Like others in this series, it alternates viewpoints between the existence of characters in a reasonably temporary time and politics and activism.

Then there's the posthuman future history, with a spaceship, a wormhole, and a Jovian civilisation of uploaded people.

The main character awakens here with little memory, and the rest of the story traces him remembering, finding out where his mind has been stored and other people he knew, and what is going on.

Also the friend who killed him.

Not enough time is spent I think on the more interesting future society, and too much on the mundane chatting up in pubs,

http://notfreesf.blogspot.com/2009/01... ( )

Sometimes I feel like Macleod is writing novels just for me to enjoy, since the number of references to things with which I am familiar and the way he can mix them all into one surprising melange is uncanny. I wish now I had not given my early edition of The Star Fraction away as I would love to re-read it now. More mixtures of politics and computing in Finsbury Park and Glasgow and elsewhere, this time with much of the action taking place far away and on a much bigger stage than in either The Sky Road or the Star Fraction. The plot is great, the characters you feel you know and the humour stops you taking any of it too deeply yet makes it serious at the same time. ( )

http://www.amazon.com/review/R2TCHOI6... ( )

This is the first MacLeod I've read, and I am not impressed. The main plot reads like a wish-fulfilment fantasy. Some selfish jackass sleeps with beautiful women in tight skirts, founds a working anarcho-capitalist society, becomes dictator, steers the course of WW3, single-handedly ensures the success of the human space program, colonizes an extra-solar planet, and saves all of humanity.

Characterizations are uniformly bad. Some of the people are parrots that echo the main character's sentiments so that monologues can seem like dialogues. The main antagonist flips between being a dastardly villain and a steadfast ally. Women are tokens, but then everyone other than the main character is a token. There's even a token non-anarchist utopia added in a late paragraph.

The plot's gravest sin is that it failed to surprise me. Recently read books by Iain Banks, Kage Baker, and Steven Erikson wowed the shit out of me. MacLeod's tome did not. It could be likened to a cross between Heinlein and Stephenson – and I do not care for either.

Not painful, but not recommended either. ( )

"Wierd" ( )