The Restoration Game [Hardcover]

 

 

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A new book by Ken Macleod is invariably something to get excited about - few writers are confident enough to set their speculative fiction so close to home as the Scottish author is wont to - and the Stornoway-born, Edinburgh-based author who made waves with the Fall Revolution quartet more than a decade ago has certainly been keeping us on our toes of late. As with The Execution Channel and BSFA award-winner The Night Sessions, his latest, The Restoration Game, is standalone science-fiction set in a place and an era not dissimilar to our own. This time, same as the last time, the action begins (after a few false starts in Mars and New Zealand, that is) in an Edinburgh very nearly our own. It's the year 2008. Or else 2248, depending on who you ask.

Macleod makes the introductions easy: Lucy Stone was born and bred in Krassnia, a mostly insignificant (not to mention entirely fictional) satellite state of the defunct USSR, but left with her parents after a terrifying run-in with persons unknown in primary school. Lucy's landed on her feet since coming to Scotland. She shares a flat with a few friends, earns her keep writing and programming in the erstwhile for a small-time video game studio in the city, and in sometime sheer-shearer Alexander Hamilton, she's got a boyfriend that makes it all go away. "Alec had been for me an idea of escape. He'd know nothing, nothing at all, of my other life," except that since Lucy's spook of a mother - agent Amanda Stone, CIA, you will never hear her intone - approached Digital Damage Productions to co-opt their forthcoming MMORPG as a platform for revolution in Krassnia, Alec's blissful ignorance has become a slippery slope indeed. Lucy's gone-but-hardly-forgotten past, including though not limited to what she calls "The Scariest Day of My Life," has come back to haunt her. Soon enough, she'll be negotiating with Russian spies at border posts, and scribbling coded messages on the walls of "a privy at the back of the Inn of Unrighteousness." Lucy's life is changing. The question is: can she keep the pace?

She can. And so does Ken Macleod. It speaks volumes of his confident authorial hold on the structural demands of The Restoration Game's deeply involved political narrative - and of his power as a writer in general - to say that even during the down-time, of which there's rather a lot, Macleod rarely lets his latest flag. Action, however distant it might be in actuality, always feels immediate; the final solutions to myriad intrigues are just a single reveal away, you can but believe.

Macleod veils his infodumps well. There's always a narrative justification for us to learn about those things he means to teach - and understand that The Restoration Game is not (except strictly speaking) so much science fiction as a potted fictional history of a left-over remnant of the USSR - but there are, I'm afraid, rather a lot of subjects to cover; significantly more, I would assert, than necessary, given the retrospective slightness of this book. What action and intrigue there is throughout The Restoration Game rarely fails to satisfy, and yet, when all is said and done, the actual narrative seems lightweight compared to the some might say overcomplicated back-story.

As a matter of fact, there are other aspects of The Restoration Game that Macleod can't quite pull off. The video games connection feels entirely tangential, which is a shame: it's pivotal in terms of the plot, and Macleod's done the subject justice before. Here, however, it's only seems to count when it's useful, and one could say the same about the city The Restoration Game is largely set it. No, not Krasnod - Krassnia and its post-collapse capital are stark, evocative places in which to set Lucy's subterfuge, but at least an equal part of the action takes place in Edinburgh; a place close to my heart (not to mention my hearth), and presumably Macleod's too. Yet all we get are contextless street names and addresses. The author and I can probably picture them perfectly, but who else will be able to say that? For readers who haven't spent a few drunken summers at the Fringe festival or taken in the snow-capped castle at Christmas, Edinburgh as per The Restoration Game amounts to at best a charmless map scribbled in Biro.

Perhaps Macleod simply doesn't want to repeat himself. He's done wonders with Edinburgh and video games in the past - he boasts a wealth of personal experience of both - and here the place of each subject in the narrative might require him to retread old ground. Instead, he takes it as said. Hard-bitten Macleod devotees will be fine, if a little disappointed that such rich material has been subsumed, though I tend to suspect new readers might be a little lost.

I've spent a lot of time banging on about Edinburgh and video games - personal concerns of mine which won't necessarily be shared by other readers, I appreciate. Less subjectively, I've moaned a bit about an overabundance of infodumps and a comparatively slight measure of actual narrative. These are real problems, and this book is not the equal of Macleod's last few knock-outs because of them - I don't honestly see it receiving the now-expected nods from the judges overseeing the BSFA and Arthur C. Clarke awards. And yet The Restoration Game is of such unassailable quality otherwise that it still stands as a choice piece of speculative fiction. Macleod has given us a powerful story which, were it not for the likes of this author and a precious few of his contemporaries, simply wouldn't have been told. It's a fast-paced and deeply engaged political thriller with a neat sci-fi bent, brilliantly framed, characterised and plotted.

In short, even a lesser work by Ken Macleod is still a treat to read.

I'd never read any of Ken MacLeod's books before so wasn't sure what to expect (and I don't know if this one is typical). But I did find it absorbing, thought provoking and entertaining. I don't want to give away too much of the plot, but it consists of two greatly contrasting elements - one might say universes. Precisely how they are linked,what is real, and what isn't, is hinted at but not made clear until the end (and I'm not sure even then if you can be completely sure).

Most of the book describes Lucy's (a young woman working for a games developer in Edinburgh) experiences as she is sucked into a bizarre conspiracy which combines the politics of the Caucasus (this is in 2008, the year that tension between Russia and Georgia spilled over), family history, smuggling and the CIA. This is a fast moving strand and there is a good contrast drawn between the stoically ordinary Lucy (who has, though, a dramatic past) and a strange gallery of figures (some relatives) who appear to overturn her life. I was reminded a bit of the setup of a John Buchan novel (though the politics are much further Left). Perhaps the only jarring note here is how readily Lucy agrees to drop everything and go off on a quixotic mission in Krassnia, the Caucasian republic at the centre of things. But that may be explained in the denouement (difficult to say more without giving things away). "Restoration", it turns out, is a theme throughout the book, with a number of different levels of meaning.

But this is more than an action thriller. Framing the book is a different perspective, which recurs here and there in the main narrative, not being resolved until the very end. You can then go back and read the opening section with a completely different level of understanding.

It's all very deftly done, and if this is typical of MacLeod's work, I need to do some catching up with his earlier books. I'd be grateful suggestions about where best to start!

I have avidly read all of Ken Macleod's books, and was looking forward to this one greatly. The book is set in the near future and the protagonist Lucy Stone is a likable young woman with an interest in technology and a rather unusual upbringing.

There is a lot of rather complicated soviet era politics in the book, and in that it reminded me of The Star Fraction the start of Ken Macleod's unmissable Fall Revolutions Series. There is a bit of video game development, a bit of romance, and quite a lot of conspiracy.

The book's central idea is one that I found extremely thought provoking. I had to read the start and the end of the book twice before it all made sense!

I'm hoping very much Ken Macleod will use it as an opener for a new series of books tilting off into the future, which will allow him to open the ideas tap even wider.

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5.0 out of 5 stars multi-level
I won't fill in the details of the narrative as many others have already done this.

As i read this book I kept on coming up with questions:

Why the prologue... Read more

Published 9 months ago by S. Egan

4.0 out of 5 stars Fun, lots of political conspiracy, but not earth-shaking...
This is a book about conspiracies, one which of which seems to involve me. I bought this novel in the Edinburgh SF bookshop, 'Transreal', mentioned in this novel. Read more

Published 9 months ago by A. J. Poulter

5.0 out of 5 stars An old idea with new life
I found myself seriously entertaining the idea that the main premise of this book could actually be true. Good read.

Published 9 months ago by Tarom Halec

3.0 out of 5 stars not his best
The third of Kens "day after to mow" type science fiction books. Its an Ok book but not quite as good as the former to. Read more

Published 15 months ago by stefan

2.0 out of 5 stars Was OK but a bit long
This would have been a ripping novelette. But I got bored in the middle with all the personal back story of the protagonist and her family. I found myself skipping pages. Read more

Published 18 months ago by bob

5.0 out of 5 stars Intircate and entertaining
Ken MacLeod has produced a novel which incorporates post communist era turmoil in Eastern Europe; communist era intrigue, spying and oppression; revolution organisation; computer... Read more

Published 18 months ago by P. McCLEAN

3.0 out of 5 stars Reasonable but enters silly territory
Definitely an interesting tale that brings to the fore a whole range of themes that some would perhaps wonder whether or not it would have been best to have left well alone. Read more

Published 19 months ago by Gareth Wilson - Falcata Times Blog

4.0 out of 5 stars A Russian Doll
What an odd book. It starts at the end, takes a large number of detours, a few history lessons and then ends, Russian doll-like, back at the start. Read more

Published 19 months ago by Diziet

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