Ken MacLeod
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Image:Ken McLeod 2005.JPG Ken MacLeod (born August 2, 1954), a Scottish science fiction writer, lives near Edinburgh. He 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. Technical themes encompass singularities, divergent human cultural evolution and post-human cyborg-resurrection. MacLeod's general outlook can be best described as techno-progressive.
He is part of a new generation of British science fiction writers, who specialise in hard science fiction and space opera. His contemporaries include Iain Banks, Alastair Reynolds, Charles Stross and Liz Williams.
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Bibliography
Fall Revolution series
- The Star Fraction (1995; US paperback ISBN 0765301563)
- The Stone Canal (1996; US paperback ISBN 0812568648)
- The Cassini Division (1998; US paperback ISBN 0312870442)
- The Sky Road (1999; US paperback ISBN 0812577590) (Winner of the 1999 BSFA Best Novel Award)
- The Sky Road represents an 'alternate future' to the other books, as its events diverge sharply from those in the other books after 2059, due to a choice made differently by one of the protagonists.
Engines of Light trilogy
- Cosmonaut Keep (2000; US paperback ISBN 0765340739)
- Dark Light (2001; US paperback ISBN 0765344963)
- Engine City (2002; US paperback ISBN 0765344211)
Other work
- The Human Front (2002) (Winner of Short-form Sidewise Award 2002)
- Newton's Wake: A Space Opera (2004; US paperback edition ISBN 076534422X)
- Learning the World: A Novel of First Contact (2005; UK hardback edition ISBN 1841493430)
- Giant Lizards From Another Star (2006; US trade hardcover ISBN 1886778620) Collected fiction and nonfiction, including Cydonia and The Human Front.
Analysis
The SF Foundation have published an analysis of MacLeod's work called The True Knowledge Of Ken MacLeod edited by Andrew M. Butler and Farah Mendlesohn. As well as critical essays it contains material by MacLeod himself, including his introduction to the German edition of Banks' Consider Phlebas.
Quotes
- (On technological singularity): "...the rapture for nerds..." -- The Cassini Division
- "The uploads replicate and develop relationships. Most of them go very bad. You sometimes get an entire virtual planet of four billion people devoted to building prayer wheels in an attempt at a denial of service attack on God." -- Newton's Wake
- "... a faded black T-shirt with a soaring penguin and the slogan 'Where do you want to come from today?'" -- Newton's Wake