The Star Fraction
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Product Description
Review
Stunningly assured, inventive and intelligent. THE STAR FRACTION is richly readable and riddled with accuracies. The book takes near future fiction into cyberian places it hasn't dared go before. SF bibliographies better take note; grab a first edition now before they disappear; this man is going to be a major writer. (Iain M. Banks )
He's clever, witty, and his future has just the right grainy feel to it (SFX )
Prose sleek and fast as the technology it describes ... watch this man go global (Peter F. Hamilton )
An immensely exciting SF adventure ... The Star Fraction is an auspicious debut (STARBURST )
He's clever, witty, and his future has just the right grainy feel to it (SFX )
Prose sleek and fast as the technology it describes ... watch this man go global (Peter F. Hamilton )
An immensely exciting SF adventure ... The Star Fraction is an auspicious debut (STARBURST )
Book Description
The debut novel from a major force in SF, the first of his novels to be shortlisted for the Arthur C. Clarke Award.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Well I hit all the buttions- a lefty man with a techno fixation who loves North London so this book was right up my street, though a little tough on the Greens- Ken must have spent too much of his time enguageing with deep ecologists and eco-feminists and not understanding the concepts of eco-socialism but I'll forgive him his blanks spots. The story is not exceptionally original but the setting and world he outlines is fundamentally different from the usual sci-fi extrapolations.
Buy the book if you are a lefty lad- don't bother if your not- you'll miss 90% of the jokes.
Buy the book if you are a lefty lad- don't bother if your not- you'll miss 90% of the jokes.
19 of 21 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Those who like the safe, the normal, the everyday commonplace should not read this book, as it is certainly anything but. Macleod creates a world where the US/UN is the bad guy, where England is divvied up into many semi-autonomous city-states, each of which have their own idea of what the perfect society should be, and most of whom are at gun-point loggerheads with all the others, where the Net is pervasive and invasive, and may just be the locus of the real world power, a conscious AI, and where your ideas and assumptions about anarchy, communism, socialism, and capitalism will be stood on their head.
The main characters of Moh Kohn, mercenary extraordinary, Janice, bio-chemist, Jordan, programmer and rebeller against the purantistic creed of his birth society, and Catelin, idealist and Kohn's former lover, are well realized and interact with each other and the rapidly changing socio-political environment in believable manners.
The plot is very fast-paced, almost too much so. At the beginning of the book we are dropped into this wildly different future with very little explanation of where you are or what the overall world picture/history is or how it got that way. The casual reader who is not steeped in science fiction, in being able to accept things as they are presented, and hold his questions in abeyance will probably feel lost and confused. These items are really not explicated in cohesive detail till near the end of the book, with bits and pieces presented all along the way, as the reader is carried along pell-mell through this odd society with each twist and turn of the plot.
Stylistically, the work uses pretty utilitarian prose which gets the job done and is normally unobtrusive, but is not likely to garner any awards. Although there is a fair amount of techno-babble, there is very little use of British slang, always a problem for their American cousins to understand. At a few places, Macleod inserts some sly insider references to other science fiction works and writers - which frequently caused me to have a laughing fit, as the irony used was beautiful.
A rich mixture of cyber-punk and politics, a rather terrifying view of a possible future, and strong action make this a page turning mind-enhancing trip through the land of a fantastic and all too relevant tomorrow.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
While I'm in no doubt this was an extremely well-written book, full of great insight, hugely imaginitive concepts and passable characters, I'm not sure that I actually liked it. It seems that for all its great individual elements, the Star Fraction never quite comes across with the sense of seriousness that it should do. This may be partly to do with the fact that I couldn't help but imagine the hero Moh Kohn as Buzz Lightyear from Toy Story, but there was something not quite right about the whole feel of the novel to me. This is probably a subjective opinion however, and I'll definitely give some of Ken MacLeod's other novels a try in the future.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
Good stand-alone introduction to a promising trilogy
While this is the first installment in a trilogy, it still works well as a stand-alone novel, and, unlike many other first installments, it actually has a proper end to match its... Read more
Published 23 months ago by D. R. Cantrell
You can not be serious
There's nothing like good science fiction - and this is nothing like good science fiction. I hate to labour the point, but I've been reading sci-fi for over 50 years and cut my... Read more
Published on 4 Nov 2008 by F. M. Muse
Rich in ideas but ultimitely flawed
An interesting, original and enjoyable romp that portrays a future Britain in the grips of political turmoil. Read more
Published on 23 May 2008 by G. J. Marsh
Vastly disappointing, another worthless Banks endorsement.
My normal mode of sci-fi selection is to brace myself, buy one with a convincing cover and, if it's any good, read through the author's other works and then repeat. Read more
Published on 12 May 2008 by Mr. M. A. Johnson
Below average
Firstly, I think this deserves maybe 2.5 stars if I could have given it that, as it's not as bad as 2, but really not quite deserving of a 3! Read more
Published on 29 Jun 2007 by A. Kennedy
Woeful
Did another reviewer really compare MacLeod to Neal Stephenson?
After good reviews, this book was a major disappointment to me. Read more
After good reviews, this book was a major disappointment to me. Read more
Published on 31 May 2006 by Steven Wood
Bordering on genius
My missus found this for a couple of quid in a charity shop, and what a lucky find - after reading The Star Fraction I was straight on Amazon buying everything else available by... Read more
Published on 23 April 2005 by Hector Marmoolian
One for the politicos
As much political drama as it is sci-fi, the Star Fraction presents a fragmented and unstable Britain in a high technology future. Read more
Published on 6 Feb 2004 by Tom Douglas
Average at best
I bought this book partly on the strength of the reviews on this site (hmmmmmm), and the fact it kept appearing on my recommended list. Read more
Published on 13 Jun 2002 by W. G. Hardy
A must for all ex-Trots - and eveyone else.....
Ken Macleod has brought politics back into SciFi in a way which is understandable to a broad audience and an absolute hoot for those of us who were active in the far-left politics... Read more
Published on 18 Jun 2001 by Prof Colin Talbot
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