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Amazon.co.uk Review
In the sequence that started with The Star Fraction, MacLeod has created a future where the crucial historical event is left-wing students arguing about anarchism in the 70s. On this turns the destruction and renaissance of civilisation, here and elsewhere in the human galaxy. In his fourth book The Sky Road he productively fills in some of the gaps. This is the story of Myra, Trot turned entrepreneur, whose nuclear deterrence-for-hire is so crucial to the event known by some as the Fall and others as the Deliverance. It is also the story of young Clovis, part-time worker in the yard building the first spaceship for centuries, part-time scholar trying to find out what Myra the Deliverer was really like. MacLeod's quirky and intelligent take on the world of power politics--the paradoxes that arise when ideology is made praxis--and his charmingly cynical gift for engaging and engaged protagonists, are something to which the SF audience has become used. What this book also has is a profound sense of the beauty of a simpler and stiller world; MacLeod's real gift is his capacity to see all sides of a question, even when he is sure of the answer. --Roz Kaveney
Review
'If there is a last great British novel of the millennium, this is it' GUARDIAN on THE SKY ROAD 'MacLeod is up there with Banks and Hamilton as one of the British sci- fi authors you absolutely have to read' SFX 'He is writing revolutionary SF ... a nova has appeared in our sky' KIM STANLEY ROBINSON 'This man's going to be a major writer' IAIN M. BANKS
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Sophisticated yet highly enjoyable,
By A Customer
This review is from: The Sky Road: A Fall Revolution Novel (Fall Revolutions Series) (Paperback)
Ken Macleod is unique in that his vision of the future does not encompass the grim corporatism of, say, William Gibson nor is it (at least in this book) a view of a stellar society. Like a number of other British authors (notably Peter Hamilton) Macleod uses a geographical area that he obviously knows well, to establish a view of the future in the small. It clearly is the future, but one where technological change is realistically enfolded within societal change.Like others of his countrymen (Iain Banks, for example) he produces his own sly slant to the future. His particular genius is to do this in political terms, and to relate those terms in a human dimension. I must admit to becoming confused with the varied belief systems of the different factions. However, that confusion is part of the fun and didn't spoil my enjoyment one bit. I also felt that, even though I might be confused, he never was. Maclead's treatment of the different political beliefs is sophisticated beyond that achieved by any American author in the same genre. At a more basic level, his book is well paced and strong on both character and plot. I greatly enjoyed it, as I have all of his others, and I hope he continues to write for a long time to come. The concept of welding up a spaceship in a shipyard will keep me amused for some time.
3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
An intelligent and humourous post-apocalyptic vision,
By
This review is from: The Sky Road: A Fall Revolution Novel (Fall Revolutions Series) (Paperback)
I don't read much science-fiction, certainly not the usual kind of science-fantasy or off-world sagas, but I am interested in intelligent, thought-through visions of possible futures. I'd never heard of Ken Macleod before I picked up "The Sky Road" at an airport but a quick glance at the back and flip-through persuaded me. Within thirty pages I was amused by similarities with Ursula Le Guin's "The Dispossesed" - particulary the mysterious female emancipator/revolutionary and her role in a crucial historical juncture (to which the text constantly refers to). This is no slavish re-writing though, Ken Macleod has a intelligent and amusing take on what both an immediate post-breakdown AND post-apocalyptic world might look and feel like. The choice of which technologies, which ideologies, which religions make it through (and the uses to which they are put) is clever and constantly engaging. My only quibbles were with a handful of mis-placed popular culture references right at the end (Terminator, Star Trek) and a creeping in of too-obvious cyber-punk `favourites' (Babbage's Calculating engines). Having said that I'm going to go back and read the first of this trilogy so you could say that I'm a convert!
2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
An intriguing slice of MacLeod's future. MacLeod matures.,
By A Customer
This review is from: The Sky Road (Hardcover)
The fourth installment in MacLeod's series opens as mankind attempts to reach the stars again. Centuries before, the Deliverance destroyed everything in near-Earth orbit and separated Earth from the space colonies. The Sky Road fills in some of the history between The Star Fraction and The Cassini Division, explaining who triumphed between the Greens and the hi-tech forces last seen struggling for dominance. Yet it's never really apparent when exactly the novel's present is. Nor does the past presented entirely match what else we've learned. MacLeod's style mirrors the central theme of the novel: how true is the history we know? MacLeod continues to mature as a writer. Characters are more thoroughly fleshed out in this novel. The overall style and pace of writing is much smoother than that of The Star Fraction. If you've read MacLeod's other novels, this is highly recommended. If you haven't, go back and start with The Star Fraction and read in publication order.
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