- Hardcover: 304 pages
- Publisher: Orbit (3 Jun 1999)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 1857237552
- ISBN-13: 978-1857237559
- Product Dimensions: 23.6 x 15.8 x 2.8 cm
- Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 47,843 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
The Sky Road
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Product Description
Amazon.co.uk Review
In the sequence that started with The Star Fraction, MacLeod has created a future history whose crucial event was left-wing students arguing about anarchism in the 70s. And on this turns the destruction and renaissance of civilisation, here and elsewhere in the human galaxy. In his fourth book, 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 that is building the first space-ship 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, and 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
IAIN M. BANKS
'This man's going to be a major writer.'
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
5 of 6 people found the following review helpful
Format: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.
4 of 5 people found the following review helpful
Format: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!
3 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Format: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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Most Recent Customer Reviews
Good, but frustrating
Following the style of 'The Stone Canal,' I spent the entire novel trying to work out how this fitted in with the rest of the sequence only to realise, at the end, that it didn't. Read more
Published on 10 Jun 2004
Exploring the Future, and the Past - for real
Macleods four books in the 'Star Fraction' series have a wondeful feel of reality about them.
Some of the reality I can testify to as a participant in the far-left political... Read more
Published on 18 Jun 2001
Not part of the same line as The Cassini Divi
This book is as good as anything MacLeod has written, but it's important to realize that it does *not* take place between Star Fraction and The Cassini Division - instead, it is... Read more
Published on 14 Oct 1999
Deceptively pretty.
The Sky Road is a much nicer novel than the first three. The world has changed and artisans drink beer in the market squares in the independent villages and cantons of Scotland. Read more
Published on 13 July 1999
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