To me, the best science fiction is science fiction that makes you think. Not many authors can do that and it's not always what you're in the mood for all the time. Sometimes, you just want an alien-space opera-shoot me up or a fantasy-quest-swordplay type of a read and other times you want to be challenged and you want to find yourself really thinking about what you're reading. Never mind science fiction: not many authors can do that successfully full stop. Ayn Rand was good at idea but to be frank, her ideas were, well, how do I put this? A little nuts. Well written, no doubt, but nuts.
In the world of science fiction, Heinlen, Kim Stanley Robinson and one of my true favorites, Ken Macleod stand out for writing vivid thought provoking fiction that's driven by ideas. Noted sci-fi master Vernor Vinge called 'The Cassini Division' 'a brilliant novel of ideas' and I can say with absolutely certainty that this book more than lives up to that.
The final book in Macleod's Fall Revolution series, The Cassini Division is set far in the future where an utopian communist Solar Union rules Earth and the Cassini Division is the self-defense force holding the line against the mysterious post-humans that vanished centuries before. Ellen May Ngewthu has centuries of experience being a leader and soldier in the front line of the Division's fight against the post-humans and she's stumbled across a plan that could rid humanity of the post-human threat once and for all- she just has to convince the right people to distrust the post-humans as much as she does.
Where to begin with this book? I mean wow... Macleod plays around with ideas that are going to be incredibly important over the next century as technology builds towards an expected 'Singularity' moment sometime in the next century. If, as predicted we will have the ability to upload ourselves into a computer or to extend our life beyond our current imagination, what then will it mean to be human? When it someone sentient and when is someone a machine? This is a theme that runs through 'The Cassini Division' and it's maddeningly thought provoking one because at this point... nobody really knows!
The politics are also interesting- especially with Earth being ruled by the an Utopian Communist state with only a smattering of 'non-cooperators' confined to the ruins of London or on the outskirts of society. By and large, phrases like 'go employ yourself' are considered by the characters to be almost pejorative terms and they literally can't comprehend a return to the capitalist system some of them having been around in the prior two centuries that witnessed its fall. The counterpart to the Utopian Communists of Earth is the extra-solar colony of New Mars. A bit of mystery throughout the book, as they're on the other side of the wormhole that the post-humans vanished through some centures before, when the main characters finally do make it through to New Mars, they find it's at the opposite end of the political spectrum from their Utopian Communist society- it's a free-wheeling anarcho-capitalist society, a nice juxtaposition of the supposed idealized extreme at the other end of the spectrum away from the utopian communism they're used too.
How does it all end? Well, it'd be a spoiler normally but the back of the book makes no secret of the fact that our protagonists kicked some serious post-human ass. Whether the apparently (according to McLeod) never-ending struggle between utopian communism and utopian capitalism ever gets resolved is another question entirely. And as for whose side you find yourself sympathizing with more- in the end, you might surprise yourself...
Overall: It's Ken Mcleod. Serious sci-fi nuts should already know who he is- but in general, if you're looking for thought-provoking writing bristling with ideas about our future, this guy is a must read. And entertaining to boot. I devoured this book in about three days while in Florida.
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