The socialist society isn’t perfect, and even as a socialistic progressive, I found myself uncomfortable with some of the ideas that make it up. I didn’t feel the book was an angry attack on capitalism, but more of an extrapolation of ideas to their theoretical conclusions. This book does: it presents a socialist utopia and explains how it came to be and how it works in practice, down to the very philosophical underpinnings that make it work. I always wondered how the society of Star Trek actually worked, without money and all, and the shows have never really expounded on it. For the rest of us, this is a wonderfully imaginative and compelling presentation of a society with not only futuristic technology, but social ideas as well. Let me say this: if you don’t like political philosophizing in your science fiction, A) why are you reading science fiction at all? and B) you probably won’t enjoy this book. So, a lot of people have complained about Ken Macleod’s politics in the reviews of read of much of his work.
I felt intrigued and curious about the previous two books, but by no means was I confused without them. There are many references to the Fall Revolution series’ fictional history, but most of them are explained or can be understood through context. I’m happy to say that this is true, and that if you haven’t read the other books, you’ll have little trouble following what’s going on. This was my first Ken Macleod book I did not read the previous volumes in the “Fall Revolution” series because there were a number of bad reviews, and I understood that the volumes were more or less stand-alone.
0 kommentar(er)
