Promotional Information

* On-going Author PR - Ken available for selected events and signings and days out with reps in England and Scotland (to time with new HB sub) * Review coverage in the national and genre press * Featured on www.orbitbooks.co.uk and in the e-zine

About the Author

Since graduating from Glasgow University in 1976, Ken MacLeod has worked as a computer analyst in Edinburgh. He now writes full time.

Reviews

When artificial intelligences (AIs) on Earth suddenly evolved into godlike beings, a war ensued, and the humans who managed to survive were forced to flee to other worlds. Lucinda Carlyle, a galactic entrepreneur, discovers an artifact that could disrupt the way of life that the offworld humans have forged. MacLeod (The Stone Canal) is a master of high-tech sf and political intrigue. Space battles, clever plotting, and an accessible prose style make this space opera a good addition to most sf collections. Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

'Read the book. Then read it again. It's even better the second time' SFX, Praise for Ken MacLeod: 'Stunningly assured, inventive and intelligent' Iain M. Banks, 'MacLeod continues to add massive new levels of sophistication to the traditional space opera' STARLOG, 'He is writing revolutionary SF... a nova has appeared in our sky' Kim Stanley Robinson, 'The wit and thrust are like a needle shower' MAIL ON SUNDAY.

Amid the somewhat strident politics there are some outrageously funny patches in this over-packed space opera from Nebula and Hugo finalist MacLeod (Cosmonaut's Keep, etc.). In the 24th century, brash young Lucinda Carlyle takes her first big chance to prove herself to her wheeling-dealing clan who control the skein, a network of "gates" transporting people and equipment instantaneously between planets. In the Hard Rapture war centuries earlier between the United States and united Europe, run-amok American AI took over the brains of humans. Survivors flung into space include the gawkish farmers of America Offline (AO), the straitlaced Oriental Knights of Enlightenment (KE) and the third-world "commies" who strip-mine planets (DK). Lucinda opens a Pandora's box of shifting alliances that turns 20th-century American sensibilities upside down. Keeping the AO, KE and DK straight can be confusing as Lucinda brawls along her barrack-room Glasgow-dialect way. Perhaps MacLeod's most memorably quirky character, Benjamin Ben-Ami, produces epics like Jesus Koresh: Martyred Messiah, with "a mild-mannered and modest but strong-willed hero" and "gloating psychopathic villains, the Emperor Reno and the Empress Hilary." MacLeod slyly entices Americans to see ourselves as others see us-not a flattering picture at all. Agent, Mic Cheetham. (June 22) Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.