In the near future, anyone can be a soldier and wage war…
The novel depicts a UK where “New Model Armies”, essentially giant, permanent flash mobs with infantry weapons, are hired by states that are too poor to have their own armies to wage war for any purpose at all. The one the protagonist belongs to has been contracted by Scotland to fight to dissolve the Union.
As a logical conclusion of the move from footie hooliganism towards a permanent insurrection the novel has its points, as well as having some nicely written combat scenes. But having set up the concept, Roberts has a hard time wrapping up. The last quarter of the book is frankly a bit weird and doesn’t deliver on the promise of the initial premise.
I was going to write some sort of retrospective for the year but didn’t really have the energy. This sort of thing should be prepared throughout the year, otherwise the memory is influenced by the happenings in the near past.
Anyway, I found that looking at the images I have posted to Flickr brought back some memories, here is a view.
This year’s blog posts are here. And if you can stomach it, here are my tweets for the year…
Happy new year, everyone!
What if there was a cure for aging? Would you take that cure?
I think nearly every human alive older than 25 would leap at the chance. That’s what they do in this chilling book, a world where a cheap genetic cure for aging is discovered and widely released. It’s a book length illustration of “be careful what you wish for”. Highly recommended.
I picked this up on a whim at the library and I knew nothing of the author. I was pleasantly surprised to read a decent tale of interstellar intrigue, in a universe where the Cold War still runs on after centuries and nearly a hundred colonised planets.
The military part of this novel is believable and well written. The depiction of the factions involved is rather cynical — I attribute this to the fact that Abnett is British and not American.
Recommended if you like military SF.
A new SF satire by the author of Jennifer Government. As before, the satire trumps the SF, but in this case the protagonist/anti-hero gets more say and is creepily believable.
I saw the HBO miniseries based on this a few years ago and to be quite honest the TV series is very faithful to the story. While this book is a fast read and well written I can really recommend the TV series instead.
A fine little graphic novel/biography of the author’s grandfather, a lieutenant in the Canadian Highland Light Infantry during World War II.
After dealing with the Singularity (The Fall Revolution cycle and
Newton’s Wake) MacLeod takes a look at the Simulation
Argument with his customary mix
of politics and reminisces of recent (Scottish) history. We’ve been in
these areas before - the parts of the Fall Revolution set in ex-Soviet
Central Asia echo in the fictional Automomous Republic of Krassnia. And likewise the background in radical academia in Edinburgh in the 1970s.
If you’re a fan of MacLeod, as I am, this is not to be missed. But I’m not sure if it’s one of his better ones!
It’s hard to get a grip on this novel. It can be described as a modern-day geek technothriller. On the one hand, it’s densely plotted and very exciting, with none of the massive infodumps the author is (in)famous for. On the other hand, the entire book can be said to be a skeleton on which to hand a skein of infodumps. In other words, there’s a lot of action, but very little inner motivation.
I’d say it’s a season of “24” written by a nerd living in the US Northwest.
