The 3rd in this series does need reading after 1 and 2, whatever order those are read in. A raft if new characters is introduced, the most important being Ellen May Ngwethuw. Jon Wilde has a brief 'walk on' part and David Reid and Tamara play minor parts towards the end. Ellen is part of the Cassini Division, which is an autonomous group taking care of Earth defence from Cassini. As the book opens she is on Earth seeking for Professor Malley, whose name cropped up in The Stone Canal, but without...

A good read. Interesting physics and engineering together with philosophical, social and political arguments with twists on anarchist and libertarian social organizations. Don't be put off, can just be read as a straight (but witty) space opera but you can read more slowly and think, if so inclined. I varied depending on how tired I was for a particular chapter.Told in the first person by an interesting character with a smart space suit that can double as a self-cleaning pink dress, ideal for th...

What happens when the Singularity leaves you behind--or worse, forcibly uploads a copy of your mind state and then goes off and builds a wormhole using your mind as forced labour?The Cassini Division asks just these sorts of mind-boggling posthuman questions. Ellen May Ngwethu is a few centuries old, thanks a telomere hack, and living in a post-scarcity society, thanks to nanomachine manufacturing. She has chosen to live on the front lines, literally, and is now a senior member of the eponymous

Nothing like some Ken MacLeod for some light reading.Just a simple story about mechanically nano-augmented Space Communists figuring out whether or approach the massive collection of post-singularity post-humans currently spreading all manner of biological/informational/Darwinian viruses responsible for almost wiping out the human race peacefully or aggressively.Oh, and all the (surviving) Capitalists fucked off to a new planet, became caricatures of themselves, and live happily with their AI gy...

First of all, I apologize in advance for all the quotations I use in trying to review this book, I just want to give MacLeod credit instead of paraphrasing him. Yes I know its kindof lazy, but I"m in a lazy mood, and I want to get this review out, because its a little gem of a book that I dont think alot of sci fi readers are aware of."Humanity is indeed evil, from any non-human point of view. I hug my human wickedness in a shiver of delight."Ellen May Ngwethu is a genocidal bitch...and I absolu...

Any and all of the Fall Revolution books are hard to read. That's not to say they aren't awesomely great books, because without fail they are. What I mean is that you will be challenged by Macleod politically. His story structure is very hard to accept at first but in the end is very rewarding.

10 January 2009 – ****. This is the third novel in the Fall Revolution series, although it is not strictly a sequential series. The books are:#1 The Star Fraction (1995) - Prometheus Award winner 1996.#2 The Stone Canal (1996) - Prometheus Award winner 1998.#3 The Cassini Division (1998) – Nebula Award nominee 1999.#4 The Sky Road (1999) – British SF Award winner 1999.This novel is a direct sequel to The Stone Canal, and it continues his themes of smart-matter machine intelligence, and evolving

A fresh look at the "utopian" socialist society, it's causes, functions, and requirements. Also a really good discussion of what it means to be human/conscious. A rather fresh plot, had no idea what was going to happen next until just before it happened.

Storyline: 2/5Characters: 2/5Writing Style: 2/5World: 5/5Through the first fifth of the book, I thought I had found a new favorite. It was going to go on that shelf with the others that had stunned me with their artistry, ideas, or entertainment. The world MacLeod created was fabulous, phenomenal for its speculative fiction attributes. The first two in the Fall Revolution series had established MacLeod as a speculative political and social theorist intimately familiar with the microdetails and o...

Macleod is similar to his country men Stross and Banks in more than nationality; his use of sci fi concepts to poke fun and satirize the present, his critiques of socialism and libertarianism, and his ability to graft these on to adventure stories. I think he is not quite as great as either, with out the grasp of plot, tone, and character that Banks has or the density of ideas and ability to pastiche literary trope that Stross has. Unlike other Macleod I’ve attempted I have the urge to read more...

I loved this book. It made me so glad I stuck with the Fall Revolution series to the end. The series actually hooked me with MacLeod's last line of his preface to the first book, The Star Fraction, when he says that the theme of the series is that, in contrast to so many other pessimistic novels about the future, that humanity does have a future and in the long run, it's even a good one. In this book, we get the pay-off.It's the 24th Century and the human race has expanded to 30 billion people a...

Read this a while back. Mainly notable for rekindling my interest in science fiction.It also happens to be a book that directly addresses my longstanding internal debate on market anarchism and communitarianism, which I never imagined anyone ever wrote stories about. Very sweet.

Like the review on the cover says, this book is full of big ideas. The story explores a human race, which has moved beyond capitalism and has populated the solar system, which now wars against the products of its own evolutionary journey. The author presents a snap shot of human society that is alien to the reader, with any recognisable components portrayed as parochial by the main character. He explores themes such as virtual reality emersion and the digitisation of sentience, robot rights, int...

This is intelligent science fiction. MacLeod explores competing political and cultural worldviews in a technologically advanced future, but doesn't structure the story to implicitly affirm one over another. That's a pretty substantial contrast to authors like David Brin or Vernor Vinge, whose plots implicitly argue that a liberal humanist worldview holds the most hope for humanity's future. Perhaps MacLeod is further out of today's neoliberal mainstream and is therefore less sanguine about human...

Very impressive, though not necessarily always likable. The first person viewpoint of this story is inflexible, obstinate and implacable and I couldn't stop disagreeing with her. And yet it's still very readable and understandable. Also, a quote from the book that I had interesting thoughts about but demonstrates the viewpoint's ideas and what I mean about disagreeing with them.The first wave of space-settlers had a saying, something betwen a litany and a running joke, which went: 'If God had me...

Extremely intelligent and politically as well as philosophically interesting science fiction. You may need to be on the left wing (or have leftish sympathies) to fully appreciate the depts of it, but spoken as someone who is, it is some of the best SF I have ever read.

When I picked this book up, I wasn't aware that there were 2 books before it. But as I wasn't sure when I could get my hands on them, I decided to continue on. When I first started reading, I wasn't sure what was going on and really didn't care much for it. But once I got a little ways in, I enjoyed it. I will admit that some of the politics went over my head, but I think had I read the back story it would have made more sense, and been that much more enjoyable.

A fresh look at future politics, married to solid hard-sf extrapolation. Short & sweet, fast & funny, but with an appalling protagonist and a weak, pat ending. Even so, highly recommended. I had a great time reading (and re-reading) "The Cassini Division." I found myself deliberately slowing down to savor the book, And it makes you think. A definite keeper, highly recommended despite the appalling genocidal "heroine."My 1999 review (Caution -- Heavy SPOILERS):https://www.amazon.com/gp/customer-r...

One of my favorite novels, and Ken MacLeod's best (at least among those I've read).In the later half of the 21st century, a group of transhumanists will take up residence around Jupiter, and begin work on a wormhole gate to span the entirety of space and time, destroying Ganymede in the process for its raw materials. Before they complete their plans, however, their processing power becomes so great that they lose interest in the physical universe, and retreat into the clouds of Jupiter to enjoy

Now this is much better than the previous instalment of Ken Macleod’s Fall Revolution series. It has lots of large scale space opera elements such as a comet based assault and a Jupiter that has been physically reshaped by the fast folk. It also has great lines such as “If it isn't running programs and it isn't fusing atoms, it's just bending space”. The politics fits much more seamlessly with the narrative, and, unlike the previous book, it has a central character who keeps your interest and su...