* Review coverage in the genre press * Featured in www.orbitbooks.net and in the Orbit ezine
Since graduating from Glasgow University in 1976, Ken MacLeod has worked as a computer analyst in Edinburgh. He now writes full time.Author Location: Edinburgh, ScotlandThe Fall Revolution: The Star Fraction, The Stone Canal, The Cassini Division, The Sky Road. Engines of Light: Cosmonaut Keep, Dark Light, Engine City (9781841492032). Newton's Wake (9781841492247). Learning the World (9781841493442).
'Ken MacLeod's The Execution Channel starts like a techno-thriller "ripped from tomorrow's headlines", a thrilling, fast-moving tale of suspense rife with paranoia and multiple conspiracy theories. However, it's deeper and more thoughtful than most thrillers. MacLeod vividly and economically portrays an all-too-plausible world in which war has spread across the Middle East and Central Asia; millions of Americans live in FEMA concentration camps due to climate change; the British Government is considering deporting all Muslims, and what's really happening is hidden in a blizzard of disinformation and propaganda. This is politically engaged, speculative fiction at its finest, with a conclusion that's absolutely mind-blowing.' THE TIMES 'Politically engaged, speculative fiction at its finest, with a conclusion that's absolutely mind-blowing' The Times 'Jaw-droppingly audacious' SFX 'A very good book, perhaps the best Ken MacLeod has written to date ... The Execution Channel is an extraordinary novel' STRANGE HORIZONS 'The Execution Channel is a top-notch thriller ... a darkly entertaining read. Macleod has great fun spinning and unspinning the fears and memes of our age. His perspective on blogging and its effect on the powerful will amuse bloggers and their readers. And his alternate reality version of 9/11, which serves (in my mind at least) as a thorough debunking of conspiracy theorists, is almost worth the price of the book alone.' 26Books.com
'Ken MacLeod's The Execution Channel starts like a techno-thriller "ripped from tomorrow's headlines", a thrilling, fast-moving tale of suspense rife with paranoia and multiple conspiracy theories. However, it's deeper and more thoughtful than most thrillers. MacLeod vividly and economically portrays an all-too-plausible world in which war has spread across the Middle East and Central Asia; millions of Americans live in FEMA concentration camps due to climate change; the British Government is considering deporting all Muslims, and what's really happening is hidden in a blizzard of disinformation and propaganda. This is politically engaged, speculative fiction at its finest, with a conclusion that's absolutely mind-blowing.' THE TIMES 'Politically engaged, speculative fiction at its finest, with a conclusion that's absolutely mind-blowing' The Times 'Jaw-droppingly audacious' SFX 'A very good book, perhaps the best Ken MacLeod has written to date ... The Execution Channel is an extraordinary novel' STRANGE HORIZONS 'The Execution Channel is a top-notch thriller ... a darkly entertaining read. Macleod has great fun spinning and unspinning the fears and memes of our age. His perspective on blogging and its effect on the powerful will amuse bloggers and their readers. And his alternate reality version of 9/11, which serves (in my mind at least) as a thorough debunking of conspiracy theorists, is almost worth the price of the book alone.' 26Books.com
With an adroit combination of paranoid spy thriller tricks and SF gadgetry, MacLeod (Learning the World) depicts a near future that may or may not be our own, when 9/11 and the Iraq war were followed by war with Iran, a flu pandemic and terrorist attacks, and the West teeters on the brink of an all-out nuclear exchange. James Travis, a Scottish software engineer whose hatred for the U.S. has driven him to spy for France, and his daughter, Roisin, a young peace activist, have both witnessed horrendous acts of terrorism, most recently the apparent nuclear bombing of an airbase in Scotland. Nothing is what it seems, however. Government agents use the Internet to spread sophisticated disinformation, but are still perfectly willing to fall back on torture when necessary. Meanwhile, the Execution Channel, a rogue media outlet, broadcasts actual footage of various murders and executions 24-7. Dizzying plot twists and a variety of fascinating, believable technological breakthroughs make this perhaps MacLeod's most compulsively readable novel to date. (June) Copyright 2007 Reed Business Information.
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