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Amazon.co.uk Review
Cosmonaut Keep swaps between two timelines whose characters share the ultimate goal of interstellar travel. In an uncertain future on the far world of Mingulay, human colonists live in the title's ancient, alien-built Keep--coexisting with reptilian "saurs", trading with visiting ships piloted by krakens, and hiding their laborious "Great Work" of developing human-guided navigation between the stars.
Meanwhile alternate chapters present a mid-21st century Earth whose EU is (to America's horror) Russian-dominated with a big red star in the middle of its flag, rumours of alien contact aboun, and computer whizzkid Matt Cairns finds himself carrying a datadisk of unknown origin that offers antigravity and a space drive.
Clearly the later storyline's Gregor Cairns is Matt's descendant. There are ingenious connections and surprises, with witty resonances between their wild careers, their travels and their bumpy love-lives. The foreground action-adventure points to a bigger picture and a master plan known only to the godlike hive-minds who built the "Second Sphere" of interstellar culture and who regard traditional SF dreams of unlimited human expansion through space as precisely equivalent to floods of e-mail spam polluting the tranquil galactic net.
Cosmonaut Keep opens MacLeod's new SF sequence Engines of Light. It is highly entertaining and intelligent, promising more good things to come. --David Langford --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
More of the same, just better...,
By A Customer
This review is from: Cosmonaut Keep (Engines of Light) (Hardcover)
Seriously good work from Macleod sees two time lines mirroring each other, in character and events, across both time and space. The plotting is tight, the characters strongly drawn (including the various heroines, which hasn't always been true in the past) and the locations both on and off planet, as ever with Macleod, are so real that you could walk round them blindfold in your head. As for the saturnine dope-smoking reptile scientist - spot on (I'm positive I used to know him).
4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Hmmm,
By
This review is from: Cosmonaut Keep: Bk.1 (Engines of Light) (Paperback)
There is an old joke that runs as follows: - Q: What is the Golden Age of Science Fiction? A: Between thirteen and fifteen. This novel feels a bit as if it was written with that age group in mind, yet at the same time it manages to carry some fairly technical and complex political and scientific ideas as well. This is not a great Ken MacLeod novel - but by his standards that makes it still a more than halfway decent piece of science fiction. It is Golden Age sci-fi/space opera in its main concerns (god-like ancient aliens with an apparent Erik Von Daniken complex, interstellar commerce, space drives and so forth), but also typically MacLoed in its concerns with economic and political ideologies and agendas (growth capitalism versus steady state socialism). It has echoes of his earlier novels - bit of the narrative on the planet Mingulay read like "The Sky Road", bits of the parallel narrative in the 21st century have echoes of "The Star Fraction" and "The Stone Canal". As a consequence, it feels a bit like re-treading old territory, but in other ways this is a lighter novel, less dark and complex than his first four novels, more open and accessible to the first time MacLeod reader. The main problem, as the start of a new "sequence", is that it simply does not quite grab you the way to should. It's good, but not outstanding, inventive, but not really all that original. And, some of the characterisation, and in particular the love story sub-plots are rather on the juvenile side - catering (it seems to me) to male adolescent fantasy. On the other hand, it throws up enough interesting puzzles (although the answers to some of them were obvious from within a few chapters) to make me want to read the next instalment. I only hope that "Dark Light" is more engaging and challenging.
5.0 out of 5 stars
My Kind of Sci-Fi,
By
This review is from: Cosmonaut Keep: Bk.1 (Engines of Light) (Paperback)
Not quite sure where to start with this book, this is the first title I've read from this author and I must say I found it intriguing. The story takes place in 2 different time lines, one on Earth a few decades from now and the other on another Planet several centuries later which, I have to admit, I found very confusing for the first couple of chapters as I wasn't quite sure where I was or when. However, after continuing to read pieces of the puzzle start to slot into place, it was interesting to read the authors ideas about the possible political structure and the technology in use on earth post 2040s and the interaction of the humans living with several different species (including Krakens, `a God in the Sky' and Saurs (greys)) in the second timeline. The characters are well described and you soon start to see the similarities of life events between the two main characters as they both struggle to achieve the secrets of Interstellar travel. A political and scientific story that is well written and compelling, but, there is very little `action' in it and if you like the `bug hunt' type alien stories then I'm afraid you won't find it in this book!
I thoroughly enjoyed this book although I would have liked more emphasis on the `First Contact' in the first timeline. The second timeline was excellent fulfilling my desire to read about the interaction of Human and Aliens, I will certainly be reading the second book in the Trilogy Engines of Light.
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