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The Cassini Division by Ken MacLeod
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The Cassini Division

by Ken MacLeod

Series: Fall Revolution - timeline 1 (3)

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573128,228 (3.55)9
Recently added byprivate library, Sedorner, ZimAlDev, DrPlokta, farfelonius, ianburrell, othiym23, OneGreatTurtle, MRN
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Disappointing, overly and overtly political with truly unlikeable characters. ( )
  amobogio | Aug 24, 2009 |
Great story, dumb ideas: I am very surprised by the hostile reviews to this engaging novel. I suppose many could be put off by the socialist orientation of the author and the story. I agree that at times the book reads like a propoganda piece for the Socialist International. I am certainly no socialist, very much the opposite as some of my other book reviews will attest. To describe this as a novel of ideas is correct. Many of them are dumb, unrealistic, and totally discredited ideas. So what, the story was great and in spite of my hostility to these ideas I loved it. It just requires a little suspension of disbelief. It also helps to know where Macleod is coming from upfront. The socialism bothers less if it is expected.

I agree with several of the other reviewers, do not start this series with this book. If you do start here you may be confused at times.

If you are easily annoyed by politics and political ideas you disagree with, this book and this author, are not for you. If you can enjoy a good story and can look past some pretty loopy ideas you will enjoy this series.
  iayork | Aug 9, 2009 |
If there was such a thing as sci-fi beach reading, this would be it. It's a fast-paced adventure that doesn't happen to go very deep (although I think that it might intend to). Character development besides the main character is minimal. The more scientific explanations are glossed over with technobabble. There's plenty of sex. The ending is slam-bam and neatly wrapped up. There were lots of bits that were thrown into the book and then never developed (if you can explain to me why this book was better off for the pregnancy bit, please do). Over all this is an entertaining read but it just doesn't require much brain power and therefore isn't very engaging. ( )
  stubbyfingers | Jun 18, 2008 |
Defend the solar system, brothers.

The Cassini Division is an organisation that is ready to 'kick posthuman arse', as they put it. A key strategic asset is a wormhole, and the Division realises that anything evolving quickly could appear. It gets a lot less simple than this as societies on Mars and in the Jupiter area come into conflict, as well as Divisions within the division and your garden variety humans

One woman and the crew of a ship have to decide what sort of carnage they are willing to inflict on others for preservation, along with some strange consequences of their actions.

http://notfreesf.blogspot.com/2007/08/cassini-division-ken-macleod.html ( )
  bluetyson | Jan 8, 2008 |
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'What's with the imperial units?' Malley asked, as we watched and listened to Andrea guiding us in to dock with the ice tanker.

'You'll hear arguments about human scale and intuition and so forth,' I explained, 'but the older and coarser characters in space will sum it up in two words: fucking NASA. Most of the space settlements were built with ex-NASA stock or to NASA spec way back in the early days, and ever since then it's been too much trouble to change. We're locked into it.'

'Yeah,' said Andrea. 'Which is why we are now two point five seven miles from a hundred thousand metric tons of ice. You've just got to love the consistency of it all.'
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Ken MacLeod

Book description

Amazon.com (ISBN 0312870442, Hardcover)

With his third novel, Ken MacLeod elaborates on the future timeline from his first two works, The Star Fraction (1995) and The Stone Canal (1996). Most relevant is book two, which established a colony on the remote world of New Mars via a spatial wormhole created by superhumans--transcendent machine-hosted intelligences called the "fast-folk." The original fast-folk crashed from too much contemplation of their metaphorical navels, but their descendants on Jupiter still harass Earth with virus transmissions that have killed off computers and the Internet. Enter heroine Ellen May Ngwethu of the Cassini Division, an elite space-going force created to defend against the fast-folk. Her wild doings in the 24th century's anarcho-socialist utopia make for fun reading--everyone will covet her smart-matter clothing that can become a spacesuit, combat outfit, evening gown, or satellite dish at will. But the Division's political philosophy is brutally tough, with alarming plans to use a planet-wrecking doomsday weapon against "enemies," who may not be hostile at all. In a climax of slam-bang space battle, MacLeod crashes the ongoing ethical debate into a brick wall and leaves you gasping. Witty, skillful, provocative, but just a trifle too glibly resolved. --David Langford, Amazon.co.uk

(retrieved from Amazon Fri, 24 Apr 2009 07:57:51 -0400)

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