The Fall Revolution

The Fall Revolution #1-2,4

by Ken MacLeod

SFBC edition containing The Star Faction, The Stone Canal and The Sky Road

Genres: Science Fiction

710 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2001

About the author

Ken MacLeod is an award-winning Scottish science fiction writer.

His novels have won the Prometheus Award and the BSFA award, and been nominated for the Hugo and Nebula Awards. He lives near Edinburgh, Scotland.

MacLeod graduated from Glasgow University with a degree in zoology and has worked as a computer programmer and written a masters thesis on biomechanics.

His novels often explore socialist, communist and anarchist political ideas, most particularly the variants of Trotskyism and anarcho-capitalism or extreme economic libertarianism.

Technical themes encompass singularities, divergent human cultural evolution and post-human cyborg-resurrection.

Reviews

[Clayton · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read the first two parts of the book and not yet the third. I found the series so far to be a little uneven, and a little hard to follow sometimes if you are not well-read on the subject of various popular political 'isms. (This story is VERY political.) Even though separated by centuries and an unknown number of light years, you definitely want to read the first volume before the second, as some characters carry over. The first part is not nearly as much of a page-turner as the second, but is additive to the second part so do not skip it.

There are two main themes being explored here: large scale real-life anarchism, and our trans-human AI future. Despite being well over twenty years old, this take on the subjects has aged well.

[Kyle · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excellent collection of three science fiction books that take place within a shared possible future. These stories tackle political and economic philosophy with aplomb. The first two, the Star Faction and the Stone Canal, are the strongest of the three, but the Sky Road also entertains.

Each book addresses human relationships with one another and institutions, as well as emerging technology, tradition and personal goals and dreams. Capitalism, communism, socialism, libertarianism and anarchism, as well as liberalism and conservatism, are dealt with as various characters express, accept and reject those points of view, following their own logic and goals. Well worth reading.

[Joyce Reynolds-Ward · Rating 5 out of 5]

So this was my post-election comfort read. An odd choice but it worked. One question I had was whether the stories would still work after all these years, and really, except for a few dated references, the politics worked and had enough of a chilling effect to be predictive of current events.

Very good read, especially for a political activist.