The Night Sessions

A mystery-thriller plot frames MacLeod's fascinating examination of religious and other forms off fanaticism and extremism, set in a familiar world of high-tech, political realignments and artificial intelligences. Quite a fascinating novel with more than a hint of redemption at its conclusion. ( )

(Reprinted from the Chicago Center for Literature and Photography [cclapcenter.com]. I am the original author of this essay, as well as the owner of CCLaP; it is not being reprinted illegally.)

I was a big fan of Ken MacLeod's last book with Pyr, the fascinatingly unique day-after-tomorrow political thriller about central Asia, ancient mythology, and MMOs used for revolutionary purposes, The Restoration Game; but this newest is a big step down from that one, a book that that similarly aims conceptually high but unfortunately falls flat most of the time. In fact, it takes a big suspension of disbelief even to swallow the premise and get past page one -- that after losing a "holy war" with Muslim countries over dwindling oil supplies in the near future, spurred by conservative Western politicians using fundamentalist Christian propaganda to sell it all to the public, the US and Western Europe are taken over by radical-left socialists who literally ban all public mention of religion ever again; and that although those radical days are over and a more stable government has started normalizing society again, there is still a deep cultural precedence for Christian worship being a semi-secret underground activity that in Orwellian style is not even officially recognized by the government as existing, even going so far as to insist on addressing church officials as "doctor" instead of "reverend" or "bishop." That's a pretty big freaking pill to swallow, which you have to do for the rest of the book to make sense, essentially a sneaky detective thriller set within this alt-history, concerning murders within this shadowy underground Catholic community and who might be committing them for what purposes. Interesting in its way, I myself found it just not as well-written as his previous novel, and full of the kinds of ultra-hacky genre-novelist stuff that makes me want to sometimes claw my own eyes out with so many of these midlist SF titles (such as the whole subplot taking place among the packed but silent danceclubs that have seemingly been made out of every old cathedral and mosque in existence, where "VJs" [virtual DJs, get it?] pump the music directly into people's heads and throw around enhanced-reality special effects across the room with their hands "Minority Report" style, while everyone watches along with their virtual-reality "iThink" glasses, UGH, UGH, enough, MacLeod, enough). Only for the extra-committed genre fan, although all of you should like this well enough.

Out of 10: 8.2 ( )

Shifting political tides are frequent and cyclical enough that they've earned their own label -- pendulum politics. One party and its policies are in. The pendulum swings and another party and its policies dominate. Rarely, though, does the pendulum swing as much as the scenario in which Ken MacLeod plots Night Sessions, the winner of the 2008 British Science Fiction Association award for best novel.

Night Sessions is set in a near future in the aftermath of what Britain and its allies call the "the Faith Wars" and others call "the Oil Wars." 9/11 was the first in a series of events that eventually brought all-out war between Muslim and Christian nations, a war in which soldiers were aided by sentient robots and the sides engaged in tactical nuclear exchanges on the plains of Megiddo, solving the Israeli-Palestine conflict by making that part of the Middle East uninhabitable. Los Angeles is little more than a "black plain," the victim of a 10-kiloton nuclear warhead, in the course of an internal war with fundamentalist Christians.

The savagery and effects of the Faith Wars prompted a secular backlash called the Second Enlightenment (or the Great Rejection in religious camps). Even using persecution and harassment when deemed necessary, the Second Enlightenment ultimately attained its goal of separating Church from State and removing religion entirely from politics and public life. The U.K. and other parts of Europe are secular to the point that society no longer recognizes religion, despite the fact there remain millions of believers. The official policy is one of "non-cognisance." The United States has even adopted a constitutional amendment expressly stating the nation was not founded on Christian, or any other, religion. Some American Christian fundamentalists have taken refuge in New Zealand, where, among other things, there is a "science park" in a national park portraying a creationist view of the world, often using sentient robots to portray man living with dinosaurs.

Within this setting, the main plot line leans toward police procedural set in Edinburgh in MacLeod's native Scotland. Detective Adam Ferguson helps head up the investigation of the death of a Catholic parish priest who opens a package containing a bomb. Through his investigation, Ferguson, aided by "Skulk," a leki (law enforcement kinetic intelligence -- a type of sentient robot) assistant, attempts to ascertain if the deaths are a form of terrorism by either atheist or religious extremists, particularly as more clerics are murdered.

Ferguson's work with Skulk can't help but bring to mind Isaac Asimov's robot stories, in which a human detective partnered with a humanoid robot, R. Daneel Olivaw. Night Sessions has a far more dystopian edge than any of Asimov's robot stories. MacLeod also joins British author Charles Stross in using a police procedural set in Edinburgh as a vehicle through which to explore near future scenarios. Other parts of the book invoke scenes one might expect to find in space opera, a genre MacLeod has previously explored.

Surprisingly, this is the first U.S. release of Night Sessions, even though The Restoration Game, published later, was released in the U.S. last year. Night Sessions deals with more overt hot button political issues than The Restoration Game. This book's setting and what Ferguson ultimately uncovers raise interesting questions about religion, as well as fundamentalism at any point on the religious spectrum. As usual with MacLeod, the work is well-plotted and tends to build logically. Sometimes, though, plot seems to take precedence over character. Some characters seem to appear as little more than plot mechanisms. Likewise, a key but infrequently appearing character seems to relinquish his core beliefs much too quickly and does so on an issue the reader would have expected the character to have confronted long before.

These flaws aside, this is another MacLeod work that causes the reader to ponder not only key political and social issues but matters we may face in the future, such as the relationship between humanity and sentient technology. As such, it will attract those who view science fiction as more than simple genre fiction.

(Originally posted at A Progressive on the Prairie.)

...The Night Sessions is packed with interesting concepts but it also a very efficiently written book. MacLeod packs more into the 260 odd pages of this novel that some books double that size carry. One of the few negative aspects of the novel, is that some of it is glossed over very quickly. Stuff that would have deserved a closer look. That didn't stop me from thoroughly enjoying this book however. From what I read online, The Night Sessions is not generally regarded as MacLeod's strongest books. Obviously I can't say anything sensible about that, but if it gets better than this, his best must be very good indeed. That to read list just keeps getting longer.

Full Random Comments review ( )

Good story with some interesting characters. Not too deep, though some interesting history. ( )