(no subject)

[drplokta]

Clearly, too many people have been reading Ken MacLeod's latest novel Newton's Wake. The official website for North Korea (thanks to sneerpout for the link) is sold out of juche badges. Which is a comment that will make no sense to anyone who hasn't read Newton's Wake, so you should all go out and read it now.

Comments

[gummitch.livejournal.com]

Erm, as far as I know, Newton's Wake isn't out yet.

(If you know different, please let me know.)

[alexmc.livejournal.com]

Well I have a copy and have finished it. I also have a copy of Cowl by Neal Asher. Perhaps it is something to do with running a book reviews website. Hmmmm.

Here is a random review thrown together.

Newton's Wake is perhaps one of the funniest sf novels I have read in a long time. It is miles better than Ken's last three novels. In this book he has returned to writing science fiction with a background of political fiction - which he does better than any writer I know. The book is also unique in that it is a post-singularity novel - something that I have never seen before. (You can't call Iain M Banks' Culture novels "post-singularity" because they are still going through it :-)

Lucinda Carlyle is a combat archeologist, and good clan member. The Carlyle clan control what is effectively a Stargate network of bridges between worlds. Lucinda heads up the team exploring a world rather different from the rest - disaster strikes - and she spends the rest of the book coping with the results.

Although not "comedy" I am reminded of Sheckley and Lem's books where an explorer goes through different societies - possibly as an allegory which I am too thick to work out. Or maybe you just take it all at face value. The post-singularity universe is littered with the remains of cultures from old Earth - all of whom had some reason to have survived the singularity. There are the communist DK, the Japanese Knights of Enlightenment, the Carlyle clan, the America OffLine (who sound like Amish farmers), and the Runners and Returners. The Carlyle's are hard Scots, people you don't want to mess with on a Saturday night. To explain much more would give away too much but the book is largely about the interplay of these groups with almost token characters representing them.

We have almost every trope in Science Fiction represented. Hyper intelligent computers, ships with silly names, space ship busting laser weapons, FTL travel, VR, resurrection of dead people from their recorded personalities, the list is endless.

My only complaint is that MacLeod *may* have shot himself in the foot by spelling the "scottish" speak phonetically.

[drplokta]

I bought a copy in FP on Satuday. Better take it up with them...

[timill]

Released in hardcover on Friday, according to Amazon.

Note: when a book is mentioned on LJ, looking it up on Amazon is Not The Right Reaction...

[alexmc.livejournal.com]

PS I thought that juche was a word that he had made up :-)

[redbird]

And the Finns thought he'd invented the Fourth International.

[(Anonymous)]

I thought that North Korea was sold out of everything.