Newton's Wake: Novel
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Review
Read the book. Then read it again. It's even better the second time (SFX on NEWTON'S WAKE )
Stunningly assured, inventive and intelligent (Iain M Banks on Ken Macleod )
A hectic ride, through slaloms of audacious complexity, irreverent ingenuity and paradox as purposeful as it is playful (Guardian )
Stunningly assured, inventive and intelligent (Iain M Banks on Ken Macleod )
A hectic ride, through slaloms of audacious complexity, irreverent ingenuity and paradox as purposeful as it is playful (Guardian )
Iain M Banks on Ken Macleod
'Stunningly assured, inventive and intelligent'
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
13 of 14 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
Although crammed with fascinating ideas and livened by moments of humour and irony, Newton's Wake disappointed me. It is by far the weakest of his stories so far. Why? It's hard to put a finger on it. Perhaps it's because the events are episodic and disconnected in time and place. Scenes of conflict and war bubble up with little preparation or justification, seemingly just to provide some action. Perhaps it is because few characters are developed beyond charicature (Winters and Calder, the folk singers, and Higgens being notable exceptions). Perhaps it is because the societies and systems of the future are quite 'cartoon'-like. The story is also strangely lacking in visual texture and description - my overriding impression is of drab and barren moorland.
Probably, it is a combination of all of these elements, meaning that Newton's Wake is an interesting essay, and very entertaining in episodes, but fails as a story. Still, that being said, it's better than 90% of the junk of the science fiction shelves at the moment, which fail in every way.
18 of 22 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Oh Ken, Ken, Ken... Your early work promised so much. You created a uniquely British, nay Scottish, politically-informed cyberpunk. I learnt more about anarchist history and ideals from reading The Star Fraction, The Stone Canal and The Cassini Division than I have before or since... You created a beautiful, diverse, realistic, Balkanised future as an antidote for the monolithic uniform utopias of Star Trek. And then you wrote The Sky Road, which was... okay. And then you wrote Cosmonaut Keep, which was actually (and i whisper it almost inaudibly) not very good. So not very good that i didn't bother getting either of the follow ups. Then you wrote Newton's Wake and i thought, Aha, a New Start (snigger). Lets give this one a go... Gah. What happened? In the early days your puns were endearing, your chapter titles revolutionary (snigger) your programming in-jokes laugh-out-loud funny. No more. Newton's Wake simply annoyed me. The characters were annoying. The obscure plot was annoying. The sodding gags were annoying. I thought you couldn't get more daft than pot-smoking aliens. You did. Bad show.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I brought this after being pleasantly surprised by 'Learning the World' from the same author. I wish I'd read these reviews first! MacLeod introduces and occasionally even develops some nice ideas and concepts, but never really follows through. In some respect it's rather reminiscent of Charles Stross's works, being built around the ideas and aftermath of a singularity, and is just as incomprehensible. The use of pseudo-glaswegian dialect doesn't really help, either - it's easily read, but pointless complication. After a promising start, it seems as though the author has suddenly realised he's going to go over his page limit, and from then on, everything feels rushed and compressed, or at very least lost and looking for the punchline.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
Intentionally bad? or Accidently bad?
Usually when an author crams so many ideas into a novel, it reflects the author's bubbling imagination and scarcity of outlets. Read more
Published 7 months ago by M-I-K-E 2theD
Confusion and then going downhill
I have read a few of Ken Macleods books and I have to say that there is something with his writing that simply not working. Read more
Published 16 months ago by Strv 74
Ian Banks may praise this but I suspect it's just because Ken is his...
I suspected something might be up when 5 characters each with mini-biographies were listed one after another on a page. Read more
Published 23 months ago by JamieTheHutt
Irritating at times
I found this book started well, but became more and more confusing and disjointed. The end was just not worth reading, and I was thoroughly irritated at the way Ken kept using... Read more
Published on 5 Mar 2007 by R. J. Beed
Wake Up Ken!
.
There are some good ideas, like the interplanetary business culture and rivalries, the communist planets with their production brigades, the ultra-Christian invaders, etc. Read more
There are some good ideas, like the interplanetary business culture and rivalries, the communist planets with their production brigades, the ultra-Christian invaders, etc. Read more
Published on 22 Sep 2006 by Steve
Light entertainment
This is a lighter, more humorous take on the future from Ken Macleod. While humour has always been part of his work, this seems to be his funniest, most sardonic work. Read more
Published on 12 Aug 2006 by Brian Reilly
Now I've skein it all
My SF reading has been pretty sketchy in the past but I was interested in getting back into it again. Read more
Published on 20 July 2005 by wallybrane
Silly, but clever and funny
Sounds like the humour in this one isn't for everyone, but I found it extremely funny; kind of Christopher Brookmyre in space.
Published on 21 Feb 2005 by A reader
A Bad Scottish Joke
I bought this book because Iain M Banks gave it a rave blurb. I'm sorry to say I won't be doing that again. Read more
Published on 7 Feb 2005
Reasonably entertaining but ulitimately disappointing
This is a book with a number of good ideas and is reasonably entertaining. Unfortunately the author's sense of humour tends to the juvenile and the plot development is rather... Read more
Published on 6 July 2004 by S. Murphy
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