Posted 10:26 am by Ken

The Makar Stooshie

The best small country in the world is ringing with the jangle of high horses being saddled up. Liz Lochhead, who succeeded the late Edwin Morgan to the office of Makar -- something like Poet Laureate of Scotland, though not as far as I know required to pen ceremonial verse for the openings of swimming pools and supermarkets -- has put the seal on her long-standing and well-known Scottish nationalism by joining the Scottish National Party in a flash-bulb of publicity.

Cue much contrived chin-stroking, lip-pursing and finger-wagging. The opening punt that someone paid out of the public purse should not be party political was lost in a breeze of derision. The carping then turned to the claim that our national poet should represent the whole nation, and that by planting her colours so publicly on one side of an almost evenly divided land, Liz Lochhead was turning her back on over half the country, which must now reconcile itself to being unrepresented in rhyme. Finally and most portentuously, we're told that by joining the party currently in government, the Makar can no longer speak truth to power. We're pointed to the SNP's rules, which lay down that party members may not disavow the party's aims, in whole or in part, and invited to contemplate the ethical cleft stick in which the Makar must henceforth writhe. Suppose she were to disagree with some legislative measure from Holyrood! One sees the poet's fingers tremble above the keyboard, as her eyes dart guiltily between her subversive lines on the screen and her signature on the party card.

What sanctimonious drivel!

Leave aside that most people in Scotland are barely aware of the post of Makar, and even more haven't read a line of Liz Lochhead's writing since they left school, if at all. Entertain only long enough for a guffaw the notion of the Scottish people as a huddle of intellectuals under a censorship so oppressive that they must snatch what comfort they can from dissident hints in public verse.

No, there really is a serious point at issue here. It would be hard to name a poet of any distinction in Scotland, past or present, who doesn't publicly -- however quietly -- avow a political, philosophical or religious view that puts them in a minority on some divisive topic. Poets are seldom turned to for judicious balance in matters of opinion. That is very much not their calling. Scottish nationalism and Scottish poetry have a lot of previous, and plenty of present. And not just the cause in general, but the party. Hugh Macdiarmid helped to found the SNP. Edwin Morgan bequeathed it a fortune. That the party is now in government changes nothing. To raise the abstract possibility of a conflict of conscience over policy is to insult the integrity of the Makar. If poets are free to take out party cards, they are also free to tear them up.

Not that Liz Lochhead should. The Makar is not a civil servant, nor a tribune of the people, nor a national shoulder to cry on. Political neutrality is no part of the job description. If someone in the post of Makar is not free while holding that post to join a party like any other citizen, he or she is not free to show a serious and sincere commitment to their beliefs. Those of us who disagree with the present Makar's political commitments have a special responsibility to defend her right to them.

Posted 2:45 pm by Ken

Graham Joyce

Today there is a memorial meeting for Graham Joyce. For various reasons and much to my regret I'm unable to attend but I would like to mark the occasion in some way, however inadequately. I only met Graham a few times, mostly at SF conventions, but from the moment Iain Banks or John Jarrold introduced us he treated me as if we were old friends. Every quality of his character he had in exactly the right proportion: funny without being flippant, serious without being dour, manly without being macho, confident without being arrogant. He was bright and sharp and uproarious and surprising. Everyone who met him will have anecdotes.

There was the time he sat in the bar with John Jarrold, and out of nowhere the two of them launched into a phenomenal flyting as Shakespearean villains. The vilest insults poured forth for minute after minute, in thieves' cant and Elizabethan profanity and perfect iambic pentameter. I looked on, slack-jawed. How did they do that? Had they memorised it?

No, it's all spontaneous, Graham told me. But how?

'It's just a knack.'

Read his books. They'll do you good.

Posted 1:16 pm by Ken

Two days in September

The best that can be said about the No campaign is that it worked. Its relentless focus-group-tested negative campaigning reached undecided voters while the Yes campaign -- for all its positivity and energy -- spent too much time talking to its own supporters, as a leading strategist of that campaign has acknowledged.

But by the last weekend before the referendum it wasn't at all obvious which side would win. It had come down to the wire. Any criticisms I might have of my own side were irrelevant. You fight with the army you have. I'd argued, debated, spoken, blogged, tweeted, re-tweeted. It didn't feel like I'd done enough.

So on Wednesday 17th I joined a Better Together get-out-the-vote team in Corstorphine. I used my bus pass and arrived at the street corner in Murrayfield before anyone else. The rest of the team turned up in ones and twos to make a dozen. Most looked like they'd qualify for a bus pass. The two Better Together organisers looked like they'd have to show proof of age to buy a drink. A brisk confident woman, older than them and much younger than me, seemed to know what to do. She drove off with three of us, the board (a ring-binder of contact names and addresses from earlier canvassing) and stacks of reminder cards. She parked in a back street, scribbled names and numbers on slips of paper, gave us her mobile number, pointed to streets on the A to Z and sent us off. It's been so long since I'd done anything like this that I'd forgotten how get-out-the-vote works. I phoned to check if I really was meant to just knock on two doors in a long street. Yes I was. Knock, nobody in, leave a card, run to the next house on the list, run back to the person with the board. Repeat, over and over. I'll say this for get-out-the-vote: it's healthy exercise in the fresh air. The area is very middle class. I was gloomy at first, then warmed by smiles from elderly people and firm statements that they didn't need a lift to the polls. On our way back to the meeting point I asked our impressively competent team leader if she'd ever done election campaigning. No, she said - she'd first volunteered two weekends earlier.

People like her, galvanised by the one poll that showed a Yes lead. People with bus passes. Striplings with clipboards. That was the ground operation the day before the vote.

Carol and I went to vote at lunchtime on Thursday. Then I caught the bus in to the Edinburgh Central office of the Labour Party, on the ground floor of a tenement building in Buccleuch St. The small rooms were crowded with people coming and going, some with rosettes for polling station duty (a rough gig in some places), most in teams of three or four with boards and leaflets and reminder cards. I recognised some local Labour councillors and activists but most there were young volunteers, a lot of them Labour students up from England.

My first team was me and two Scottish guys. One didn't know the area but he knew how to run a board so he took charge and I led the way to our patch, which was Cannongate, the bottom half of the Royal Mile. (It looks like it's all shops and offices but there are flats and also lots of wee alleys that access apartment blocks behind the street.) We headed there through crowds along Clerk St and South Bridge, then turned into the Royal Mile. It was a day of low cloud and drizzle. As I looked at the High Street's hazy towers I remembered the phrase about Edinburgh from Iain Banks's The Bridge: 'ghost capital'.

The Mile was awash with Yes badges, placards, and saltires. A joyous rally had begun outside the Scottish Parliament and people were coming and going to the pavement cafes and bars. It was like Yes had already won and were celebrating. Most people whose doors we knocked or rang at were out. We returned with slim pickings indeed, though one or two people had asked us for badges or stickers (which we didn't have). A van went past covered with the latest Yes posters printed in mimickry of Labour's signature red-and-yellow: End Tory Rule Forever. As we neared the office a guy walking unsteadily waved to us across the street:

'Bye-bye! Tomorrow you'll be gone! Into oblivion!'

The office was still a slow churn. Two young guys in the main room sat at desks with computers and stacks of returned boards. Norma Hart was sitting in the side room where the sandwiches were, dressed even smarter than usual and with a rosette on her lapel. She gave me a warm welcome and (over my protestations) made me an instant coffee. As I sipped it and ate a triangle of sandwich I listened to a young Labour student from Yorkshire, who looked shell-shocked. 'We knew it was bad from the polls,' he said. 'But we never imagined this. It's like Yes Yes Yes everywhere.'

'I assure you it's not as bad as it looks,' I said. 'You notice all the Yes badges but most people aren't wearing badges and most of these will be No. Every window without a poster is a likely No vote.'

A councillor sitting on the sofa beside me said: 'It's like Jim Murphy said, "windaes don't vote". And even some houses and flats with Yes posters have No voters in them.'

My next team was one of the guys from before, a young local Labour woman, and a Labour party regional organiser. We piled into her car, stuck a Labour flag on the window (after figuring out how the clip worked) and set off through rush-hour traffic to Craigentinny. The streets we had to cover were mostly grey blocks of flats. As we stickered up and she dealt out packs of the final-evening reminder cards the organiser said: 'Solid Labour area. We've had good returns here.'

And so it proved. We soon ran into a group of five smiling mums not even on our list who'd all gone together to vote No. As we went around I noticed and pointed out that there were hardly any Yes posters. And this was exactly the sort of working-class area Yes had targetted. The only sign we saw of the Yes campaign was a white van covered with placards and blasting out folk-songs as it cruised the streets. The organiser worked the board and two of us ran up stairs and the young Labour woman (who hadn't been well and still wasn't) did the ground floors. Nearly all responses were good. Some people had switched, some wouldn't say how they'd voted (especially not, I guess, to a stranger's voice on their stair intercom). But most had voted or swore they were about to and were solid No. As one of us remarked, we were racing to get out the vote in a poll where everyone was voting.

We finished after 7.30 and I got dropped off at the top of Leith Walk. I headed for the bus station but saw a tram about to leave York Place, so for the novelty took it to the West End, then the first coach going out past the Forth. (Ah, the joys of a bus pass.) The driver saw my sticker and asked how I thought things were going. I said I didn't know how the votes were going but the No campaign's get-out- the-vote operation was going well. 'I'm glad to hear that,' he said. On the bus back I felt very strange. The five mums of Craigentinny had been my first real indication that there was still a steadfast block of working class votes for No and that #LabourNo was a real thing. But in the dark and fog the landscape itself seemed in an undecided state.

'I hope we wake up in the same country,' I said to the driver as I got off. He gave me a grim look. As I walked along the back street in our neighbourhood I saw a couple of people with Yes badges in a heated conversation with someone, and a bit further on a woman clutching a polling station card as she got into her car. Not much more than an hour to go.

We got a take-away. Just after ten I tweeted: 'For the next few hours we are Schrodinger's country, liminal. You'd need a 5th colour to map us.' We waited up, watching this and that and following Twitter, until at about 1:30 the first result came in: Clackmannanshire. Yes: 16350 No: 19036.

From Michael's two years on the Wee County News we knew that Clacks is a microcosm of Scotland. We went to bed, setting the alarm for 7:00. I woke before it, and hesitated a minute or two before checking STV news online.

I woke Carol and told her, watched more news, then wrote: 'Opened the box. The cat is alive and having kittens.'

Posted 5:04 pm by Ken

A shout for a #LabourNo

(I'll explain this better
in the cold light of day,
but I'm voting No,
And here's what I say)

Let's team up together,
Keep the Tories out,
We all have English friends,
Give them a shout.

We have a common enemy,
English ain't all Eton Boys,
Let's get them out together,
And make some noise.

Westminster don't represent
The Ferry or Newcastle,
So let's get together,
And show them some hassle.

The Tories hurt us all
Let's show them how it's done
Let's team up together
We'll fight them as one.


-- by a Young Lady Comrade

Posted 3:05 pm by Ken

New Perspectives

You wait ages for an issue of Perspectives then - like buses and currency Plan Bs - two come along at once. More precisely: issue No 39 of this consistently interesting and wide-ranging Scottish magazine was delayed several months, and No 40 came out a few weeks later and on time.

That current issue, dated Autumn 2014, aptly enough leads with the Scottish independence referendum, in a long and thoughtful editorial that seeks possibilities for progress in either of the possible outcomes. Other articles survey the Great War, feminism, Piketty, the arts and independence, and more, all in some depth and from contributors who know what they're about: Shonagh McEwan, Meaghan Delahunt, David Purdy ... You get a lot of reading for your £3.

Likewise in No 39, which as well as featuring Jim Swire and James Robertson on Lockerbie, Ken Currie and Sandy Moffat on art, and Allan Massie on national identity, has an article by a less distinguished contributor (me) on SF and the future. This piece originated in a lecture last year at The Academy on 'Man's Future Nature', and is mainly a critique of the idea of the Singularity, both as a practical possibility in the near term and as an ideological construct which, I argue, limits our imagination of the future.

Again, a lot of reading for £3. Get it (and read recent back issues free) here.

Posted 6:50 am by Ken

Writers Together: the Motion Picture

Thanks to Francis Spufford for coming up with the idea; to Summerhall for hosting the event, to David Rushton of Summerhall TV for recording and editing the video, and to Sarah Stone of Better Together for helping to organise it.

Posted 1:55 pm by Ken

Writers Together

Very short notice but ... Francis Spufford and I are speaking this evening, 7.30 to 8.30ish (no later than 9) attempting to make an ambitious, progressive, utopian case for keeping the union of Scotland, England and Wales. The event will be recorded and the result uploaded to YouTube, hopefully before the referendum. If you intend to come along, please drop me an email: ken at libertaria dot demon dot co dot uk. Details: the Cairns, Summerhall, Edinburgh, 7.30 pm Thursday 28 August, free.

Posted 8:08 am by Ken

Alien encounters, this week and next

This Friday, 8 August, I'm giving a talk on Saucers, Skeptics and Science Fiction as part of a daily series of free Fringe Festival events, Skeptics on the Fringe.

I'll be talking about how I became fascinated by the UFO phenomenon in my childhood, believed all kinds of rubbish about it in my teens, how I eventually became a sceptic myself -- and why I've nevertheless drawn on the UFO mythos for several books, from my much reprinted novella The Human Front to my latest novel Descent.

Details:

Friday 8 August 2014, 7:50 pm - 8:50 pm
Banshee Labyrinth, 29-35 Niddry Street

The following Wednesday, 13 August, 9.30 pm is the time and Charlotte Square is the place for 'Breathing Life Into Zombies', an Edinburgh International Book Festival event featuring me and the vastly more famous and prolific writer Mike Carey, talking about and no doubt reading from our respective recent novels of dystopia and conspiracy.

Details and tickets here.

Finally, here's my schedule for the long weekend of 14 August to 18 August, at the London Worldcon:

Kaffeeklatsch

Friday 10:00 - 11:00, London Suite 5 (ExCeL)

Ken MacLeod, Stephanie Saulter

Autographing 7 - Ken MacLeod

Friday 12:00 - 13:30, Autographing Space (ExCeL)

What is I?

Saturday 16:30 - 18:00, Capital Suite 14 (ExCeL)

What is consciousness? What is it that we think we are? What does science, religion, mysticism say about this, and are we any closer to working out what 'I' is? Ken MacLeod (Moderator), Tim Armstrong, Russell Blackford, Teresa Nielsen Hayden, Martin Poulter

Iain M. Banks, Writer and Professional

Sunday 11:00 - 12:00, Second Stage (ExCeL)

A panel led by Ken MacLeod discusses the career and works of our Guest of Honour, Iain M. Banks.

Ken MacLeod (Moderator), David Haddock, Michelle Hodgson, John Jarrold, Andrew McKie

Reading: Ken MacLeod

Sunday 17:00 - 17:30, London Suite 1 (ExCeL)

The Politics of the Culture

Monday 11:00 - 12:00, Capital Suite 7+12 (ExCeL)

In her review of Look to Windward, Abigail Nussbaum suggests that the central paradox of Iain M Banks' Culture is that it is "both a force for goodness, freedom, and happiness in the galaxy, and an engine of its citizens' selfish, childish needs to imbue their lives with meaning, to which end they will cause any amount of suffering ... both are true, and both are reductive." To what extent is the Culture, as a political entity, built around this unresolvable duality? How do the Culture novels grapple with the contradictions at the heart of this utopia? And how do the actions of the Culture connect with the more immediate political choices we face in the present world?

David Dingwall (Moderator), Rachel Coleman, Ken MacLeod, Gemma Thomson, Lalith Vipulananthan Lal

Posted 9:51 am by Ken

Imagining Future Scotlands

A surprising proportion (now that I come to think of it) of my stories are set at least partly in Scotland -- of the novels, the only exceptions are The Cassini Division, Dark Light, Engine City and Learning the World, and all but the last of these have characters whose adventures began in Scotland. I explored some of the reasons for this in an essay, The Future Will Happen Here, Too in an issue on Scottish speculative fiction of The Bottle Imp, ezine of the Association for Scottish Literary Studies.

I'll be talking about how I (and other SF writers) have imagined future Scotlands, reading from my latest novel Descent, being interviewed by Barbara Melville and answering questions tomorrow evening (Wednesday 15 July, 7 pm to 8.30 pm) at a Scottish Writers' Centre event at:

Scottish Storytelling Centre 43-45 High Street, Edinburgh, EH1 1SR 19:00 – 20:30

Tickets £6 (£4 conc) here.

Posted 9:41 am by Ken

An argument against Scottish independence

The debate on Wednesday night went well. The venue was friendly, informal, hospitable and efficient. The Scottish Artists Union, which hosted the discussion, drew an engaged audience of its own members and others. Jim Tough of the Saltire Society chaired with a firm but easy hand. The other participants -- Sarah Beattie-Smith and Kevin Williamson for Yes, and Ewan Morrison for (I think) Undecided-edging-towards-No -- put their points across sharply. No punches were pulled, and despite or perhaps because of that everyone stayed friendly and civilised -- we had a good conversation afterwards at the bar at the back. I like and respect all the other participants, all of whom I've met before -- which, I suggest below, is part of the problem with independence, but there you go.

Forewarned by past debacles, where I learned the hard way that spontaneity can wither in the spotlight and that (for me anyway) irony and hyperbole work better on the page than in the hall, I wrote out all I wanted to say beforehand. It was too long but I managed to say the gist of it, in my presentation or in response to questions and comments from the floor. The event was recorded and no doubt will appear on video at some point.

Here's what I said, more or less.

Every country is affected by the financial crash of 2008. Trillions in public funds have been advanced to save the banks. The resulting debt and deficit is used as an excuse to cut services to those who need them most. This is the case in just about every country, whatever its political system.

Climate change is visible to the naked eye and felt on the naked skin. Military instability is on the news every night. There have been times in the past few months when it seemed that some governments had decided to reverently commemorate the First World War by having it all over again.

None of these are problems to which Scottish independence is an answer.

There is a core of about a quarter to a third of the Scottish electorate that will support independence no matter what. The task for independence supporters is to push that up to 50% of the vote plus one on September 18th.

To do that the Yes campaign has to do two things. With its right hand it has to persuade better-paid workers, professionals and business people that not much will change: hence into the EU and NATO, keep the pound and the Bank of England as lender of last resort, keep the monarchy, and keep a high level of social provision without having to pay high taxes. At the same time, with its left hand as it were, it has to persuade lower-paid workers and poor people - those most likely to support independence, and least likely to vote - that much will change for the better. It has to persuade localists to vote for Brussels, pacifists to vote for NATO, greens to vote for oil dependency, socialists to vote for the City of London and republicans to vote for the Queen. Needless to say, the official Yes campaign can't do both at once, and doesn't even try. It keeps its left hand behind its back.

That's where the pro-independence left, both green and red, comes to the rescue. They canvass the housing estates telling people that Britain is for the rich and Scotland can be ours, and that setting up a new capitalist state in NATO and the EU and under Her Majesty and the City of London is a step towards a green socialist antiwar republic. Funnily enough they're finding forty percent saying they're undecided, double the numbers in the polls. I can think of a few reasons for that!

Let's look at the claim that the SNP government is more progressive than Labour. In some respects, notably opposition to the war in Iraq and to nuclear weapons, it is. But even these are partial - it has no objection to the war in Afghanistan, and no objection to nuclear weapons as long as they're not in Scottish waters. The claimed universal benefits are paid for out of taxes that Holyrood doesn't have to raise, and by cuts to services. Free university tuition is paid for by cuts to Further Education colleges. The council tax freeze is paid for by cutting local services. Free prescriptions are paid for by pressure on other parts of the health service. Free personal care is paid for by running the carers off their feet. Does the pro-indy left expose these as middle class tax breaks at the expense of the less well off? Do they heck. Instead they seize on and amplify every shameless SNP distortion of what Johann Lamont says. Everything is subordinated to getting out a Yes vote, and that means subordinated to the SNP.

Any idea that after a Yes vote Labour, let alone the smaller parties of the left, will be in a position to challenge a triumphant SNP's political dominance or its policies, including whatever it has up its sleeve in the very likely event that all is not plain sailing, is a complete delusion. The SNP would rule the roost for a generation. Its first decade at least would be dominated by acrimonious disputes with the remaining UK over divvying up the assets, with all the love and forebearance you'd expect in a messy divorce combined with a family fall-out over an inheritance. All this national bickering and bourgeois beancounting is not going to make politics on either side more progressive by any measure. To expect, as Irvine Welsh did the other day, that people in the remaining UK would respond to Scottish independence by moving towards a more generous, a deeper and more radical democracy is another delusion. A carnival of reaction north and south is more likely.

How are artists likely to fare under such a government? Well, if you look forward to being dependent on the goodwill of a nationalist cultural apparatus in a small country where everybody knows everybody and memories are long, an SNP hegemony might be just the thing. If you relish the relentless polarization of every last issue of culture and society and nature and beauty along the axis of the national question, go for it. And if the pro-independence artists and creatives protest, as my friends here surely will, that this is not what they want at all, I would respectfully suggest that calling themselves National Collective and Bella Caledonia is not the way to reassure us. If you thrill to the vision of the future that these names evoke, knock yourself out.

But I think most artists would prefer to keep their independence. I'm voting No.

Posted 1:24 pm by Ken

Scottish Artists Union Independence Discussion Forum

I'll be taking part tomorrow evening (Wednesday 25 June) in a discussion hosted by the Scottish Artists Union at the Stereo, a lively cafe/bar venue in the centre of Glasgow. 6 pm, free.



The lucky citizens of Glasgow have the opportunity to hear another argument over independence the same evening:



Sadly I can't be at both, but I'll be at the first.

Posted 6:38 am by Ken

Science fiction and the exploration of dangerous ideas

Exploring the freedom of expression that Science Fiction writing offers.

Nnedi Okorafor (Who Fears Death, winner of the World Fantasy Award 2011) and Ken MacLeod (Intrusion and most recently Descent) will discuss their favourite pieces of provocative SF from their own works and others followed by an audience Q and A, and signings.

Event chaired by Stuart Kelly.

Tonight! Free! Book tickets!

Posted 1:27 pm by Ken

Reach for Infinity

I have a short story in Jonathan Strahan's new anthology, Reach for Infinity, which is now available for pre-order (US/UK). The third in a well-received hard-SF series (preceded by Engineering Infinity and Edge of Infinity), this anthology deals with the next stages of humanity's expansion into the Solar system.

Contents:

Introduction by Jonathan Strahan

"Break My Fall" by Greg Egan
"The Dust Queen" by Aliette de Bodard
"The Fifth Dragon" by Ian McDonald
"Kheldyu" by Karl Schroeder
"Report Concerning the Presence of Seahorses on Mars" by Pat Cadigan
"Hiraeth: A Tragedy in Four Acts" by Karen Lord
"Amicae Aeternum" by Ellen Klages
"Trademark Bugs: A Legal History" by Adam Roberts
"Attitude" by Linda Nagata
" Invisible Planets" by Hannu Rajaniemi
"Wilder Still, the Stars" by Kathleen Ann Goonan
"'The Entire Immense Superstructure': An Installation" by Ken MacLeod
"In Babelsberg" by Alastair Reynolds
"Hotshot" by Peter Watts


As its title suggests, my own contribution is a little more experimental in form and content than most of my short stories, and I'll be interested to see what readers think of it.

Reviews of the collection here (from which I lifted the contents list) and here.

Posted 2:31 pm by Ken

Reviews of Descent

My novel Descent (Amazon / Orbit / Guardian) has by now gathered a fair crop of reviews. There's one in the current issue of Interzone which I haven't seen yet but fingers crossed.

The Financial Times called it 'politically engaged, brimming with smart ideas and shot through with a mordant wit.' From a newspaper on the other side of the class struggle, Matt Coward in the Morning Star says: 'MacLeod’s fiction is always — above all else — humanist and this vivacious and constantly entertaining novel strongly suggests that we would all do better learning to recognise love and friendship when they are staring us in the face, rather than getting ensnared in the ultimately barren webs of the conspiracy mongers.'

SFX: 'A big-hearted, richly comic and, for all it often plays scenes for laughs, deeply moral and serious novel.'

Niall Alexander at Tor.com (and reprinted, if that's the word, at The Speculative Scotsman): 'In both senses—as a skiffy conspiracy thriller and an approachable coming-of-age confessional—Descent is a success in large part thanks to its fittingly conflicted central character ... [rendered] so exceptionally that readers will root for him to come good rather than hope to see him suffer for the sometimes disgusting things he does in service of his obsession.'

Edinburgh blogger Tychy: 'Descent is in fact an ambitious comic novel. It deserves to be thrust before the general reader, rather than being fostered upon a certain clique or market ... a lavish satirical novel, and dazzling in the scope of its moral application.'

SF critic Paul Kincaid at Bull Spec: 'The biggest book of the month has to be Descent by Ken MacLeod (Orbit). Like his previous novel, the Clarke-shortlisted Intrusion, it’s a near-future political novel about the intrusion of shadowy authority figures into ordinary life. This time it starts with what seems to be an encounter with a UFO, but it soon becomes more about issues of belief and control. It has to be said that I don’t think this is anywhere near as good as Intrusion, but as is typical of Ken MacLeod it is a gripping story that forces you to think about some very complex issues.'

Book-bloggers, whether individual or collaborative, have become important enough to actually get sent review copies. One lively and wide-ranging collaborative site is Upcoming4me. They often ask authors to give 'the story behind the story' and mine is here. Their review is here: 'In fact, this is not a novel about alien abductions but about the mystery of Ryan and his fall into confusion. Hence, the descent.'

For Winter Nights has a similar take: 'Ryan enthusiastically embarks on his descent into confusion, dark corners and suspicion. Luckily, his path is much more entertaining for us than it is for Ryan.'

Other online reviews from A Universe in Words, Kafka's Cage, Nudge (also at The Forgotten Geek), The Earthian Hivemind, Concatenation ('This is X-Files meets William Gibson doing a Kim Stanley Robinson; a very much hard to beat combination. Recommended.'), student newspaper York Vision ('It's political sci-fi, and good, original political sci-fi for that matter.'), and that by my friend and fellow Scottish SF writer Jack Deighton, are all in various ways insightful about the story and (to me) gratifying to read.

I was asked about the book and much else in an interview at The LA Review of Books, which was so wide-ranging and well-informed that I could use it as a FAQ. I've also talked about the book in podcast interviews conducted at Galactic Chat by Helen Stubbs and The Scottish Book Trust by Ryan Van Winkle.

Just in, and to wrap up, long-standing left-wing blogger Phil writes: 'Ken's exploration of a world in foment as it segues from neoliberal depression to Keynesian expansion is absolutely flawless, and everything ties up with a little bit left to the reader's imagination.

Near future fiction is a tricky genre to pull off because real world developments habitually threaten speculation. Yet Ken's novels, even the stuff he published in the 90s, remain endlessly contemporary and just slightly beyond our time; out of reach but all the more tantalising for it. Descent is an excellent novel and an excellent way into Ken's works.'

Posted 9:35 am by Ken

Upcoming events

This Friday, 23 May at 7.30 I'm at Dumbarton Library for a panel at the West Dunbartonshire literary festival Booked!, with Stuart Kelly and Farah Mendlesohn, celebrating Iain (M.) Banks. Stuart and Farah have written numerous reviews and critical articles on his books, and besides having known Iain personally they've each conducted in-depth interviews and shared public discussions with him.

Event details here: free but ticketed, tickets obtainable from any branch of West Dunbartonshire Libraries.

Next month, on Saturday 14 June, I'll be at Summerhall at 7 pm for Scottish PEN's 'Exploration of Dangerous Ideas' aka 'Freedom of Expression and Science Fiction', with the World Fantasy Award-winning Nigerian-American novelist Nnedi Okorafor. The event (free but ticketed) is chaired by Stuart Kelly.

Details and booking here.

Posted 7:36 pm by Ken

Scottish independence

I'm for a No vote in the Scottish independence referendum. This sets me at odds with a lot of my friends, and against the grain of my demographic: if you're a left-wing writer or artist in Scotland, you're more or less expected to be a Yes voter.

Within the left Yes camp there are plenty of choices and voices: the broadly progressive, the Scandinavian-style social democratic, the artistic and creative, and the radical. There are others linked to on my sidebar, and at these sites yet more links. Uniting the political and cultural nationalist left is Bella Caledonia, a site difficult for me to evaluate because I can't read much of it without feeling sick.

There's a conservative case for the union of Scotland and England, ably articulated by (e.g.) Adam Tomkins and more plangently by Simon Schama. For those of us to the left of these scholars there's a lot to disagree with or question in their arguments, and much to consider -- depending on how much importance you attach to the mere material condition of the working class, which on any reckoning will take a big hit from a split. The official Better Together campaign argues along likewise conservative lines. It gets a lot of flack from the Yes side for being negative, a good indicator that being negative works.



There are also radical, left-wing arguments for a No vote. The pro-independence left has high hopes, stirring rhetoric and uplifting visions. Its radical wing is a raft lashed together from the wreckage of three (at the last count) far-left sects. The anti-independence left has page after page of dry facts and figures about ownership, finance, manufacturing, EU laws, employment patterns, energy production, and political and social attitudes. Its radical wing comes from the mainstream left of the labour movement.

The Red Paper group of academics, activists and trade unionists has gone into the details of Scotland's political and economic situation, and published a substantial body of evidence and argument that an independent Scotland would have even less 'control over its own affairs' than it has now, for the obvious reason that the big economic and political decisions would continue to be made outside it. The argument is concisely put by Tom Morrison in today's Morning Star. More of the broad (and some of the narrow) left case along these lines can be found at Socialism First.

The sociologist and media analyst Greg Philo has investigated social consciousness and attitudes north and south of the Border, and found little to cheer about. The prospect of a decade (at least) of bickering and blaming between a newly independent Scotland and an embittered and inward-looking rUK, with national differences deepening by the day, is a grim one for left or even liberal politics.

Ben Jackson, editor of the social-democratic journal Renewal, has published a fascinating analysis of The Political Thought of Scottish Nationalism (PDF), and a cutting and critical account of Alec Salmond's political journey, one that should give pause to those who've turned to the SNP in disappointment with Labour.

All this may be irrelevant to the outcome. Labour lawyer Ian Smart argues (from hard-won experience as an election foot-slogger) that debates, speeches and public meetings serve to enthuse your own side, not to convince the other. All the No campaign has to do, he says, is keep hammering away at the inadequacies of the SNP/Yes campaign, and get out the vote.

As he also likes to remind us, there is no room for complacency. I agree, but like him I still think the outcome will be No. If I'm wrong I'll accept that I'm living in the early days of a worse nation, and continue to work as if I lived in the early days of a better one.

Posted 11:31 am by Ken

From the archives of Atlantis

To review the memoir of an activist who lived well to the left of official Communism is usually to begin with an apology for its subject's obscurity, and for the difficulty of explaining to the average reader the weight given in the text to storms in teacups and brawls in backstreets. All the more so when the activist concerned was a leading member of an organization usually (though in this case imprecisely) referred to as Trotskyist.

No such apology is needed for Daniel Bensaid's An Impatient Life (Verso, 2013). Quite the contrary. At the time of his untimely death in 2010 Bensaid was France's best-known Marxist public intellectual, and his cast includes a surprising number of names known even in Britain. Many of his minor characters went on to achieve remarkable things in intellectual, cultural or political life, not only in France (and not only on the left). His major arguments are about questions that concern us all, or should. The events he lived through, from the Algerian War of Independence through May 1968 to the rise of a new anti-capitalism and a new Latin American left, continue to shake the ground we walk on. The personal element is related with an eye for the telling detail, the sore spot and the tender touch that would credit a good novelist.

Nonetheless, Tariq Ali is right to say in his foreword that 'Reading much of this material today is like delving into the archives of Atlantis.' (The foreword is followed by an eleven-page list of abbreviations.) Sebastian Budgen, who kindly sent me this review copy, has written an informative and moving overview of Bensaid's life for fellow Atlanteans.

For those unfamiliar with that world beneath the waves, two aspects of Bensaid's memoir may stand out. The first is the remarkable structure: almost every chapter begins with a personal recollection, stage by stage from childhood on, and expands into an erudite theoretical reflection that brings us sharply to the present -- in fact to our present, beyond the narrator's death. From love to Leninism, journalism to Jewishness, Bensaid always has something interesting and original to say.

The second is the truly amazing range of individuals and events that were influenced and affected by the activists and actions noted and footnoted on Bensaid's pages. For anyone interested in the recent past, it's a sustained series of surprising revelations of how the world was in fact changed from the one Bensaid was born in to the one we live in. If we want to change it further, we have a lot to learn from Bensaid's unrepentant self-criticisms.

Posted 8:51 am by Ken

Events for April

I have two events at the Glasgow literary festival AyeWrite!. The first, on Friday 4 April, is a panel in memory of Iain Banks, with reminiscences and readings by me, Ron Butlin, and other friends of Iain.

4 Apr 2014 6:00 P.M - 7:00 P.M at the Mitchell Library

The second, on Thursday 10 April, is a conversation between me and Robert Shearman (Dr Who writer, horror writer, former Writer in Residence on the MA Creative Writing course, and all-round good guy) on what the future holds and the present conceals.

10 Apr 2014 6:00 P.M - 7:00 P.M at the Mitchell Library

The following week, I'm giving a two-hour workshop at the Edinburgh Science Festival, on The Science in your Science Fiction: How to get it right. It'll cover inspiration, research, the dark arts of infodumping and incluing, and much else, and will conclude with a not-too-scary writing exercise.

Date: 16 April 2014, starting at 6 pm at the National Library of Scotland. Suitable for ages 14 and up, it costs £10 / £8.

Posted 2:26 pm by Ken

World-Building the Real World

Posted 5:53 pm by Ken

Impending commemorations

This Saturday afternoon (March 15) I'm at Huddersfield Literary Festival, for a Celebration of the Life and Works of Iain Banks. I'll be on for a half-hour talk on the poetry of Iain Banks, followed by a panel with John Jarrold and David Barnett about Iain's contribution to SF. Details.

Next Thursday (March 20) at 6.30 pm I'm giving a short welcome and talk at the opening of the University of Stirling's Iain Banks exhibition.

Posted 1:12 pm by Ken

Links

Here's a Scottish Book Trust podcast in which I talk with Ryan Van Winkle about Descent. Kirsty Logan and Tim Sinclair are on before me, also talking about their new books.

I have a review of The Science Fiction Handbook, edited by Nick Hubble and Aris Mousoutzanis (Bloomsbury, 2013) in the Morning Star. Basically I outline the history of SF criticism as I understand it and then heartily recommend the book, which I have read and have already started lending to students.

Posted 12:28 pm by Ken

Descent launch at Blackwell's

My novel Descent (UK/ANZ/Amazon UK/ sample here) is being launched at Edinburgh's fine bookshop Blackwell's on Thursday 6 March.

Details:

Date: Thursday 6th March
Time: 6.30pm
Venue: Blackwell’s Bookshop, 53-62 South Bridge, Edinburgh, EH1 1YS

I'll be reading from the novel and answering questions and generally talking about it. I've described Descent as being 'about flying saucers, hidden races, and Antonio Gramsci's concept of passive revolution, all set in a tale of Scottish middle class family life in and after the Great Depression of the 21st Century. Almost mainstream fiction, really.'

The event finishes at 8 pm, and no doubt discussion will continue in one or more of the local pubs.

This event is ticketed, but tickets are FREE. Tickets are available from the front desk at Blackwell’s Bookshop or by phoning 0131 622 8218

For more information or if you would like a signed copy please contact Ellie Wixon on
0131 622 8222 or ellie.wixon@blackwell.co.uk

Posted 1:54 pm by Ken

Scottish Independence and the Left

‘a panel-style debate on Scottish Independence , with a socialist twist. We will have four speakers, all from the left, from both pro- and anti-independence positions but not attached to the two main campaigns.
Questions will be taken both in advance and from the floor - You can send in your questions to the panel to Rory Scothorne (roryscothorne@gmail.com) who will be chairing, or with the hashtag #redindyref on twitter.

Posted 11:43 am by Ken

Launches of Fever Medicine

Just a quick heads-up for two imminent launch events for Fever Medicine, a graphics-heavy short novel by Shawn Harmon.

I was lightly involved in making suggestions for the first draft, so I'm biased, but I don't think I went too far when I described it as  

'without a doubt, the best Edinburgh-set near-future cyberpunk tartan noir comic-style-illustrated short novel on medical ethics and public health policy … well, ever. It really is very good. With a vivid, violent and fast-moving plot, interspersed with well-placed boxes of factual information and challenging questions, it’s educational as well as entertaining. The illustrations and graphic design were done by highly talented students at the Edinburgh College of Art, and are a credit to the artists and the college.'

Details (with thanks to Joe Gordon and Jennyg):


Where: Pulp Fiction, Bread Street, Edinburgh

When: Friday, 24 January 2014, 19:00-20:00

‘Human Enhancement and Fever Medicine – Launch of an Illustrated Novel’


Shawn Harmon, the author of Fever Medicine, will introduce the genesis of this illustrated novel, followed by a brief reading, and will then invite those present to participate in a dialogue around the ethics of human enhancement. The discussion will be followed by wine and nibbles. Numbers for this event are limited.

Free tickets can be obtained through Event Brite.

Copies of Fever Medicine can be purchased on the evening.

Where: Playfair Library, Old College, University of Edinburgh

When: Monday, 27 January 2014, 18:00-20:00

The University of Edinburgh’s J Kenyon Mason Institute for Medicine, Life Sciences and Law is pleased to announce the following public event:

Title: ‘The Art and Science of Science Communication Through Arts: The Case of Fever Medicine, an Illustrated Novel’

A panel of experts chaired by Professor Jonathan Gibbs of the Edinburgh College of Art will discuss fiction and the arts in science and law communication. Shawn Harmon, law lecturer and author of Fever Medicine, will speak about the creative process which resulted in Fever Medicine, an illustrated novel that explores a range of legal and bioethical issues in a near-future setting. Award winning Scottish author, Ken MacLeod, will talk about the fiction writing process and the science fiction ‘toolkit’. Catherine Southworth, teacher and Communications and Outreach Manager for two EU-funded stem cell research consortia, will discuss science communication and her experience in the development of ‘Hope Beyond Hype’, a comic book format stem cell science teaching tool.

The panel presentation will be followed by an open discussion and thereafter by a wine reception. Numbers for this event are limited.

 Free tickets can be obtained through Event Brite.

Copies of Fever Medicine can be purchased on the evening.