First of all, I apologize in advance for all the quotations I use in trying to review this book, I just want to give MacLeod credit instead of paraphrasing him. Yes I know its kindof lazy, but I"m in a lazy mood, and I want to get this review out, because its a little gem of a book that I dont think alot of sci fi readers are aware of."Humanity is indeed evil, from any non-human point of view. I hug my human wickedness in a shiver of delight."Ellen May Ngwethu is a genocidal bitch...and I absolutely loved her! There I said it. What?There's just something awesome about strong female characters in science fiction that really attracts me- women like Brawne Lamia, Paula Myo, Justine Burnelli, Perostek Balveda, Ana Khouri, Ilia Volyova, Thalia Ng, and Jessica Atreides. Ellen Ngwethu is one another. Love or hate her, she's a bad ass. Just look at her Spartan philosophy:"Life is a process of breaking down and using other matter, and if need be, other life. Therefore, life is aggression, and successful life is successful aggression. Life is the scum of matter, and people are the scum of life. There is nothing but matter, forces, space and time, which together make power. Nothing matters, except what matters to you. Might makes right, and power makes freedom. You are free to do whatever is in your power, and if you want to survive and thrive you had better do whatever is in your interests. If your interests conflict with those of others, let the others pit their power aganst yours, everyone for themselves. If you interests coincide with those of others, let them work together with you, and against the rest. We are what we eat, and we eat everything."The entire story is told from Ellen's point of view. She is a vicious soldier and leader of the Division that is bent on destroying the Outwarders (post humans). There are two other characters that seem to serve the functions of balance and counterpoints to Ellen's obstinate positionThere's a challenge MacLeod undertook in having the reader experience the story through the point of view of someone who basically wants to erase every last post human in existence. You aren't really sure whether you should like her or not, but you tend to sympathize a bit more with her because you are doing the literary equivelant of walking step by step in her shoes and seeing through her eyes. The Cassini Division is an elite military force in the 24th century, on a front-line station around Jupiter, with the uneviable task of protecting the Solar Union from post-humans, who appear to be dangerously close to becoming gods- a faction of humans that has decided that would rather transform themselves with advanced technology over generations, than stay in the flesh as the rest of the inner Solar System has. After all, the Outwarders would argue, who is in a better state to explore and colonize space, machines or bags of seawater? This is a great book of great ideas. I found myself thinking back on my comparative genocide course in college. I remember that one of the first steps that a society takes in justifying genocide is dehumanizing their target. In this book there is a great debate whether post humans are alive and deserving a place in this universe along with "traditional humans" or whether or not they are just sentient viruses that deserve no rights or consideration. It is widely acknolwedged that in just a few years, post humanity will surpass us, and view the rest of humanity in this way:"Of course we'll allow you to live...On wildlife reserves, like the other interesting animals. Some of us may prefer to think of you as pets. Sentimental post-humans will no doubt campaign for "human rights" - it'll be one of those fluffy causes, like old-growth forests and spotted owls."It was kindof scary reading this because I felt I may have sided with Ellen and just eradicated those monsters. It's quite chilling though, if you extrapolate this following statement and picture yourself as a German citizen in the 1930s, or a Turk in the early 20th Century, or at Angor Wat in the 70s, or a Hutu in Rwanda in the 90s: "I think about being evil. To them, I realize, we are indeed bad and harmful, but- and the thought catches my breath - we are not bad and harmful to ourselves. and that is all that matters, to us. So as long as we are actually achieving our own good, it doesn't matter how evil we are to our enemies. Our Federation will be, to them, the evil empire, the domain of dark lords; and I will be a dark lady in it."Scary aint it? Its why I read this stuff.
To me, the best science fiction is science fiction that makes you think. Not many authors can do that and it's not always what you're in the mood for all the time. Sometimes, you just want an alien-space opera-shoot me up or a fantasy-quest-swordplay type of a read and other times you want to be challenged and you want to find yourself really thinking about what you're reading. Never mind science fiction: not many authors can do that successfully full stop. Ayn Rand was good at idea but to be frank, her ideas were, well, how do I put this? A little nuts. Well written, no doubt, but nuts.In the world of science fiction, Heinlen, Kim Stanley Robinson and one of my true favorites, Ken Macleod stand out for writing vivid thought provoking fiction that's driven by ideas. Noted sci-fi master Vernor Vinge called 'The Cassini Division' 'a brilliant novel of ideas' and I can say with absolutely certainty that this book more than lives up to that.The final book in Macleod's Fall Revolution series, The Cassini Division is set far in the future where an utopian communist Solar Union rules Earth and the Cassini Division is the self-defense force holding the line against the mysterious post-humans that vanished centuries before. Ellen May Ngewthu has centuries of experience being a leader and soldier in the front line of the Division's fight against the post-humans and she's stumbled across a plan that could rid humanity of the post-human threat once and for all- she just has to convince the right people to distrust the post-humans as much as she does.Where to begin with this book? I mean wow... Macleod plays around with ideas that are going to be incredibly important over the next century as technology builds towards an expected 'Singularity' moment sometime in the next century. If, as predicted we will have the ability to upload ourselves into a computer or to extend our life beyond our current imagination, what then will it mean to be human? When it someone sentient and when is someone a machine? This is a theme that runs through 'The Cassini Division' and it's maddeningly thought provoking one because at this point... nobody really knows!The politics are also interesting- especially with Earth being ruled by the an Utopian Communist state with only a smattering of 'non-cooperators' confined to the ruins of London or on the outskirts of society. By and large, phrases like 'go employ yourself' are considered by the characters to be almost pejorative terms and they literally can't comprehend a return to the capitalist system some of them having been around in the prior two centuries that witnessed its fall. The counterpart to the Utopian Communists of Earth is the extra-solar colony of New Mars. A bit of mystery throughout the book, as they're on the other side of the wormhole that the post-humans vanished through some centures before, when the main characters finally do make it through to New Mars, they find it's at the opposite end of the political spectrum from their Utopian Communist society- it's a free-wheeling anarcho-capitalist society, a nice juxtaposition of the supposed idealized extreme at the other end of the spectrum away from the utopian communism they're used too. How does it all end? Well, it'd be a spoiler normally but the back of the book makes no secret of the fact that our protagonists kicked some serious post-human ass. Whether the apparently (according to McLeod) never-ending struggle between utopian communism and utopian capitalism ever gets resolved is another question entirely. And as for whose side you find yourself sympathizing with more- in the end, you might surprise yourself...Overall: It's Ken Mcleod. Serious sci-fi nuts should already know who he is- but in general, if you're looking for thought-provoking writing bristling with ideas about our future, this guy is a must read. And entertaining to boot. I devoured this book in about three days while in Florida.
Do You like book The Cassini Division (2000)?
I loved this book. It made me so glad I stuck with the Fall Revolution series to the end. The series actually hooked me with MacLeod's last line of his preface to the first book, The Star Fraction, when he says that the theme of the series is that, in contrast to so many other pessimistic novels about the future, that humanity does have a future and in the long run, it's even a good one. In this book, we get the pay-off.It's the 24th Century and the human race has expanded to 30 billion people across the solar system and evolved a stateless communism in the form of the Solar Union. For MacLeod, it took 300 years and three books to get there, but I have to say it was worth it. As an aside concerning the back story, I have to say that the idea of a "Green Death" and a sort of Dark Ages brought on by irrational, anti-technology green mobs was a nice touch. ;) As usual MacLeod throws in plenty of easter eggs for his lefty readers, plenty of details about how the Solar Union works, naming his chapter titles after classic socialist and utopian fiction ("The Iron Heel," "Looking Backward," etc.), jabs at greens, off hand references to obscure ideological debates and Marxist philosophy, etc. I've heard this sort of element in his writing referred to as "commie porn," and as a "commie" I must say that I get a kick out of it. What does that say about me? Are a few references to Lenin and a battle against capitalists in space all it takes to entertain me? Maybe. I also like the way the book ends, not to give anything away, but separated from the Solar Union by thousands of light years and thousands of years in the future... watching a group of capitalists on a talk show, our protagonist thinks to herself: "Just you wait! Our day will come, again." Yeah, I think I am just that easy to entertain.
—Josh
Finally finished! I thought that this was better than the two books that preceded it, but still just not for me. Something about the way that MacLeod has written these (not sure if it's symptomatic of all his writing, or just this series), just does not allow me to connect with the characters. This makes for a very tedious read for me. I will say, it's definitely worth having read the first two books if you really want to understand this one, though. There are a lot recurring characters that it's useful to know.
—Tani
A pretty good and modern take on the space opera format. Futures hang in the balance as various human factions try and to determine how to respond to a perceived threat from post-humans. Both the characters and the politics were engaging enough.For me, however, what I wish the story had been about was the post-humans. It would have been far harder to write since the author would have to create the nature of existence for the post-humans and find the ways in which that resulted in the intersections with the various human factions. It could make a sequel of great power.....
—Jon
