Customer Reviews

The Stone Canal

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(11)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

The Stone Canal is Ken MacLeod's second novel. It is in the same future history as his first novel (The Star Fraction) and his third novel (The Cassini Division) but it can be read without difficulty on its own, and I found it to stand alone just fine. At a first brush, MacLeod reads like "Iain Banks meets Bruce Sterling". The novel's opening, with a somewhat smart-alecky "human- equivalent" robot briefing a confused newly-awakened man, and its structure, alternating chapters on different timelines, definitely echo some of Banks' work. (Note that Banks acknowledges MacLeod's help with Use of Weapons, in terms which suggest to me that he may have helped with that book's unusual structure.) The deeply political concerns, and central character's habit of talking at length about politics, as well as some of the technology and the attitude towards technology, reminded me of Sterling (and also, in a different way, Kim Stanley Robinson. Which is to say, at times this book is a bit talky.) But in the final analysis, The Stone Canal is a very original, very impressive novel. It's true SF, chock full of sense of wonder concepts, interested in new technology, in future politics, and in how technology affects politics (and human life in general).

The novel opens with a man awakening in the desert of a Mars-like planet, accompanied by a "human-equivalent" robot. Soon we meet another robot, Dee Model, this one a "gynoid" (female android), who has escaped her owner (for whom she was a sex toy), and is proclaiming her autonomy. The man is soon revealed to be Jonathan Wilde, a legendary figure of political resistance among the inhabitants of New Mars, and the gynoid is based on a clone of Wilde's long-dead wife. The two encounter each other, and both end up in the hands of the "abolitionist" movement, which favors freeing intelligent robots from human slavery. Soon they are jointly involved in lawsuits brought by Dee Model's owner, who is Wilde's friend, long time rival, and apparent murderer, Dave Reid.

This seems like plenty of background for a novel in itself, especially given the interesting environment of New Mars, with its single City, 5/6 of which is given over to "wild machines", and with the pervasive semi-VR technology, the grounds for speculation about the nature of human vs. machine intelligence, and the semi-anarchist political structure of the colony. But in parallel tracks we follow the early life, on roughly present-day Earth, of Jonathan Wilde, Dave Reid, and the two important women in their lives: Myra and Annette. Reid is a diehard Trotskyite socialist, and Wilde an anarchist and "space nut"; and the tension between their political views, as well as the tension resulting from their relationships with the two women, is followed over the decades. Both men become very powerful in the decaying near-future environment; as both in their ways push to open up space travel for people in general.

The two timelines inevitably converge, and the real concern of the novel comes clear: understanding of the nature of the "fast folk" (originally human simulations run on very fast computer hardware), and understanding the link between New Mars and Earth. MacLeod speculates fascinatingly on nanotechnology, virtual reality, and astrophysics. Everything is well-tied together in the end, although in a slightly disappointing manner. (The first and last lines of The Stone Canal, by the way, are both stunners, if a bit contrived also (as overtly "stunning" lines often are).) The characters of Wilde and Reid are very well presented, though the female characters are a bit sketchier. The novel's weaknesses are an occasional tendency to talkiness, the rather familiar setup of the relationship of the main characters, along with their realization of enormous political power, and the slight flatness of the ending. But all in all this is an excellent pure SF novel, and one which bodes well for a career to watch.

Imagine you wake up perfectly healthy, but naked in a strange place with your most recent memory being shot and killed in a snowstorm.

This is the predicament of Jonathan Wilde, who discovers not only that he is a resuscitation of himself on a strange planet in a distant future, but a few other things as well:

* A robotic copy of his wife has been existing as a sex slave for a man he once thought a friend;
* This man is also the one who killed him;
* Someone with his name has been building quite a legend around the world he has woken up in;
* The machine that apparently brought him to life might just be yet another copy of himself;

MacLeod is a very talented storyteller: not only is this mystery compelling, but he approaches the central puzzle not only from this distant future but also from the past. Two timelines interweave as we see the fascinating and complicated relationship between Wilde and a college buddy at once more involved in actual radical politics and also more worldly. The uncomfortable friendship between these two very believable characters takes on different dimensions over time as they compete for the love of one woman, and as their respective politics move in different directions.

The comparison with Kim Stanley Robinson is unavoidable, for both good and ill. Prior to discovering Ken MacLeod, the only science fiction writer since Ursula LeGuin who really tackled social, political, and economic issues that I have stumbled across has been Robinson. But where Robinson strongly imagines a realistic future evolution of political ideas and the clash between corporation, state, and individual, MacLeod is using science fiction to explore philosophical ideas of socialism, marxism, corporate responsibility, and anarchy. In this sense, The Stone Canal is more like The Dispossessed than the Mars series.

In writing style, as others have commented, MacLeod seems to draw more on the work of Robinson, and not always for the best. Perhaps the Mars series' greatest failing was the time spent charting out history, and similarly some of the later portions of The Stone Canal read more like blocking or choreography than like an integral portion of the story itself.

That said, the evolution of the characters is beautiful and brilliant and you won't want to put the book down.

It is delightful to encounter these flavors of politics in science fiction -- the genre is so heavily weighted with military buffs, rabid anti-government individualists, and social darwinists of every unpalatable variety. I found myself reinvigorated by finding the memes of my youth returning in a technology friendly medium.

Unfortunately, "The Stone Canal" was released after the "Cassini Division" in the States. I say unfortunately because this sets a stage that will make the beginning of "The Cassini Division" much easier to understand. So make sure to read "The Stone Canal" first.

That said, by no means skip this book if you haven't read it already. It is in many ways more entertaining than "The Cassini Division", although I found it packed less of a punch intellectualy. Even so, this is a smart book, written by a very smart author. It looks at society in a way that no other SF I am aware of does. As I said about its companion "The Stone Canal" is more of a political/moral tale hidden in SF clothing. It is a truly original, outstanding work that stands both on its own merits, and as a prequel to "The Cassini Division".

This is a recommendation for all of the author's books. He has a very different twist to Sci-Fi than most other authors I've read. Much more personal, and grounded in a contemporary Scottish reality that makes his books seem a believable extension of our own times. All the while having elements like Artificial Intelligence, very exotic politics, nano-technology and competing providers (sellers) of nuclear deterrence to the micro-nations that make up the future Earth.

I would, however, strongly recommend reading his books in sequence. While The Stone Canal is less dependent on The Star Fraction than the later books are dependent on these two, so that it can be read independently, I would still recommend reading the Star Fraction first.

This is the second MacLeod book I've read, and once again he impresses me with his breadth of concepts, original ideas, depth of political insight, and rigorous plotting. Told as a dual time-line story structure, one based on the immediate continuation of our current world (with a large overlap with the time-frame of The Star Fraction), and the other as a (real time) far future colonization of a new planet, united in the person of the protagonist, Johnathan Wilde, the two story lines slowly merge into one coherent whole that provides a good explication of his entire future universe. And his universe is filled with mind-boggling societies and technologies, from self-aware robots working towards some rights in a human society, to using the resources of Jupiter to build a worm-hole whose other end is literally at the end of time and the universe, to computer entities (the 'fast folk') originally modeled on humans whose thought processes become so fast that waiting for things to happen in the physical universe becomes excruciating ennui, to a society where murder is punished by fines for the 'lost time' of the victim until he can be re-incorporated in a new body-clone.

But although this book has all these great ideas, I found I didn't like this one as much as the Star Fraction. I think one of the major reasons for this was his depiction of his far-future colony. While several great details were introduced about this society, like the 'abolitionist' movement, an anarchistic and computer aided court/legal system, a mix of robot and human territorial infrastructures, what was missing was the fact that Wilde does not actually get to 'live' in this society. Instead he spends all his time running away from or fighting his old rival Reid from Earth, and has no chance to do ordinary things on an ordinary day. This made the society too much of an intellectual exercise, and not a vibrant, breathing thing the reader could experience. This same 'distancing' effect occurs with the earlier Wilde's experiences in interacting with the 'fast folk', and the whole rivalry between Wilde and Reid seems to be at the philosophical discussion level, with the effect of their battle on the 'common folk' seen only remotely. The net effect was to leave me somewhat emotionally disconnected from this book, even though Wilde, Reid, and several other secondary characters are well drawn and potentially emotionally engaging.

In short, a book of wonderful ideas that will certainly make you scratch your head and excite your sense of wonder, but not one that will grab your heart or make you long for being born into MacLeod's world instead of your poor, mundane earthly one.

I originally found out about Ken MacLeod through some interviews with Iain Banks, one of my favorite authors of both sci-fi and non-genre fiction. And my first foray into his universe was The Stone Canal.

While The Stone Canal is a relatively short book, it's absolutely packed with ideas and is not a light read by any stretch of the imagination. The plot follows two distinct time-lines giving readers a history of the events that happen in the more distant future portion of the book. While the basis of all conflict in the novel (and the others in this `universe') is the practice of communism, the arguments and diatribes by the characters and some of the events themselves seem tedious. It is idea-driven science fiction but the over-explanation of these ideas slows the action of the book down making it tedious in places.

I have the rest of the books in this series and I'm eager to read them. However I do hope that MacLeod allows the overriding political concepts behind his novels to remain in the background and let his other very creative and brilliant ideas shine in future works. So I give The Stone Canal five stars for creativity, some great characters and wonderful world-building but three for the uneven pacing of the book. Hence the four stars.

Almost to the end, this novel reminded me of Robert Heinlein's writings (the best of them, I mean). Then it crashed in the last few pages, so I am a little dissatisfied with it.

The plot is heavy with Comunist, Socialist and Anarchist messages, presented by either cynics or idealists. As I grew up in a Comunist dictatorship, none of them impressed me, nor ever would... so I had to put them aside and try to enjoy the action. And I did, most of the time.

Jon Wilde is ressurected by a sentient machine he'll soon learn is an earlier imbodiment of himself. Then he discovers his late wife's body walking around with a robot intelligence inside, a world where his name is revered, an old friend and rival hunting him and a plot for the destruction of all sentient machines... for starters.

The interesting part was a bit about "fast people", minds so far evolved that they live an accelerated existence in nanite bodies... but they never had a major part to play, so the thrill went away pretty fast.

An almost Heinlein-type of story. Not Heilein-like enough, though. Too bad...

This is a great book with a complex and intriguing history created by the author. Definitely read this before you read the Casinni Division things will make much more sense.

This was really a very interesting book to read! Lots of interesting ideas, mixing hard sci-fi with political aspects in a way that is very rare to find around. It may get sometimes I little boring with all the discussions about politics and the life of an anarchist, but there are some parts that you really can't leave the book aside without feeling guilty for not knowing what is coming next.

The only reason I gave it 4 stars instead of 5 is that sometimes the abilities of the characters seem a little too "supernatural". Sometimes when you get a book where characters are portrayed as human being and then suddenly they are just too good to be a human being, it does feel strange. Some people like it, I just didn't feel confortable with it. Personal opinion.

Pros: Original, quality writing, with an eye for detail and a driving story arc

Cons: None whatsoever

"The Stone Canal" takes place in the same future universe Mr.MacLeod's previous novels have described: a post-Singularity Solar System infested with uploaded 'Fast Folk,' anarcho-capitalist escaped slaves in their extra-solar breakaway republic, Marxist mercenaries and orbital armies protecting the nano-technological 'climax community' utopia that Earth has become . . .

I won't give away the plot. As with all his books to date, the story line is delightfully unpredictable (even though the broader details have become as familiar to his readers as the inevitability of a Greek tragedy). As with his other titles, 'The Stone Canal' is an almost punnish reference to one of Mr. McLeod;s scientific and/or political in-jokes; in this case, a reference to the quasi-organic structure of ShipCity on New Mars, where the novel takes place.

Reviewers have noted that Mr. McLeod is well read, but they haven't gone far enough. There are so many off-handed references to so many sources in his work, that you would have to go back to Joyce or Robert Anton Wilson to find another writer that is as densely layered and detailed, or so rewards the reader's devoted attention..

This is cyberpunk, or even post-cyberpunk. It is unique, original, and literary in the quality of writing. The story is fast-paced enough to satisfy the need for a quick, easy read. Yet, if you let it, you could easily be sucked in to this kaleidoscope of ideas for many pleasant hours.

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Pearce Hansen is the author of STREET RAISED, now available for the Kindle at Amazon