I've read so far. In a nutshell it's the story of Polly, a 22nd Century human, who gets tangled up in a war, raging across history, between two factions of 43rd Century post-humans civilizations, plus the Preterhuman Cowl, who sits and waits for his prey at the beginning of life on Earth. Definitely one for your reading pile.
Some history first – after the Muslim Jihad, the Resource Wars and the following Nuclear Winter Civilization as we know it fell, mainly due to our unfortunate tendency 'to breed weak humans and strong plagues' – ie our medicine and abuse of antibiotics. Out of this 2nd Dark Ages the Umbrathane (literally 'those who lead out of shadow') arose, breeding humans, exterminating weak strands, the full hog of Eugenics, way beyond anything the Nazis and Stalinists every did. But the Umbrathane fell into factions, fighting amongst themselves, and from this emerged, in the 43rd Century, the Heliothane Dominion (the Heliothane were their Engineers – talk about the Geek inheriting the Earth!) taking over, and exterminating all other factions who didn't escape or accede to the empire/dominion. Together with those Umbrathane that fled into the past there went the Preterhuman Cowl, the result of genetic cross-breeding, both apex and ultimate failure of the Heliothane breeding ambition.
Do I need to introduce Neil Gaiman, Rock Star amongst Speculative Fiction writers? Thought so... Anyway, here is Anansi Boys, his follow-on offering to the Hugo-Award-winning novel 'American Gods'. Not exactly a sequel (it could also play beforehand for all we know), but definitely in the same universe, written in a similar style, and with one character (the eponymous Anansi of the title) in common. And a similar topic – it's a tough lot to be the son of a God...
This edition (Hardback 1st) contains the story itself, an interview with Neil, an extra 'out-take' chapter, the original hand-written notebooks, and book-group discussion questions. Basically the film and the extra disc, but all in one neat hardback format ;-P
The book is about Anansi's sons, with 'Fat Charlie' Nancy, an exile American living in London, taking the lead. You see, his father called him Fat Charlie, and what Anansi names keeps that name. He's embarrassing, like any proper parent, only more so... Anyway, Fat Charlie is engaged to Rosie, who's mother cannot stand him. And he doesn't want his father to come to the wedding – he's sure he would embarrass him beyond measure. When Rosie 'convinces' him to invite him nevertheless Charlie discovers that his father has just died (on a Karaoke stage – how embarrassing!).
A few words of praise for Charles Stross' first published novel,Singularity Sky, which left me positively surprised – for a first novel this is highly readable and in parts 'undownputable' (urgh, nu-English), despite some confusing time lines and lazy explanations. A Must Read.
Some history… in the mid-21st Century, in a post-singularity Earth, with humanity tinkering with FTL and time travel, the Eschaton arrived, and 90% of the population vanished. Just like that. And it left a message, in very clear words:
I am the Eschaton. I am not your god. I am descended from you, and I exist in your future. Thou shalt not violate causality within my historic light cone. Or else.
