Ken MacLeod's comments.
The title comes from two quotes:
“Work as if you lived in the early days of a better nation.”—Alasdair Gray.
“If these are the early days of a better nation, there must be hope, and a hope of peace is as good as any, and far better than a hollow hoarding greed or the dry lies of an aweless god.”—Graydon Saunders
'Science fiction,' said the robot, 'has become science fact!'
That's the opening line of The Night Sessions. The robot in question is an airliner cabin 'trolley-dolly', described thus:
The trolley locked, the trolley-dolly halted. It had an oval head with two lenticular eyes and a smile-shaped speaker grille, and a torso of more or less feminine proportions, joined at a black flexible concertina waist to an inverted cone resembling a long skirt.
Manpower was not increasingly used with the existence of the robot. Made lazy and rare humankind to be moving precisely will cause heterogenous the illness. Nice to see your blog.
Following up your link, I see that amazon UK has it listed, but amazon US apparently doesn't; at least, their search function can't find it. Is the US edition still to appear? The reviews make it sound really promising.
And I'm an American; instant gratification is my birthright!
Particularly good to see a review in a quality Sunday newspaper -- "The Night Sessions is cerebral and rip-roaring, huge fun and very intelligent." would be a great cover quote!
By the way, you can hear me being interviewed about The Night Sessions on BBC Radio Scotland's Book Cafe here. It's in the last 15 minutes or so (the rest is worth a listen too, I hasten to add). You also get to hear a love song based on the Song of Solomon.
Americans, and us ex-pats who live there, can have our local bookstores order NS through Baker&Taylor distributors (tell your local store -- if they're thick, and they probably aren't) who can import it. It's in stock in their UK warehouse (I know because I checked yesterday when I ordered mine...)
I live in the US, and I use: www.bookdepository.co.uk for all my UK book needs. Free worldwide shipping and a discount off cover price. They managed to get Night Sessions (and Flood) to me three days after I ordered it.
Just finished reading the book. Nice and gripping read, and when I was afraid some implausible showdown was about to happen the perspective got an unexpected twist. Congratulations!
My favourite quotes: “The Israel-Palestine issue could be regarded as solved, at least until the radiation dropped to a level that made the territory worth fighting over again.”
“He took another look around, knowing that what he saw would stay with him, like tinnitus.” Having worked as a paramedic for a dozen years, that’s the best metaphor for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder I’ve come across.
Congratulations on The Night Sessions. Received it just a couple of days ago and couldn't put it down. This is a brilliant novel: sufficiently complex for the genre fans and (thought-)provoking, intelligent, fast paced, superb characterisation, and importantly, a logical and feasible dramatic conclusion.
I found The Night Sessions a much darker and more uncomfortable read than Execution Channel, thanks mainly to the religious plotting and ever-growing fear of history about to repeat itself. I also found it particularly depressing that the history of The Night Sessions timeline can easily be a legacy of our own time. With growing sectarianism around the world, religious nonsense permeating western governments and the "faith wars" already well under way, we can only hope the Second Enlightenment comes early.
I just finished it too and it's a great read - your last couple of books seem to have a tauter, leaner style than before. It's also nice to see a comparatively optimistic view of the future, notwithstanding the (probably) inevitable surveillance society. I'm sure there's a certain amount of wish-fulfillment going on there but I would certainly prefer to live in your near-future than that of Stephen Baxter's Flood which I just read (it's OK).
Great evocation of Edinburgh too. I remember night-climbing into Greyfriars cemetery when I was a young & stupid student. I never vandalised anything mind you, or got caught. Ah... those were the days...
Also ... have you and Charlie Stross been comparing notes? I think both of youse have upped your games for the most recent novels. Always thanking each other in the acknowledgements .... Conspiracy?
Just finished it. It's a good book, and I found myself in much agreement about the conclusion. But I noticed one thing ... Have you stopped smoking? The number of smoke breaks were radically lower than in previous books.
Sounds like one of the Trinny and Suzannah droids from the game show episode of series one of Nu Doctor Who. Anyway, looking forward to reading it.
By Anonymous, at Friday, August 01, 2008 5:07:00 pm