Books by Ken MacLeod

Science fiction legend Ken MacLeod returns with book two in the Lightspeed trilogy, a gripping tale of first contact and dark conspiracies set among the stars.

'AN EXCEPTIONAL BLEND OF INTERNATIONAL POLITICS, HARD SCIENCE, AND FIRST CONTACT' Michael Mammay, author of the Planetside series'MACLEOD'S BEST BOOK TO DATE' SFXScience fiction legend Ken MacLeod begins a new space opera trilogy by imagining humankind on the precipice of discovery - the invention of faster-than-light travel unlocks a universe of new possibilities, and new dangers.When a brilliant scientist gets a letter from herself about faster-than-light travel, she doesn't know what to believe. The equations work, but her paper is discredited - and soon the criticism is more than scientific. Exiled by the establishment, she gets an offer to build her starship from an unlikely source. But in the heights of Venus and on a planet of another star, a secret is already being uncovered that will shake humanity to its foundations.Discover this ground-breaking new space opera from multi-award winning author Ken MacLeodPraise for Ken MacLeod:'If you like science fiction, you will love this. . . a rollicking good read' Scotsman 'MacLeod is up there with Banks and Hamilton as one of the British sci-fi authors you absolutely have to read' SFX'Prose as sleek and fast as the technology it describes. . . watch this man go global' Peter F. Hamilton on Star Fraction'Ken MacLeod has an enviable track record of extrapolating from current trends to produce mind-bending novels of ideas' GuardianAlso by Ken MacLeod:Lightspeed Beyond the Hallowed SkyFall RevolutionThe Star FractionThe Stone CanalThe Cassini DivisionThe Sky RoadEngines of LightCosmonaut KeepDark LightEngine CityCorporation Wars TrilogyDissidenceInsurgenceEmergenceNovelsThe Human FrontNewton's WakeLearning the WorldThe Execution ChannelThe Restoration GameIntrusionDescent

It's after 9/11. After the bombing. After the Iraq war. After 7/7. After the Iran war. After the nukes. After the flu. After the Straits. After Rosyth. In a world just down the road from our own, on-line bloggers vie with old-line political operatives and new-style police to determine just where reality lies.James Travis is a British patriot and a French spy. On the day the Big One hits, Travis and his daughter must strive to make sense of the nuclear bombing of Scotland and the political repercussions of a series of terrorist attacks. With the information war in full swing, the only truth they have is what they're able to see with their own eyes. They know that everything else is--or may be--a lie.

Siobhan Ross has several reasons for taking a holiday job on the Isle of Skye - her keen interest in marine biology for one - but she's also determined to escape Glasgow and put distance between herself and a failed relationship with fellow student Kieran. The last thing Siobhan's looking for is romance, let alone with a Selkie, but… In Selkie Summer, Ken MacLeod delivers a rich contemporary fantasy that is steeped in Celtic lore, nuclear submarines and secrets, as Siobhan finds herself the focus of attention she never sought, unwittingly embroiled in political intrigue and the shifting landscape of international alliances. At its heart, Selkie Summer is a love story: as passionate and unconventional as you could wish for. At its heart, Selkie Summer is a love story: as passionate and unconventional as you could wish for.

With a foreword from Ken MacLeodContributions from: Pippa Goldschmidt Laura Lam Russell Jones Alastair Bruce Sean McMahon Elsa Bouet Beth Biller Tacye Phillipson Catherine Heymans Matjaz Vidmar Afterword from Colin R McInnes Scotland has big plans for its space industry in the next decade: opening Europe's first orbital spaceport, expanding further its satellite research and manufacturing industry, and developing a £4 billion space industry by 2030. Astronomy and Astrophysics have been important fields of study in Scottish universities since the eighteenth century, and world-leading research continues to be produced here today. And in contemporary Scottish literature, science-fiction writing is flourishing. Scotland in Space: Creative Visions and Critical Reflections on Scotland's Space Futures brings together these three strands to generate dialogues between literary authors, natural and social scientists and scholars working in the humanities, to envision some of Scotland's potential space futures. The book comprises three sections, in each of which an original piece of science fiction is accompanied by essays that respond to the ideas the story evokes. The essays, written by specialist scholars and practitioners working closely with the literary authors, identify, explore and comment upon the physical, social and cultural possibilities and potentials evoked in the science fiction. These cross-disciplinary discussions speculate about the ways in which research and innovation currently taking place in Scotland might change our sense of the possible futures of this country, this world and, perhaps, other worlds.

Shoreline of Infinity is the winner of the British Fantasy Society Award 2018 for best magazine/periodical.In this issueStories Thomas Broderick Rhiannon Grist Cat Hellisen Ken MacLeod Andrew Reichard Neil WilliamsonFlash Fiction Competition Winners Vicki Jarrett Emma Levin Eris YoungScience Fiction Poetry FJ Bergmann Harry Josephine Giles Richard StevensonRuth EJ Booth's BSFA award shortlisted column "Noise and Sparks" Pippa Goldschmidt on "The Future is already here"Mark Toner's Tales of the Beachcomber SF Caledonia: Chris Kelso on Neil Williamson Plus reviews

Editor Donna Scott has selected the very best short fiction by British authors published during 2017. Twenty-two stories, from established names and rising stars of genre fiction.Introduction - Donna ScottBlinders - Tyler KeevilIn the Night of the Comet - Adam RobertsThe Walls of Tithonium Chasma - Tim Major3.8 Missions - Katie GrayOver You - Jaine FennThe Ghosts of Europa Will Keep You Trapped in a Prison You Make for Yourself - Matt DoveyUniquo - Aliya WhiteleyLooking for Laika - Laura MauroA Good Citizen - Anne CharnockMercury Teardrops - Jeff NoonThe Nightingales in Plàtres - Natalia TheodoridouThe Road to the Sea - Lavie TidharWhen I Close My Eyes - Chris BarnhamTargets - Eric BrownLondon Calling - Philip A. SuggarsThe Last Word - Ken MacLeodAfter the Atrocity - Ian CreaseyVoicemail - Karen McCreedyGreen Boughs Will Cover Thee - Sarah ByrneAirless - N.J. RamsdenProduct Recall - Robert BagnallThe Endling Market - E. J. SwiftAbout the Authors.

Three books in one: this paperback collects Ken MacLeod's Corporation Wars trilogy - man and machine compete at the far reaches of space in this robot's eye view of a robot revolt

'Descent is politically engaged, brimming with smart ideas and shot through with a mordant wit. The novel is dedicated to the memory of MacLeod's friend Iain M. Banks, and one feels that the future of Scottish SF is in good hands' - James Lovegrove, The Financial Times'Ken MacLeod is the modern day George Orwell' - SFXHOW FAR WOULD YOU GO FOR THE TRUTH?Ball lightning. Weather balloons. Secret military aircraft. Ryan knows all the justifications for UFO sightings. But when something falls out of the sky on the hills near his small Scottish town, he finds his cynicism can't identify or explain the phenomenon. And in a future where nothing is a secret, where everything is recorded on CCTV or reported online, why can he find no evidence of the UFO, nor anything to shed light on what occurred? Is it the political revolutionaries, is it the government or is it aliens themselves who are creating the cover-up? Or does the very idea of a cover-up hide the biggest secret of all?Ken MacLeod, author of 2013 Arthur C. Clarke Award-nominated Intrusion, tells a science fiction story for the twenty-first century - this is what happens when conspiracy theorists meet Big Brother.Books by Ken MacLeod:Fall RevolutionThe Star FractionThe Stone CanalThe Cassini DivisionThe Sky RoadEngines of LightCosmonaut KeepDark LightEngine CityCorporation Wars TrilogyDissidenceInsurgenceEmergenceNovelsThe Human FrontNewton's WakeLearning the WorldThe Execution ChannelThe Restoration GameIntrusionDescent

'Insightful and ingenious . . . Intrusion is both horrific and comic, and deals movingly with the consequences of genetic fixes' - GUARDIAN'Intrusion is a finely-tuned, in-your-face argument of a novel . . . MacLeod will push your buttons - and make you think' - SFXImagine a near-future city, say London, where medical science has advanced beyond our own and a single-dose pill has been developed that, taken when pregnant, eradicates many common genetic defects from an unborn child. Hope Morrison, mother of a hyperactive four-year-old, is expecting her second child. She refuses to take The Fix, as the pill is known. This divides her family and friends and puts her and her husband in danger of imprisonment or worse. Is her decision a private matter of individual choice, or is it tantamount to willful neglect of her unborn child?A plausible and original novel with sinister echoes of 1984 and Brave New World.Books by Ken MacLeod:Fall RevolutionThe Star FractionThe Stone CanalThe Cassini DivisionThe Sky RoadEngines of LightCosmonaut KeepDark LightEngine CityCorporation Wars TrilogyDissidenceInsurgenceEmergenceNovelsThe Human FrontNewton's WakeLearning the WorldThe Execution ChannelThe Restoration GameIntrusionDescent

'...a video game espionage novel where MacLeod deftly mixes Eastern European intrigue with underground gamer culture to create a terrific political thriller. MacLeod is one of io9's chief muses, and his work is a big reason I fell in love with science fiction again after many years away from it' - IO9'This is a writer at the peak of his powers.' - SFXThere is no such place as Krassnia. Lucy Stone should know - she was born there. In that tiny, troubled region of the former Soviet Union, revolution is brewing. Its organisers need a safe place to meet, and where better than the virtual spaces of an online game? Lucy, who works for a start-up games company in Edinburgh, has a project that almost seems made for the job: its original inspiration came from The Krassniad - an epic tale, based on Krassnian folklore, concocted by Lucy's mother who studied there in the 1980s.As Lucy digs up details about her birthplace to slot into the game, she finds her interest in the open secrets of her family's past - and the darker secrets of Krassnia's - has not gone unnoticed. When a Russian - Georgian border war breaks out, Lucy has to move fast - and return to Krassnia herself, to the heart of the mountain that holds Krassnia's darkest and oldest secret. But nothing Lucy has discovered can possibly prepare her for the crucial role she is destined to play in The Restoration Game . . .The compelling new near-future thriller from the award-winning author of THE EXECUTION CHANNEL and THE NIGHT SESSIONS.Books by Ken MacLeod:Fall RevolutionThe Star FractionThe Stone CanalThe Cassini DivisionThe Sky RoadEngines of LightCosmonaut KeepDark LightEngine CityCorporation Wars TrilogyDissidenceInsurgenceEmergenceNovelsThe Human FrontNewton's WakeLearning the WorldThe Execution ChannelThe Restoration GameIntrusionDescent

'As ever, MacLeod's depiction of the near future is achieved through solid characterisation and brilliant detail. His forte is the depiction of how belief systems can corrupt, and The Night Sessions is a stunning indictment of fundamentalism of all kinds.' - The Guardian'A twisting conspiracy tale shot through with MacLeod's gloriously mordant sense for the absurd.' - BBC FOCUS A priest is dead. Picking through the rubble of the demolished Edinburgh tenement, Detective Inspector Adam Ferguson discovers that the explosion wasn't an accident. When a bishop is assassinated soon afterwards, it becomes clear that a targeted campaign of killings is underway. No one has seen anything like this since the Faith Wars. In this enlightened age there's no religious persecution, but believers are a marginal and mistrusted minority. And now someone is killing them. But who? And - perhaps more importantly - why? The more his team learns, the more the suspicion grows that they may have stumbled upon a conspiracy way outside their remit. Nobody believes them, but if Ferguson and his people fail, there will be many more killings - and disaster on a literally biblical scale . . .A stunning new SF thriller from the critically acclaimed author of The Execution ChannelBooks by Ken MacLeod:Fall RevolutionThe Star FractionThe Stone CanalThe Cassini DivisionThe Sky RoadEngines of LightCosmonaut KeepDark LightEngine CityCorporation Wars TrilogyDissidenceInsurgenceEmergenceNovelsThe Human FrontNewton's WakeLearning the WorldThe Execution ChannelThe Restoration GameIntrusionDescent

From Arthur C. Clarke award-nominated author Ken MacLeod comes Insurgence, the second instalment in the Corporation Wars trilogy, an epic science fiction adventure told against a backdrop of interstellar drone warfare, virtual reality and an A.I. revolution

'Distinctive, politically challenging, both tantalizing and satisfying.' - Kirkus Reviews'This man's going to be a major writer.' - Iain BanksFighting has spread across the Middle East and Central Asia to the borders of China. In the US, refugees from climate-change disaster subsist in FEMA camps. Images of official executions circulate on the Internet like al Qaeda videos. State agencies sponsor conspiracy theories as cover-ups. As the troops of the last superpower stand astride the last of the oil, China and Russia aren't the only states considering their options: certain nations of Old Europe are quietly preparing for the worst.James Travis is a middle-aged middle manager in a software company. He has a son in the army, a daughter in a peace-protest camp outside a USAF base, and a compromising relationship with a foreign intelligence service. When his cover is blown hours before a nuclear explosion destroys the base, Travis, his son, and his daughter are all in serious trouble. And as the spooks and disinformation specialists focus their efforts on his capture, Travis knows that all it will take is one mistake and his only memorial will be another grainy video on . . . The Execution Channel.Ken MacLeod's most relevant and accessible novel to date.Books by Ken MacLeod:Fall RevolutionThe Star FractionThe Stone CanalThe Cassini DivisionThe Sky RoadEngines of LightCosmonaut KeepDark LightEngine CityCorporation Wars TrilogyDissidenceInsurgenceEmergenceNovelsThe Human FrontNewton's WakeLearning the WorldThe Execution ChannelThe Restoration GameIntrusionDescent

'A modern-day George Orwell' - SFX'A hectic ride, through slaloms of audacious complexity, irreverent ingenuity and paradox as purposeful as it is playful' - GUARDIANThe Second Sphere is thousands of light years away from Earth - if Earth still exists. For Matt Cairns and the cosmonauts of the Bright Star, this distant corner of the galaxy is their new home.But the Second Sphere is also home to other civilisations, lifted from their worlds by a race of god-like aliens. On Croatan, two of these civilisations live a precarious co-existence, separated by eons of technological advance. The arrival of the Bright Star is an event that may trigger disaster, for this is the first human-crewed starship to arrive at the ancient colony.And all the time, hidden among the stars, the gods are watching. They have always been watching.Following on from COSMONAUT KEEP, which was shortlisted for the 2002 Hugo Award, this is the second book in the dazzling new space opera series by one of SF's most exciting new authors.Books by Ken MacLeod:Fall RevolutionThe Star FractionThe Stone CanalThe Cassini DivisionThe Sky RoadEngines of LightCosmonaut KeepDark LightEngine CityCorporation Wars TrilogyDissidenceInsurgenceEmergenceNovelsThe Human FrontNewton's WakeLearning the WorldThe Execution ChannelThe Restoration GameIntrusionDescent

'A hectic ride, through slaloms of audacious complexity, irreverent ingenuity and paradox as purposeful as it is playful' - SFX'Magnificent ... a series you'd be wise to follow from the start' - GUARDIANFor ten thousand years the varied races of the Second Sphere lived in peaceful co-existence, building their civilisations under the gaze of the ever-vigilant cometary minds. But then the cosmonauts of the Bright Star came. And with them they have brought a revolution ... For one of the Bright Star's crew has warned that an invasion of the Second Sphere is imminent and has armed the ancient city of Nova Babylonia against it. Another cosmonaut thinks he's the very man to lead the invasion. The new regime of Nova Babylonia is certain it can withstand the alien onslaught. Whether it can defend itself against Matt Cairns is a question only the gods can answer ...The acclaimed Engines of Light series that began with COSMONAUT KEEP and DARK LIGHT reaches its staggering conclusion in ENGINE CITY.Books by Ken MacLeod:Fall RevolutionThe Star FractionThe Stone CanalThe Cassini DivisionThe Sky RoadEngines of LightCosmonaut KeepDark LightEngine CityCorporation Wars TrilogyDissidenceInsurgenceEmergenceNovelsThe Human FrontNewton's WakeLearning the WorldThe Execution ChannelThe Restoration GameIntrusionDescent

'Thought-provoking and entertaining, this highly original first-contact story should please any science fiction reader.' - School Library Journal'Mind-expanding science fiction at its best; it is no surprise that it has been shortlisted for all the main science fiction awards.' - THE TIMESThe great sunliner 'But the Sky, My Lady! The Sky!' is nearing the end of a four-hundred-year journey. A ship-born generation is tense with expectation for the new system that is to be their home. Expecting to find nothing more complex than bacteria and algae, the detection of electronic signals from one of the planets comes as a shock. In millennia of slow expansion, humanity has never encountered aliens, and yet these new signals cannot be ignored. They suspect a fast robot probe has overtaken them, and send probes of their own to investigate.On a world called Ground, whose inhabitants are struggling into the age of radio, petroleum and powered flight, a young astronomer searching for distant planets detects an anomaly that he presumes must be a comet. His friend, a brilliant foreign physicist, calculates the orbit, only to discover an anomaly of his own. The comet is slowing down ...Reminding us that the universe is not only stranger than we imagine, it is stranger than we CAN imagine, LEARNING THE WORLD is a stunning novel of exploration, discovery and Mankind's destiny amongst the stars.Books by Ken MacLeod:Fall RevolutionThe Star FractionThe Stone CanalThe Cassini DivisionThe Sky RoadEngines of LightCosmonaut KeepDark LightEngine CityCorporation Wars TrilogyDissidenceInsurgenceEmergenceNovelsThe Human FrontNewton's WakeLearning the WorldThe Execution ChannelThe Restoration GameIntrusionDescent

'Science fiction's freshest new writer...MacLeod is a fiercely intelligent, prodigiously well-read author who manages to fill his books with big issues without weighing them down.' - SALON'Engaged, ingenious, and wittily partisan, Ken MacLeod is a one-man revolution, SF's Billy Bragg.' - Asimov's SFEllen May Ngwethu is a young woman with centuries of experience, no morality and the true knowledge. The world she knows is about to end.The Cassini Division, elite defence force of the Solar Union, sends her on a search for the man whose knowledge could save it. A search that takes her from space to the ruins of London, and back; from the margins of her socialist-anarchist world to its most dangerous edge. The Division's orbital forts around Jupiter are the front line in a centuries-long conflict with post-human AIs, whose intentions are unknown but whose powers once extended to shattering Ganymede and building a wormhole bridge to the far future. Their radio-borne viruses blanket the Solar System, keeping most of its resources from humanity's grasp.But are the post-humans less hostile than they seem?The acclaimed third novel from one of the genre's most exciting new talents.Books by Ken MacLeod:Fall RevolutionThe Star FractionThe Stone CanalThe Cassini DivisionThe Sky RoadEngines of LightCosmonaut KeepDark LightEngine CityCorporation Wars TrilogyDissidenceInsurgenceEmergenceNovelsThe Human FrontNewton's WakeLearning the WorldThe Execution ChannelThe Restoration GameIntrusionDescent

'"e;Cosmonaut Keep"e; is a portal to a deeply imagined future history that parlays X-Files paranoia about Area 51 and alien Greys into a vast interstellar community watched over by microcosmic gods.' - Paul McAuley, INTERZONE'Science fiction's freshest new writer' - SalonAfter the Ural Caspian Oil War, nobody really trusted the EU government. So why should their extraordinary announcement of first contact with alien intelligence be believed? Matt Cairns thinks he can discover the truth. It is out there, but much, much further away than he could have imagined. Thousands of light-years from Earth, a human colony is struggling for survival. The world on which they have settled, however, has already been inhabited by humans - and other intelligent species from Earth - for millennia. In that ancient division of labour, humans do have a place. But where is it? Twenty-first-century political intrigue becomes space opera on an epic scale in Ken MacLeod's first book in a dazzling new series. His most ambitious novel to date, it will take one of Britain's most exciting new science fiction authors to even greater heights of success and critical acclaim.Books by Ken MacLeod:Fall RevolutionThe Star FractionThe Stone CanalThe Cassini DivisionThe Sky RoadEngines of LightCosmonaut KeepDark LightEngine CityCorporation Wars TrilogyDissidenceInsurgenceEmergenceNovelsThe Human FrontNewton's WakeLearning the WorldThe Execution ChannelThe Restoration GameIntrusionDescent

'Exciting...Accessible to the average reader as well as the hardcore SF fan. This is a work sure to keep the reader on the edge of her seat.' - Romantic Times Bookclub'For my money, Ken MacLeod is the current champion of the very smartest kind of New Space Opera... every variation on his themes produces something worth re-reading.' - LocusCenturies after its catastrophic Deliverance, humanity is again reaching into space. And one young scholar working in the space ship yard, Clovis colha Gree, could make the difference between success and failure. For his mysterious lover, Merrial, has seduced him into the idea of extrapolating the ship's future from the dark archives of the past.A past in which, centuries before, Myra Godwin faced the end of a different space age - her rockets redundant, her people rebellious, and her borders defenceless against the Sino-Soviet Union. As Myra appealed to the falling empires of the West for help, she found history turning on her own dubious past - and on her present decisions. Decisions which, centuries later, will determine the future of the new space age. Merrial's people, the itinerant computer engineers, know this. And they know that the truth they seek lies within the secret files left by Myra Godwin.Set hundreds of years in the future, THE SKY ROAD is the astonishing story of the dawn of a new space age, from the most exciting British SF author to have emerged in recent years.Books by Ken MacLeod:Fall RevolutionThe Star FractionThe Stone CanalThe Cassini DivisionThe Sky RoadEngines of LightCosmonaut KeepDark LightEngine CityCorporation Wars TrilogyDissidenceInsurgenceEmergenceNovelsThe Human FrontNewton's WakeLearning the WorldThe Execution ChannelThe Restoration GameIntrusionDescent

'He is writing revolutionary science fiction. A nova has appeared in our sky.' - Kim Stanley Robinson'Engaged, ingenious, and wittily partisan, Ken MacLeod is a one-man revolution, SF's Billy Bragg' - ASIMOV'S SFIn a newer world order where the peace process is deadlier than the wars ...Moh Kohn is a security mercenary with a smart gun, reflexes to die for and memories he doesn't want to reach.Jamis Taine is a scientist with a new line in memory drugs, anti-tech terrorists on her case and the STASIS cops on her trail.Jordan Brown is a teenage atheist with a guilty conscience, a wad of illicit cash and an urgent need to get a life.Between them they've started the countdown to the final confrontation, as the cryptic Star Fraction assembles its codes, the Army of the New Republic prepares its offensive and Space Defence lines up its laser weapons for the hour of the Watchmaker ...The debut novel from a major force in SF, the first of his novels to be shortlisted for the Arthur C. Clarke Award.Books by Ken MacLeod:Fall RevolutionThe Star FractionThe Stone CanalThe Cassini DivisionThe Sky RoadEngines of LightCosmonaut KeepDark LightEngine CityCorporation Wars TrilogyDissidenceInsurgenceEmergenceNovelsThe Human FrontNewton's WakeLearning the WorldThe Execution ChannelThe Restoration GameIntrusionDescent

'Stylish, witty, and engaging!' - San Diego Union Tribune'Exciting...Accessible to the average reader as well as the hardcore SF fan. This is a work sure to keep the reader on the edge of her seat.' - Romantic Times BookclubThe Hard Rapture took Earth's best minds away. Now the rest are about to find out where they went ... Centuries ago, space settlers and soldiers fled to the stars from the sentient AI war machines that engulfed Earth. They colonised Eurydice, a planet whose rocks contain traces of its own war machines - some of which still guard a vast, enigmatic artifact on a remote tundra.When an expedition raids this strange artifact, the Eurydiceans discover that they weren't the last survivors of humanity after all. Their leisured lifestyle is about to be disrupted by new arrivals for whom Eurydice is a prize worth fighting over. And the long-dormant war machines are awakening ...Newton's Wake is a stunning stand-alone space opera, charting the struggle for human survival in a universe dominated by post-human intelligence.Books by Ken MacLeod:Fall RevolutionThe Star FractionThe Stone CanalThe Cassini DivisionThe Sky RoadEngines of LightCosmonaut KeepDark LightEngine CityCorporation Wars TrilogyDissidenceInsurgenceEmergenceNovelsThe Human FrontNewton's WakeLearning the WorldThe Execution ChannelThe Restoration GameIntrusionDescent