The Cassini Division (Fall Revolution) (Hardcover)

~ Ken MacLeod (Author) "There are, still, still photographs of the woman who gate-crashed the party on the observation deck of the Casa Azores, one evening in the early..." (more)
Key Phrases: daughter wormhole, wormhole gate, fast folk, New Mars, Cassini Division, Command Committee (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

Ken MacLeod is a science-fiction sensation in his native Britain, widely compared to Vernor Vinge, Bruce Sterling, and Iain Banks, but with a storytelling energy all his own. The Cassini Division, his first novel to appear in America, displays his astonishing power and range.

Ellen May Ngewthu is a young woman with centuries of experience, a soldier and leader of the Cassini Division, the elite defense force of the utopian Solar Union. Here in the twenty-fourth century, the forts of the Division, in orbit around a mysteriously transformed Jupiter, are the front line in humanity's long standoff with the unknowable posthumans--godlike and remote beings descended from the people who transformed themselves with high technology centuries ago.

The posthumans' capacities are unknown . . . but we know they disintegrated Ganymede, we know they punched a wormhole into Jovian space, and we know that the very surface of the solar system's largest planet has been altered by their incomprehensible artifacts. Worst of all, we know that they have been bombarding the solar system with powerful data viruses for generations.

Now Ellen has a plan to rid humanity of this threat once and for all. But she needs to recruit the right people to her cause--and convince them to mistrust the posthumans as much as she does.

Her quest will take her to the mid-Atlantic towers of Solar Union Earth, to the green ruins of London, and, in the farthest reaches of human space, to the long-separated libertarian colony of New Mars. In the process, much will be revealed--about history, about power, and about what it is to be human.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 256 pages
• Publisher: Tor Books; 1st edition (July 16, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312870442
• ISBN-13: 978-0312870447
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.3 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (40 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,235,115 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A cyberpunk space-opera novel of ideas, October 7, 1999

By	David Moles (Seattle, WA USA) - See all my reviews

All the comparisons are accurate. "The Cassini Division" has a little bit of everything -- fast action, snappy dialogue, evocative descriptions, speculation on the nature of consciousness, and enough trippy political-economic speculation to entertain (or annoy) Vernor Vinge and Iain Banks fans. MacLeod's ruthless but amiable characters are as fun and crazy as Bruce Sterling's, but they're deeper thinkers; I'm not sure I buy into their "true knowledge" ideology any more than I buy into Vinge's anarcho-capitalism, but MacLeod makes it at least as plausible -- sure, it's socialism, but as Ellen May Ngwethu points out, it's socialism based on a very pessimistic view of human nature. (This is not your grandmother's Marxism.) But "The Cassini Divison" isn't really about politics, it's about people, technology, and cool stuff -- what hard SF is all about. I'm glad I've just moved to England so I don't have to wait for the rest of his books to be published in the States (which they will be -- count on it).

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Superb political sf., April 15, 1999

By A Customer

The Cassini Division is easily one of the best books I read last year. Ken MacLeod's work represents an all too rare element of science fiction, the thoughtful, left-leaning, political novel set somewhere other than the United States. His work is informed by an impressive understanding of left-wing fringe politics and the political theories of anarchism.

In The Cassini Division an on-line version of the protagonist Jon Wilde has travelled back through the Malley Mile wormhole to Earth with his computer companion, Meg to discover an earth transformed through the consequences of longevity and whose technology has been transformed out of all recognition as a consequence of computer viruses spawned by the "fast folk"-computer nerds who uploaded themselves and now live at an accelerated rate of evolution within the envelope of the planet Jupiter. Jon Wilde and Meg are themselves downloaded into flesh on reaching Earth and spend much of the novel looking for ways to get back through the Malley Mile to the human colony they have left behind in the hope that they can integrate the two cultures of Earth and New Mars. The snag is that the technology to remake the connection lies with the fast folk, whose last major project was to bombard earth with computer viruses and trigger the collapse of computered society. Earth now runs its computations through Babbage engines and avoids the use of radio waves. Orbiting around Jupiter, the last residence of the fast folk, is the Cassini Division, a space force with the self-appointed mission to protect earth.

If the above sounds like the ingredients of a cheap thriller, that is because they are, but Ken MacLeod, as the masterful writer he is, manages to avoid most of the pitfalls and the novel is both exciting and politically thought provoking. In The Cassini Division we get to see an anarcho-socialist society in action complete with conscientious objectors who live in small, capitalist enclaves. The socialism which earth has adopted assumes and in fact relies on the expectation that every citizen will apoint him or herself to the role which in their personal view most assists society at a particular moment: this can involve simply serving refreshments in an airport canteen as one is passing through, or choosing to take part in one of the political forum which attempt to run the planet.

The issue at stake in The Cassini Division is whether or not the representatives of earth will attempt communication with the fast folk of Jupiter in order to find the route through the Malley Mile, or whether the Cassini Division, the self-appointed guardians of earth will go ahead with their secret plot to destroy the fast folk. Much of the novel is taken up by the attempts of most of the protagonists to convince Ellen May Ngwethu of the Cassini Division that she is paranoid and about to commit genocide. Ellen knows she is about to commit genocide, as like the protagonists in Xenocide she believes the human race cannot tolerate any species potentially superior to human beings. McLeod's protagonists truly believe themselves to be morally correct and to be acting in the best interests of their society but his work contains a very simple and powerful moral message, crucial to, but rarely associated with anarchism: you are responsible for your own actions and for their consequences.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Needs "Stone Canal" to be Understood, December 9, 1999

By A Customer

If you never read "Stone Canal", this tightly coupled sequel will make almost no sense to you.