Ken MacLeod: 'The Execution Channel'
Oct. 23rd, 2007 08:03 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
hawkwing_lbBook 156, Fiction 148
148. Ken MacLeod, The Execution Channel
This one's been sitting on my shelf for a while (though not nearly as long as Geoff Ryman's Air). At first glance, it's not science fiction: it's alternate history where the alternate history is now or some indeterminate point in the not-too-distant future, and it's a rather grim examination of the machinery, as well as the pomp, of the security state in a world that exists in a constant state of low-grade warfare and under the threat of the war to end all wars.
(Sound familiar? God, does it ever.)
MacLeod mixes it up with a unique approach to the spy thriller, tight pacing, and a tense denouément. The SF really only comes into play at the very close.
Is it good? Is it ever. This one's going on my list of grim-but-beautiful, right beside Stross's Glasshouse and Walton's Farthing.
Good book.
148. Ken MacLeod, The Execution Channel
This one's been sitting on my shelf for a while (though not nearly as long as Geoff Ryman's Air). At first glance, it's not science fiction: it's alternate history where the alternate history is now or some indeterminate point in the not-too-distant future, and it's a rather grim examination of the machinery, as well as the pomp, of the security state in a world that exists in a constant state of low-grade warfare and under the threat of the war to end all wars.
(Sound familiar? God, does it ever.)
MacLeod mixes it up with a unique approach to the spy thriller, tight pacing, and a tense denouément. The SF really only comes into play at the very close.
Is it good? Is it ever. This one's going on my list of grim-but-beautiful, right beside Stross's Glasshouse and Walton's Farthing.
Good book.
