The Star Fraction is an extremely divisive novel. Partly by design and partly by subject matter. Any book that delves so deeply into the grit and grime of political and economic ideologies is going to be uncomfortable for some of its readers. With that as a given, MacLeod goes and shoots himself in the foot by avoiding picking a side in the end, leaving leftists unfulfilled and members of the right just horribly angry.If this review does happen to inspire you to read this, I highly encourage seeking out the American Edition of Fractions, the collected version of the first two novels in the Fall Revolution. MacLeod added a brief but valuable forward which sets the stage for the events of the novel a little more clearly, and provides those of us who didn’t experience the communist and socialist movements, first hand, a few key pieces of insight. It’s not completely necessary, but I wouldn’t have been able to craft this review without going over the forward again.The story is set in a somewhat dystopic England where a series of failed revolutions, both local and abroad, brought the might of the US/UN alliance down on the world. As a method of compromise, the US/UN balkanized the world, allowing political dissidents and idealists to create their own communes and compounds which they could rule as they saw fit within a few constraints, such as development of specified technologies and laws regarding use of standing forces. Moh Kohn, the book’s protagonist, is a mercenary who provides security from a verity of legal terrorist groups that operate out of the communes. The one exception to the US/UN lockdown is the city of North London Town, or Norlonto, which exists as an independent outpost of the Space Faction, who made themselves neutral arbiters of international security in the wake of World War Three.Moh Kohn and Janis Taine find themselves on everyone’s bad side when Janis’ research runs up against the US/UN technology laws and inadvertently triggers the emergence of a Watchmaker sentient AI. As the various active factions take advantage of the chaos to advance their own agendas, Kohn starts to realize that the revolution may not have been all it was cracked up to be.The unsatisfying thing about The Star Fraction is that it ultimately doesn’t pick a side. The protagonists seem to be trending left/communist for most of the book, but well before the ending salvos all but Janis seem to have abandoned their preconceptions and their causes. MacLeod addresses some of the thoughts that got him there:“Unfortunately, there’s no reason why the Economic Calculation Argument and the Materialist Conception of History couldn’t both be true. What if capitalism is unstable, and socialism is impossible? The Star Fraction is haunted by this uncomfortable question.”He is referring to the theories of Ludwig von Mises and Lewis Henry Morgan respectively. Mises held that without a concept of value derived from the construct of property, trade and civilization would prove to be impossible. Morgan drew on Marx’s works and formalized the evolution of a society that couldn’t help but grow beyond the idea of personal property. The Star Fraction is a reaction to the perceived inevitable failure of both schools, from the viewpoint of a socialist, and as such, abandons both the Left and the Right.Philosophy aside, the novel is dense with political references and asides. For someone like myself, who was unfamiliar with the language and thinking of the Cold War era, the book can prove quite difficult to really get a grip on. The main plot tends to take a backstage to the political postulating. MacLeod also makes a MacGuffin out of a major plot point, derailing the final act and enhancing that sense of dissatisfaction. In MacLeod’s defense, The Star Fraction was his first novel and his reputation as a top-notch author would seem to redeem this slightly false start.I can’t wholeheartedly recommend this book to the masses. It is strong enough to stand on its own as a piece of fiction, but without its follow-up novels in the Fall Revolution, I can’t imagine The Star Fraction occupying a place on anyone’s to-read list. That said, anyone with an open mind and a desire to read and learn might enjoy this quirky little novel.
In the near future, the UK is divided into microstates, each with their own laws, and many independent groups vying for the future of humanity. Some are struggling to bring their vision of a communist revolution to fruition, while others fear that unregulated computer science may be bringing about the creation of an uncontrollable artificial intelligence that could threaten the world. There's also a possibility that it's already happened. What can I say about this book? I really, really, wanted to like it. There were some great ideas, and, at times, I was engaged with the characters. But the world they inhabited didn't entirely ring true to me, and even when it did... I just didn't care about it. I came for a science fiction novel, and, while political science might be a thing, if a book's going to be about conflicting political ideologies, it had better be a damned good book. This one isn't good enough to justify that. It feels more like I showed up to a family event that was supposed to be fun, only to have to sit next to a relative who won't shut up about their political opinions. Even when I actually agree with a point, I don't think "Yes, yes, you're so right!" I just tune out and concentrate on nodding. "Uh-huh, uh-huh, can you pass the pie?"No, that's not quite it, because that doesn't capture the feeling of missed opportunity for wonder. It's a little more like having a few hours of access to a wonderful TV that tunes into all the stations of a parallel universe... and the person with the remote is obsessed with a game of Bungee-Foot-Hockey. Between periods and during the timeouts, he'll flip quickly through the other channels and give me tantalizing glimpses of stuff I actually want to see, but before long he turns back to a game I care nothing about. There may be some exciting plays, and there may be a little fun piecing together the rules to the game... in smaller doses, I might even find such exploration fascinating, but, at the end of the day, I'm not that interested in spending a few hours watching sports on MY world, so doing it on this miraculous television isn't that much better when there's so much more you can do. I've tried a few Ken Macleod books now, and, in his other major series (the one that starts with Cosmonaut Keep), I noticed a similar problem. It wasn't his unconventional politics there (though that played a role, he found a more comfortable balance between that and a good story), but I keep getting the feeling that he's focusing on a rather boring (to me) area that's RIGHT NEXT to a really cool SF plot that captures my imagination, and the feeling I was left with was more disappointment than anything else. Maybe we're just incompatible.In any event, in this book, I often found myself glazing over and just skimming rather than reading... I wasn't deliberately trying to do this, I just tuned out. The characters are okay, but they seem to jump to new emotional states rather than go through a character arc. I've heard that later in the series we get to some plotlines that, in another author, would get me to buy the book right away, but... I'm not sure if I want to take the effort to get there with Macleod.
Do You like book The Star Fraction (2002)?
An interesting read. When it starts off, it just throws you right into a complex world and political situation, trusting that you can figure it out all by yourself. And you can, with a little bit of work, and it's worth the work.While at times I feel this was *super* heavy on the socialism theoreticizing and dialog, it is relevant to the story, and does help you understand the reasons behind "current" events.The plot is multi-threaded and complex, and the characters are similarly complex and interesting. Janis was, I felt, the weakest character. Her transition from (view spoiler)[lab scientist to gun toting revolutionary (hide spoiler)]
—Jon
I might be overdosing on Ken Macleod by this point in the summer but it's such a good feeling. And with The Star Fraction, you arrive at his first novel and the start of his Fall Revolution sequence. Set in a balkanized Britain of the mid-21st century, The Star Fraction tells the story of security mercenary Moh Kohn who along with scientist Janis Taine is fleeing the US/UN's technology cops. Jordan Brown is a teenage atheist in the Christian fundamentalist of Beulah City that wants out.Macleod's 21st Century is one where the US/UN have control of space and are the arbiters of the entire planet. Britain is a broken country after the end of the Third World War, when the United Republic was overthrown, the Kingdom restored and a patchwork of free states set up across Northern London. Janis Taine is a scientist experimenting with memory enhancing drugs that accidentally releases the Artificial Intelligence that some fear and some are waiting for, The Watchmaker. And The Watchmaker has plans-- plans that will change the lives of Moh, Janis and Jordan as the betrayed revolution of the past comes back to haunt the present day.(And for the rest, kids, you'll have to read the book to find out.)Macleod makes a fine debut with this novel. He includes in a short introduction explaining his novels and sneaks in a money quote that underlines his entire body of work with the Fall Revolution sequence: "What is capitalism is unstable and socialism impossible?" I love this notion! I love the way Macleod explores it throughout the novel but there's a certain cynical truth to the idea when applied to the real world. Ideologies war with each other everyday, people die for ideologies and at no point do we ever wonder, what if we just said 'no more new world orders.' The Star Fraction explores these ideas and more. The Balkanized Britain of Macleod's world is believable and exciting: a United Republic overthrown and driven back to the Highlands of Scotland to carry on the struggle against a restored Kingdom or 'Hanoverian Regime.' (I love that he refers to it that way- it dates back to the overthrow of the Stuart Monarchs in the Glorious Revolution of 1688 followed by the Hanoverian succession of 1701.) Macleod refers to the Republic as a 'radial Democratic regime' which sounds interesting and a lot nicer than usual ideas about Republicanism most of which involved aping the American model. I would have liked to know more about the America of this world. The critical juncture of the novel sees America going on strike from coast to coast which is a nice idea to think about but one that I couldn't conceive of in today's America. The usual concepts of the Singularity and futurism are in fine form here- and only goes to reinforce the plaudits that Macleod has duly earned. This guy is writing revolutionary, thought-provoking science fiction and if science fiction isn't your thing and books that make you think are, then you've come to the right place.Overall: I did this all backwards but reading this series last to first saved the best for last. This is a must-read for any true devotee of science fiction and if anyone's looking for a thought-provoking dystopian read this is the best place to start.
—Tom Nixon
I wanted to like this book more than I actually did. I seek out genuinely "left" sci-fi and fantasy (Iain Banks, Octavia Butler, Ursula LeGuin, etc.) and this one was on China Mieville's list of "Fifty Fantasy & Sci-Fi Works that Socialists Should Read". But Star Fraction is much more political than believable. It reads in parts like the wet dream of a left-newspaper seller, with obscure Socialist splinter groups (the "Last International") occupying key positions in world history. There's little or no explanation of how these tendencies, currently so marginal on the world stage, become hegemonic. It's just taken as a given.Some of the politics are frankly mystifying from a contemporary perspective: as an industrial Marxist of the pre-climate change era, Macleod depicts enviromentalists as anti-progress "barbarians", against whom the working class allies with the capitalists. He actually refers to enviros as "green slime"! Ok, some leeway given for being dated, but Star Fraction was only written in 1996. The final insult: the book is riddled with Marxist puns and in-jokes which, even when you get them, aren't particularly funny.It's not all bad. In parts Star Fraction is an enjoyable cyberpunk-meets-Billy-Bragg adventure. Where Macleod's vision of history is darker and less tinted by red-colored glasses, it's also more believable: e.g., his speculations on how nation-states fall apart and get partly reconstituted, or how ideologically-oriented, quasi-autonomous enclaves, like the Christian fundamentalist community and the gay ghetto (patrolled by uniformed "Rough Traders") emerge from the wreckage of the State. And later in the book, when the exposition tails off and the storytelling picks up, you find yourself actually enjoying it as a narrative.I may give Macleod another chance, and try some of his later works. But if you want a much better written, more believable, more humane novel about socialism in the near future, read China Mountain Zhang.
—Amaha
