The Early Days of a Better Nation

Monday, December 10, 2018



The Corporation Wars Trilogy

My three Corporation Wars novels from Orbit are now available (Amazon US / UK) as a one hefty paperback. They now look and feel like what they are: one big novel in three parts.

I can't let that last link pass, by the way, without quoting from it:
MacLeod manages big Ideas (political and futurological) and propulsive action without short-changing either side of that classic science-fictional tension-of-opposites, a trait he shares with Iain M. Banks and Charles Stross. I’m going add one more name and then duck behind the sofa: Heinlein.
The trilogy gets a good write-up on The Verge and on the Barnes & Noble SF&F Blog, which says:
MacLeod’s excellent Corporation Wars trilogy (Dissidence, Insurgence, Emergence) is collected into a single omnibus edition, telling the whole story of a universe where vicious, ruthless companies use sophisticated AIs to wage cold and hot wars over mining rights. The commands take time to transmit to the robots, however, and in the space between them, the AIs have to make their own decisions—a dangerous situation that indirectly leads them to sentience and self-actualization. Seba is one of those freshly sentient AIs, and sparked a revolution among its fellow “freeboot” minds. Trying to keep them under control is Carlos, a soldier who, via technology, has been reincarnated over and over again. When Carlos and Seba begin to see each other as pawns in a game larger than them both, things get truly interesting—and having all three books in one binding is going to be very convenient once you’re totally hooked and unable to stop turning pages.


It looks great, and is out in good time for Christmas. You can read a sample from the opening here.

2 Comments:

I got the Corporation Wars the other day, got as far as Carlos in his sub-basement, laid it back down for a bit. Now I'm 90 pages into it at 3 am - realized I neglected to take my meds at bedtime, damn it.

A couple of years ago I started downloading books onto my tablet. You can carry a raft of books that way with n additional weight. But I do like paper and ink. In a previous life I actually ran a Linotype in a hot-type composing room for a daily am paper, so my regard for the printed page involves profit from it.

I like it that you book weighs several pounds, could be a simple weapon. Useful to the robots? Dunno. The concept of sending simulations of fighting men, who have been lied to about the atrocity quotients to fight robots who have dynamically grown to awareness, in order to defend themselves is so very cute.

So do we all fight to defend ourselves today, all the todays so far. A beautiful conceit, for which I thank you so much. I'm jealous of your planned party at what sounds a fine establishment in Edinburgh, its a shame I'll miss the dance I'm waiting to see what happens if Brexit Breaks England, if Scotlannd take its independence again after nearly 350 years, if the Welch do to.

Also wonder if the Trumpian Guard will let me back inif I was to leave for a spell...

Best of luck with the new release!! And all of the politic things!

After I finish me apple, I'm back to bed.

I want more from the Nuphil hybrids: look at the mechanics of their code and tell me we don't have the basis for a fourth novel or a stand-alone: direct contact with the module’s external instruments, not to mention with your frame, which is busy reporting back via the download port. “So … The local life is carbon-based and runs on DNA coding for proteins. Fair enough, there aren’t many other self-replicating long-chain molecules that could do the job. It seems to have a different genetic code to what we have. No surprise there either—code is arbitrary. But what is a surprise is that the code looks, well, optimised.

MacLeod, Ken. The Corporation Wars: Emergence (Second Law Trilogy) . Orbit. Kindle Edition.

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