Call number
Genres
Publication
New York: Tor, 1999.
Pages
240
Description
Ellen May Ngwethu is a young woman with centuries of experience, no morality and the true knowledge. The world she knows is about to end. The Cassini Division, elite defence force of the Solar Union, sends her on a search for the man whose knowledge could save it. A search that takes her from space to the ruins of London, and back; from the margins of her socialist-anarchist world to its most dangerous edge. The Division's orbital forts around Jupiter are the front line in a centuries-long conflict with post-human AIs whose intentions are unknown but whose powers once extended to shattering Ganymede and building a wormhole bridge to the far future. Their radio-borne viruses blanket the Solar System, keeping most of its resources from humanity's grasp. But are the post-humans less hostile than they seem?… (more)
Awards
Nebula Award (Nominee — Novel — 1999)
SF Site Reader's Choice (1999)
Arthur C. Clarke Award (Shortlist — 1999)
British Science Fiction Association Award (Shortlist — Novel — 1998)
Prometheus Award (Nominee — Novel — 2000)
Language
Original language
English
Original publication date
1998-03
Physical description
240 p.; 9.8 inches
ISBN
0312870442 / 9780312870447
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User reviews
LibraryThing member RobertDay
Ken Macleod's third novel sees him becoming more assured with his material and expanding his 'Fall Revolution' sequence to a wide-screen format. At the end of 'The Stone Canal' we found ourselves returned to the Solar System via a wormhole to see what changes had been wrought in human space whilst
She sets out to recruit assistance in the form of I.K. Malley, who had first defined the physics that made the wormhole possible. We see more of England and London in the post-technological age before travelling to Jovian space, where other AIs are emerging in the cloud-tops of Jupiter itself. Along the way, we see more of Macleod's vision of a socialist future which looks nothing like the sort of society we usually associate with that concept.
In each of the Fall Revolution novels, Macleod has broadened the focus. He has also given us characters with different perspectives on his future societies, both for and against. Each has their own view on their society; what we see is that people will accept the society that they have grown up with, even if they can envisage change. In each novel, we have seen people's different ideas of political structures, how they accommodate living with them, and what they can do to change them. Of course, it helps that the author is able to write his protagonists (mainly) into positions of influence; but there are no cardboard cut-outs here. In the preceding novels, events were forcing change; so it is with 'The Cassini Division'. This is an intelligent novel, but not just a novel of thought and discussion; there is sufficient action and glittery future tech to satisfy.
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Wilde and Reid had been building their anarcho-syndicalist new world on New Mars. The action moves almost seamlessly on from that novel, though the viewpoint changes; we follow Ellen May Ngwethu of the Cassini Division, the force tasked with defending Earth and its off-world settlements from the post-human AIs who built the wormhole to New Mars in the first place and dramatically altered Jovian space.She sets out to recruit assistance in the form of I.K. Malley, who had first defined the physics that made the wormhole possible. We see more of England and London in the post-technological age before travelling to Jovian space, where other AIs are emerging in the cloud-tops of Jupiter itself. Along the way, we see more of Macleod's vision of a socialist future which looks nothing like the sort of society we usually associate with that concept.
In each of the Fall Revolution novels, Macleod has broadened the focus. He has also given us characters with different perspectives on his future societies, both for and against. Each has their own view on their society; what we see is that people will accept the society that they have grown up with, even if they can envisage change. In each novel, we have seen people's different ideas of political structures, how they accommodate living with them, and what they can do to change them. Of course, it helps that the author is able to write his protagonists (mainly) into positions of influence; but there are no cardboard cut-outs here. In the preceding novels, events were forcing change; so it is with 'The Cassini Division'. This is an intelligent novel, but not just a novel of thought and discussion; there is sufficient action and glittery future tech to satisfy.
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LibraryThing member RandyStafford
Post-humans. Uploaded human minds inhabiting the robots and computer networks of a civilization in the atmosphere of Jupiter. Sneering at those still living in the "meat", they bombard the inner solar system with computer and "mind viruses." They brought on the Collapse, the destruction of man's
But some in the Union have had enough of the post-human threat, namely the Cassini Division, self-appointed cold warriors manning their version of the Berlin Wall on Jupiter's moon, Callisto. They want to wipe out the Jovians once and for all with a cometary bombardment. And they aren't listening to any arguments from "appeasers" or those who think the Jovians are sentient and deserve to live or don't pose a threat.
Ambiguity, irony, and philosophical debate make up a lot of this book, but it's not a dry tome unlike the many utopian and dystopian novels that supply several of Macleod's chapter headings. Macleod keeps the arguments short, the action coming, and shifts the scenery frequently from a pastoral London inhabited by the few die-hard capitalists to Callisto and, eventually, New Mars, man's sole outpost beyond our solar system.
The narrator, Ellen May Ngewthu, is engaging, fun, witty, and hard-edged. She's given herself the job of wiping out the Jovian post-humans, and she's willing to go to a lot of trouble to finish the job. She gets into a lot of arguments in the book: about the virtue of socialist anarchy versus the capitalist anarchy of New Mars, the sentience of those beings with uploaded minds, and whether the universe has any moral rule other than doing whatever you can get away with.
Macleod explores some of the implications in the ideas of Vernor Vinge's Singularity and copied, uploaded, and indentured minds familiar to readers of Phillip C. Jennings. This is a short book. The superscience isn't as astonishing as Peter Hamilton's work, but Macleod keeps his tale interesting and knows how to write a philosophical tale that moves.
Readers of George Zebrowski and Charles Pellegrino's THE KILLING STAR should especially like this, another novel where genocide is shown to have an unplesantly rational aspect to it.
This is the third book in a series. I haven't read the first two since this was the first published in America. But I had no trouble following the story or assimilating the background.
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computer-dependent civilization, and ushered in the age of the Solar Union, a socialist anarchy.But some in the Union have had enough of the post-human threat, namely the Cassini Division, self-appointed cold warriors manning their version of the Berlin Wall on Jupiter's moon, Callisto. They want to wipe out the Jovians once and for all with a cometary bombardment. And they aren't listening to any arguments from "appeasers" or those who think the Jovians are sentient and deserve to live or don't pose a threat.
Ambiguity, irony, and philosophical debate make up a lot of this book, but it's not a dry tome unlike the many utopian and dystopian novels that supply several of Macleod's chapter headings. Macleod keeps the arguments short, the action coming, and shifts the scenery frequently from a pastoral London inhabited by the few die-hard capitalists to Callisto and, eventually, New Mars, man's sole outpost beyond our solar system.
The narrator, Ellen May Ngewthu, is engaging, fun, witty, and hard-edged. She's given herself the job of wiping out the Jovian post-humans, and she's willing to go to a lot of trouble to finish the job. She gets into a lot of arguments in the book: about the virtue of socialist anarchy versus the capitalist anarchy of New Mars, the sentience of those beings with uploaded minds, and whether the universe has any moral rule other than doing whatever you can get away with.
Macleod explores some of the implications in the ideas of Vernor Vinge's Singularity and copied, uploaded, and indentured minds familiar to readers of Phillip C. Jennings. This is a short book. The superscience isn't as astonishing as Peter Hamilton's work, but Macleod keeps his tale interesting and knows how to write a philosophical tale that moves.
Readers of George Zebrowski and Charles Pellegrino's THE KILLING STAR should especially like this, another novel where genocide is shown to have an unplesantly rational aspect to it.
This is the third book in a series. I haven't read the first two since this was the first published in America. But I had no trouble following the story or assimilating the background.
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LibraryThing member paradoxosalpha
In many ways, the plot of Ken MacLeod's third "Fall Revolution" novel is like that of a Star Wars movie: it features a protagonist with a painful family history seeking out and recruiting a necessary sage, a further "side quest" that turns out to be integral to the resolution of the main challenge,
Nor has MacLeod abandoned the complementary anarcho-capitalist setting he has developed on New Mars, at the far side of the wormhole gate created by the ancestors of the Jovians. The theme of disputes over personhood for post-human individuals is carried forward in this book, but where it centered on the notion of slavery in The Stone Canal, it is tied more directly to the issue of genocide in The Cassini Division (as in the first book of the series, The Star Fraction). This book is clearly part of the vanguard of a species of post-cyberpunk space opera for which MacLeod is one of the best representatives.
The chief protagonist is Ellen May Ngewthu, and she is the first-person narrator throughout the book. Ellen is an interesting character, and not a profoundly reliable narrator. McLeod does not offer a documentary rationale for her role as the book's speaker as he has for points-of-view in other novels. It's just a narrative convention, and part of the fast-reading package. Despite the surfeit of new ideas in this book, they build cleanly on the previous volumes, and I read the whole thing with pleasure in a little over two days.
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and a climactic space battle. Even the fact that the main character is a black woman doesn't much distinguish it from the latter-day Star Wars pictures, with their increasingly diverse central cast. What really sets it apart is a genuinely speculative sensibility, as contrasted with the reactionary space fantasy of the Forced films. Replacing the Rebel Alliance with a Cassini Division who protect the anarcho-socialist Solar Union against a post-human presence on Jupiter makes for a very different story. MacLeod's socialist heroes subscribe to what they call "the true knowledge," which is identified--by a "non-cooperative" character who doesn't accept it--with Aleister Crowley's Law of Thelema (albeit with surplus capitalization, 86). Nor has MacLeod abandoned the complementary anarcho-capitalist setting he has developed on New Mars, at the far side of the wormhole gate created by the ancestors of the Jovians. The theme of disputes over personhood for post-human individuals is carried forward in this book, but where it centered on the notion of slavery in The Stone Canal, it is tied more directly to the issue of genocide in The Cassini Division (as in the first book of the series, The Star Fraction). This book is clearly part of the vanguard of a species of post-cyberpunk space opera for which MacLeod is one of the best representatives.
The chief protagonist is Ellen May Ngewthu, and she is the first-person narrator throughout the book. Ellen is an interesting character, and not a profoundly reliable narrator. McLeod does not offer a documentary rationale for her role as the book's speaker as he has for points-of-view in other novels. It's just a narrative convention, and part of the fast-reading package. Despite the surfeit of new ideas in this book, they build cleanly on the previous volumes, and I read the whole thing with pleasure in a little over two days.
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LibraryThing member salimbol
Many SF books that tackle humanity's not-too-distant future tend to assume a never-ending capitalist/liberal system, and Ken MacLeod's books have always challenged that assumption. Deftly mixing social critique, action and humour (I didn't remember the other books in this series being this funny),
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this is a solid read. Bonus points for having a black female protagonist (who is a complex and well-rounded individual), and a supporting cast boasting a variety of ethnicities and political views. Show Less
LibraryThing member johnnylogic
Imaginative space adventure, featuring a formidable heroine, politico-philosophical asides and smart space suits.
LibraryThing member name99
A waste of time.
I read this because of various discussions of MacLeod on the net which portrayed him as very much in the same mould as Iain Banks - a science fiction author more interested in ideas than in simple-minded stories.
Unfortunately while MacLeod may be interested in ideas (specifically
Instead we presented with a communist utopia, which apparently works because human nature has completely changed over one hundred years, followed by a capitalist utopia which is likewise populated with humans basically unrecognizable compared to those that live today.
Along the way we are presented with a bunch of nonsense about life living in silico, and even more extreme nonsense regarding magical "computer viruses", as a result of which all
computers are now mechanical --- apparently MacLeod has never heard of the concept of a Turing Machine and believe the essential aspect of computer viruses is that they run on electromagnetic-based devices.
I read this because of various discussions of MacLeod on the net which portrayed him as very much in the same mould as Iain Banks - a science fiction author more interested in ideas than in simple-minded stories.
Unfortunately while MacLeod may be interested in ideas (specifically
Show More
future economics), he doesn't have the imagination or the intellect to deliver. Instead we presented with a communist utopia, which apparently works because human nature has completely changed over one hundred years, followed by a capitalist utopia which is likewise populated with humans basically unrecognizable compared to those that live today.
Along the way we are presented with a bunch of nonsense about life living in silico, and even more extreme nonsense regarding magical "computer viruses", as a result of which all
computers are now mechanical --- apparently MacLeod has never heard of the concept of a Turing Machine and believe the essential aspect of computer viruses is that they run on electromagnetic-based devices.
Show Less
LibraryThing member stubbyfingers
If there was such a thing as sci-fi beach reading, this would be it. It's a fast-paced adventure that doesn't happen to go very deep (although I think that it might intend to). Character development besides the main character is minimal. The more scientific explanations are glossed over with
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technobabble. There's plenty of sex. The ending is slam-bam and neatly wrapped up. There were lots of bits that were thrown into the book and then never developed (if you can explain to me why this book was better off for the pregnancy bit, please do). Over all this is an entertaining read but it just doesn't require much brain power and therefore isn't very engaging. Show Less
LibraryThing member iayork
Great story, dumb ideas: I am very surprised by the hostile reviews to this engaging novel. I suppose many could be put off by the socialist orientation of the author and the story. I agree that at times the book reads like a propoganda piece for the Socialist International. I am certainly no
I agree with several of the other reviewers, do not start this series with this book. If you do start here you may be confused at times.
If you are easily annoyed by politics and political ideas you disagree with, this book and this author, are not for you. If you can enjoy a good story and can look past some pretty loopy ideas you will enjoy this series.
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socialist, very much the opposite as some of my other book reviews will attest. To describe this as a novel of ideas is correct. Many of them are dumb, unrealistic, and totally discredited ideas. So what, the story was great and in spite of my hostility to these ideas I loved it. It just requires a little suspension of disbelief. It also helps to know where Macleod is coming from upfront. The socialism bothers less if it is expected. I agree with several of the other reviewers, do not start this series with this book. If you do start here you may be confused at times.
If you are easily annoyed by politics and political ideas you disagree with, this book and this author, are not for you. If you can enjoy a good story and can look past some pretty loopy ideas you will enjoy this series.
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LibraryThing member BillHall
Third of the four books forming the Fall Revolution series. Interesting exploration of the singularity and various kinds of politica philosophy. As with many of MacLeod's books it would help to know a lot more about the various leftist political splinter groups and their philosophies.
The Cassini
The story developed in this framework is interesting and worth reading.
The Cassini
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Division is the group of elite troupers defending post-singualrity against post-singularity AI's and "fast" people (1) who have uploaded, colonised the planet Jupiter, gone insane and then become "rational" again; and (2) who have migrated through a wormhole extending to the end of time. Normal humans also managed to pass through the wormnhole at an angle to colonize New Mars some 10,000 lightyears distant.The story developed in this framework is interesting and worth reading.
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LibraryThing member ohernaes
30 billion people inhabit the earth and leave peacefully(?) and happily(?) in an anarcho-communist society. They are protected by the Cassini division, which now smells a danger from the post-humans who left earth long ago. Will they take over? The leader of the division, Ellen May Ngwethu,
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certainly thinks so. Is it possible for the post-humans to convince her otherwise? An interlude on the capitalist New Mars. Show Less
LibraryThing member anderlawlor
marxist sf which for whatever reason left me cold, although i think it's a smart book. second in a series and i haven't read the first, so maybe that's part of the problem.
if you want it, email me & i'll mail it to you. nice newish mass market paperback copy
if you want it, email me & i'll mail it to you. nice newish mass market paperback copy
LibraryThing member macha
i really want this guy to reach for more, if only to match his reputation.
LibraryThing member jkdavies
Enjoyable and had some interesting ideas. l did feel a little like I'd fallen into something halfway through though, and only later realised that it was the third book in a series