'The Star Fraction' by Ken Mcleod - early novel rewritten later?
Tom Brehony
I read what has now being rebadged as "The Fall Revolution" series, last
year.
The first novel "The Star Fraction" is in my opinion very fragmented by
comparison
with the very focused and much more accomplished later ones in the series.
The politics of this world, and in particular the left wing politics
(excluding Norlonto),
come across as an exaggerated version of 1970's politics carried through
into the future
without too many changes. The UR in particular is a 70's student view of the
UK after
The Revolution (tm).
OK, after that ramble I'm leading up to a question.
The blurb on one of the book says that Ken graduated from a Glasgow
university (?)
sometime in the early 70's, and TSF was published in 1994 or 95.
Was this a novel he partially wrote sometime in the late 70's and then
rewrote in the
early 90's?
Tom.
Clive Summerfield
"Tom Brehony" <tombreho...@eircom.nospam.net> wrote in message
news:2sfbp6F...@uni-berlin.de...
I'm sure there are people around here who may know the definitive answer,
but I suspect that some elements of the story do indeed have their origins
in Ken's student days. I read somewhere that Ken and Iain Banks used to
recount epic stories they'd come up with, and that Ken only wrote his down
much later after considerable badgering from Banksie. However, you should
perhaps view the Fall Revolution series as an Alternate History with its
point of divergence somewhere in the mid 70's. Thus much is familiar and yet
not.
Cheers
Clive
Esa Perkio
: The first novel "The Star Fraction" is in my opinion very fragmented by
: comparison with the very focused and much more accomplished later ones
: in the series.
Thank you for this. I was wondering if I should bother. I liked the Star
Fraction in bits and pieces, but to me its politics were easily the worst
part of it. I know that many have praised the book for the varied
political outlooks of its world but as I read the book I kept shaking my
head in disbelief and muttering "Real people don't behave that way".
It wasn't only the paint-deep retro-communism that irked me. If you write
a book about clashing politics and groups of people, you ought to leave
the reader with at least a faint impression that people really could
behave that way. (This was also what irritated me about Engines of Light
and the guy who could stir up revolutions in completely foreign
surroundings just by speaking freeze-dried Marxism and adding some
spittle.)
Hmm. Implausible ideas of how people act... People thinking by labels
rather than by proper political philosophies... Confused notions of
people-power... Rampant use of psychedelics as a Very Good Thing... Yep,
your theory about 70s students just might have something in it. >-)
--
Esa Perkiö
LugoMan
I wonder if he was subsidized by a tobacco company? I really wanted to light
one up while reading the whole series.
Tom Brehony
news:3GF8d.120129$as2....@bignews3.bellsouth.net...
That was one of the elements that underlines the what I think is the authors
actual political philosophy, some kind of anarcho-libertarianism. The
freedom
to choose to do something which is inherently bad for you and not have a
government protect you from yourself. He is mates with Iain Banks after all.
I kept thinking of Bill Hicks here! Even though he was anti-anti-smoking, he
eventually gave up himself. He wasn't pro-smoking, he just hated the
self-righteousness of anti-smokers. As I non-smoker myself, I have alot of
sympathy with that view. As long as smokers don't blow smoke in my face,
I honestly don't care that they smoke and I have no intention or inclination
of trying to make them stop.
Remember in "The Stone Canal" after the formation of the UR and the Space
Movement gets what I assume are free-trade areas (mini-Norlonto's), and they
explicitly have signs up saying "Please Smoke".
From the formation of the New Republic on, I find the politics and economics
of the world very believable. I just don't believe them up until then. The
post-NR
world is the work of a much more accomplished and mature writer and thinker.
Smoking as a political statement eh?
Tom.
Aaron Denney
> I kept thinking of Bill Hicks here! Even though he was anti-anti-smoking, he
> eventually gave up himself. He wasn't pro-smoking, he just hated the
> self-righteousness of anti-smokers. As I non-smoker myself, I have alot of
> sympathy with that view. As long as smokers don't blow smoke in my face,
> I honestly don't care that they smoke and I have no intention or inclination
> of trying to make them stop.
The problem is that smoking in the same room, or outside within 5 feet
_is_ blowing smoke in my face.
--
Aaron Denney
-><-
Ken MacLeod
[_THe Star Fraction_]
> The blurb on one of the book says that Ken graduated from a Glasgow
> university (?)
> sometime in the early 70's, and TSF was published in 1994 or 95.
>
> Was this a novel he partially wrote sometime in the late 70's and then
> rewrote in the
> early 90's?
>
No. I wrote it in the late 80s and early 90s.
Nix
I must congratulate you on starting it by knocking hell out of Brunel
University's campus: my only objection is that any of that lumpen
concrete monstrosity was left after the attack in the first chapter. ;}
--
`[...] I certainly enjoyed putting it down. Perhaps I would have
enjoyed putting it down even more if I were a veterinarian.'
--- Mike Andrews on Dan Brown's _Digital Fortress_
Johnny Tindalos
news:877jpcg...@amaterasu.srvr.nix:
> On 20 Oct 2004, Ken MacLeod mused:
>> "Tom Brehony" <tombreho...@eircom.nospam.net> wrote in message
>> news:<2sfbp6F...@uni-berlin.de>...
>>
>> [_THe Star Fraction_]
>>> The blurb on one of the book says that Ken graduated from a Glasgow
>>> university (?)
>>> sometime in the early 70's, and TSF was published in 1994 or 95.
>>>
>>> Was this a novel he partially wrote sometime in the late 70's and
>>> then rewrote in the early 90's?
>>
>> No. I wrote it in the late 80s and early 90s.
Thought it didn't seem very seventies. And rampant use of psychedelics *is*
a good thing, of course! (Although my girlfriend did get frightened of the
black robot dog on the cover of the UK hardback of _The Star Fraction_
whilst we were on acid - she had a great time once I took it away from her,
but now whenever she comes round, I have to hide all your books in the
cupboard.)
_Newton's Wake_ cracked me up, BTW - what are you working on now?
Regards,
Johnny T.
PS-'tis a pity about Moh Kohn - I would have liked to have seen more of
him. Though I suppose he's there in spirit wherever ware's infested by the
Black Plan...