The Sky Road is one of my favorite books. It may not scrape the top of my all-time list, if assembling such a list would be possible but it ranks right up there. First of all, it's Ken Macleod. Talk about a great writer- I just posted a review of The Cassini Division that pretty much detailed some of the many reasons why he's awesome. I'm not going to bother repeating myself again here. (Just to say again: for serious sci-fi fans, this guy is a MUST read at some point... for people who just like interesting, well-written books- he's worth checking out.)
But back to the book: What Macleod did with his original 'Fall Revolution' series of 'The Star Fraction' (review forthcoming) 'The Stone Canal' (also forthcoming) and 'The Cassini Division' was to add a fourth novel, 'The Sky Road' which posits an alternate future based on one of the protagonists making a slightly different choice in 'The Stone Canal.' (I know I'm reading this books in a random, truly effed up order and for that I apologize. It's my own personal summer reading festival and I'm just grabbing and going!) That concept alone is kind of cool to me. Change one little thing and spin off a whole other book from it? Very 'Sound of Thunder.' I like it.
And the resulting book is excellent as well: roughly half is set in the far future, where a young scholar by the name of Clovis is working on humanity's first space ship in centuries when he meets his mysterious new lover Merrial who convinces him that in order to protect the ship, they need to seek answers in the past... where we find the other half of the book- Myra Godwin is facing the collapse of civilization as we know it, her rockets are redundant, her borders defenceeless and the West is too decadent and weak to help her as she confronts the terrible decisions she has to make. Decisions that Clovis and Merrial must work to uncover centuries later as Merrial's mysterious people 'the tinkers' know what Myra left behind in her files... (DUM-DUM-DUM!!!!!!!)
No more spoilers... you'll just have to read it for yourselves. I liked the structure of this novel. Alternating chapters between Myra's past and Clovis and Merrial's future keeps each side of the plot clear and easy to understand. Plus, it makes understanding the connections between them easier as well. But to me, the past makes for a much more compelling read than the future in this book. Myra Godwin is a tough, strong, powerful woman haunted by her past and forced into making a terrible decision- but it's the world that Macleod builds around her that I find to be all too believable somehow. Almost post-apocalyptic with the United States balkanized and torn asunder, Europe weak and powerless and a Sino-Soviet Union plowing eastward with nobody powerful enough to stop it. And Macleod leaves Myra's fate unknown at the end of the novel, despite the fact that she's hailed in Clovis and Merrial's time as 'The Deliverer'
Overall: Another great read from Ken Macleod... (just as a side note- I find that while it's helpful to read his Fall Revolution series in 'order' it's not necessarily a requirement. 'The Sky Road' stands alone just fine by itself as well as within the larger story of the series.) Characters are well drawn and compelling, the story is one that pulls you in and keeps the pages turning. Excellent stuff!
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