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Ken MacLeod
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Fractions: The First Half of The Fall Revolution Kindle Edition

by Ken MacLeod (Author) Format: Kindle Edition
4.2 4.2 out of 5 stars 66 ratings
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The first half of The Fall Revolution, Ken MacLeod's landmark modern science fiction series, this volume comprises The Star Fraction and The Stone Canal.

In a balkanized future of dizzying possibilities, mercenaries contend with guns as smart as they are, nuclear deterrence is a commodity traded on the open market, teenagers deal in "theologically correct" software for fundamentalists, and anarchists have colonized a planet circling another star. Against this background, men and women struggle for a better future against the betrayals that went before. Death is sometimes the end, and sometimes something altogether different…

Both The Star Fraction and The Stone Canal won the Prometheus Award on their original publication. They are followed by The Cassini Division and the British Science Fiction Association Award-winning The Sky Road.

At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

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  1. Print length
    644 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Sticky notes
    On Kindle Scribe
  4. Publisher
    Orb Books
  5. Publication date
    October 28, 2008
  6. File size
    1005 KB
  7. Page Flip
    Enabled
  8. Word Wise
    Enabled
  9. Enhanced typesetting
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Editorial Reviews

Review

“Should make those who've been crying that British SF can't work for an American audience think twice. This is strong stuff, full of ideas and yet with a hard-driving plot, and readers whose taste extends beyond good-guys/bad-guys adventure stories ought to love it.” ―Asimov’s SF on The Stone Canal

“Science fiction's freshest new writer…MacLeod is a fiercely intelligent, prodigously well-read author who manages to fill his books with big issues without weighing them down.” ―Salon

“As much fun as these books provide, it's that fierceness, that seriousness of purpose, that powers their engines and makes me want to read on.” ―Locus

About the Author

Ken MacLeod is the multiple award-winning author of many science fiction novels, including the Fall Revolution quartet, the Engines of Light trilogy (Cosmonaut Keep, Dark Light, and Engine City), and several stand-alone novels including Newton’s Wake, Learning the World, and The Restoration Game. Born on the Scottish isle of Skye, he lives in Edinburgh.

Product details

  • ASIN ‏ : ‎ B005M29YR6
  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Orb Books; First edition (October 28, 2008)
  • Publication date ‏ : ‎ October 28, 2008
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • File size ‏ : ‎ 1005 KB
  • Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
  • Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
  • Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
  • Print length ‏ : ‎ 644 pages
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.2 4.2 out of 5 stars 66 ratings

About the author

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Ken MacLeod

Ken MacLeod

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Ken MacLeod’s SF novels have won the Prometheus Award and the BSFA award, and been shortlisted for the Hugo and Nebula Awards. He lives near Edinburgh, Scotland.

Customer reviews

4.2 out of 5 stars
4.2 out of 5
66 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

Mark from Bawlmer
5.0 out of 5 stars Smart, quirky, funny SF with a point of view (not an attitude)
Reviewed in the United States on July 3, 2010
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Ken MacLeod is a peerless purveyor of speculative fiction with a bite. An intellectual, fiercely partisan, aggressively funny, British writer, MacLeod gets in your face with his politics -- but makes it palatable by writing about characters you really care about. On top of that, he manages with the Fall Revolution series to create a satisfying puzzle whose pieces all fall together in his final novels of the series (collected as "Divisions"). For the fullest effect, read "Fractions" and "Divisions" together to appreciate how MacLeod spans light years of space and geologic eras of time while stitching together a satisfying yarn about super-long-lived characters linked - and divided - by friendship, love, ideology, and enmity. Oh yeah, and by nanotechnology, steam-punk cybernetics, the Singularity, and rip-roaring space opera.

"Fractions" combines the first two novels of the Fall Revolution series, "The Space Fraction" and "The Stone Canal." MacLeod focuses on a different character in each of his novels, while having the same core personalities appear either in the foreground or background of each of the other. In "The Star Fraction," we are introduced to a war-torn Britain that has been shattered by competing ideologies -- oh, yeah, and by some almost accidental nuclear blasts. We follow some armed-to-the-hilt mercenaries, psychedelic memory researchers, space enthusiasts, and left leaning revolutionaries as England tries to shrug off the latest Restoration. Despite deep discomfort with the notion of artificial intelligence, the protagonists end up unleashing the Black Plan of the Fourth International.

In "The Stone Canal," one of the fringe characters from "The Star Fraction" takes center stage. Using a slightly disorienting device of bouncing between late 20th Century/early 21st Century Britain and a world called New Ares centuries and light-years away, MacLeod tells a tale of love, jealousy, ideology, and the nature of consciousness. We encounter space entrepreneurs, robots, androids (and gynoids!), super-evolved humans, and wormholes, but MacLeod keeps the story grounded by following some compelling, but deeply flawed characters whose struggles span centuries and light years, and even frustrate death itself.

These novels showcase some of the best speculative fiction of the Nineties by an author who really delivers the goods.
6 people found this helpful
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jimrand
4.0 out of 5 stars ken macleod "Fractions" The first half of the fall revolution.
Reviewed in the United States on November 21, 2012
Verified Purchase
Having already read The Stone Canal it was good to revisit the scene again with the complete back story attached as it were.
I have enjoyed other titles by Ken Macleod and this is no exception.
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S Page
3.0 out of 5 stars Great ideas let down by poor writing
Reviewed in the United States on January 31, 2016
MacLeod's writing is poor, which hurts his inventive storytelling. He presents dialog badly and everyone's voice is the same. His descriptions of things (the gun, the AIs) lack real-world heft, so I was unclear whether one robot was the same as another or whether a virus was a previously-described AI.

The first book, "The Star Fraction", is a vaguely cyberpunk pastiche of the political units from "The Diamond Age" and the weapon-fetishizing cyber-mercenaries of William Gibson's "The Sprawl" trilogy, with a lot of politics added. Nothing wrong with that, but the poor dialog leaves some key plot points unclear, such as who exactly is fighting with the leads and which virus did what, and whether things are going according to plan or out of control. The shame is there is a SUPERB piece of writing in the book about experiences inside a machine construct: "The colors vanished, a spectrum spun to white. Nothing but that Platonic lucidity remaind. Memory opened, all its passwords keyed. ..." Clearly inspired by Case flatlining in Gibson's "Neuromancer", again nothing wrong with that. But it occurs early in the book, the focus returns to superficially interesting protagonists, and you're never clear what the results are. Viruses, AI code, and the existing machine conscience in the net are all confusingly lumped together.

The second book "The Stone Canal" jumps back and forth between a recognizable Earth and something very different. It has a lot to say about conscious minds, the singularity, cloning, and virtual realities, and has another beautiful piece of writing about working and playing inside virtual realities. But it's bogged down by invented legalese that makes no sense in a violent community. I want to read it again to make more sense of which what is who, but can't face it.

Also the endless coffee and cigarettes were so damn boring.
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little boots
5.0 out of 5 stars elephant & castle
Reviewed in the United States on June 4, 2009
Verified Purchase
Until 2008, I had not heard of Ken Macleod. I happened upon a hardbound copy of The Execution Channel and I was hooked on his relevant characters and credible plots, no matter how fantastic his premise. I rushed to pick up his latest works to follow his succession but found the new TOR paperback edition of Fractions: The First Half of the Fall Revolution to be the most recent published work I could find. It turned out, not surprisingly, a new American edition of two of his earlier works The Star Fraction and The Stone Canal. One need only read them to understand their conspicuous absence from American Mid-west mainstream book sellers (whether by capitalistic apathy or overt neglect we'll never know.) I had missed out on a truly invigorating new science fiction writer for quite some time. Macleod is a smart and inventive writer with a flair for the political pariah. Like many Americans I always gave more weight to Solzhenitsyn than Engles, however he writes us sympathetic heroes no matter your preference, mind the gap.

Although these are independent novels they seem to be less, alternate futures of the human race but rather distinctive vantage points of a surprisingly coherent, and optimistic British view of the Horizon very much in the tradition of Constable or Turner. Refreshingly dismissive of the US hegemony, we are witness to a future lovingly Anglo-Euro centric `new world order'. I am often trapped by contemporary terrestrial sci-fi into the `clairvoyant/prophet/savant' debate over future of tech and trade but I comfortably got lost in Macleod's knowable universe. I am anxious to pick up the second half of the revolution and finish the quartet.
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Top reviews from other countries

j p bennett
5.0 out of 5 stars Great books, in a handy
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on March 12, 2018
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The first 2 books of the Fall Revolution series. Great books, in a handy format
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Mervyn F. Dennehy
5.0 out of 5 stars Modern classic
Reviewed in France on December 7, 2014
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It was great to reread this exceptional series, especially for the blend of story and ideas. I highly recommend it.
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Zeroshark
3.0 out of 5 stars Great book, poor condition
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on December 16, 2015
Verified Purchase
Truly an incredible book, one of my favourites of all time (not just as sci fi) because of intricacy of the world and how amazing I found the principles pushed forward.

The book came in a somewhat poor condition, with pages bent and the glue in the spine having leaked out in such a way that it has permanently bent the shape of the book, stopping the cover closing fully which even for a 2nd hand purchase I was really disappointed with. Otherwise this would be a 5 star review.
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