Ken MacLeod's comments.
The title comes from two quotes:
“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
Contact: kenneth dot m dot macleod at gmail dot com Blog-related emails may be quoted unless you ask otherwise.
Emergency Links
British Red Cross
Disasters Emergency Committee
UNICEF
Hurricane Relief
American Friends Service Committee
LINKS
Self-promotion
Buy my books
Buy signed copies!
Follow me on Twitter!
The Human Genre Project
The Human Genre Project
Comrades and friends
Charlie Stross
Martin Wisse
Making Light
Avedon Carol
The Pagan Prattle
Cheryl's Mewsings
Farah Mendlesohn
Bridesmaid
Svein Olav Nyberg's old blog
Svein Olav Nyberg's new blog
Alister Black
Kevin Williamson
Alan Freeman
Kathryn Cramer
MaxSpeak
Jim Henley
John Baker
Nicholas Whyte
The Sharp Side
Barbaric Document
The Woolamaloo Gazette
Kevin Carson
Thomas Knapp
Arthur Silber
Grand Hotel Abyss
Devizes Melting Pot
A Finer World
Austro-Athenian Empire
The Art of the Possible
Cupcake Couture
Brian Micklethwait
Diane Hannover
TJ's Place
Mat Coward
Iain Fraser Grigor
Gail Wendorf
ubiquitous surveillance
Dubious Prospects
Ilorien
Sharon King
Kristine Lowe
Rich Puchalsky
Lamontations
Cory Doctorow
Parallel Futures
Lord Dunderheid
Colleagues
Genomics Forum
Genotype
Forum Tweets
the write reality
Pippa Goldschmidt
My Forum page
Sociology, Genomics and SF
EUSci
The University of Edinburgh
Genomics
What Is Genomics?
What is Synthetic Biology?
SynBioStandards
Genetic Future
Genetic Inference
Action Bioscience
Cardiff sciSCREEN
Genomic Minds
The Fourth Domain
Edinburgh
Guardian Edinburgh blog
The Edinburgh Reporter
City of Literature Trust
Textualities
Writers Bloc
Word Power
Transreal
McShandy's
Forest Publications
The Forest Cafe
Avalanche Records
Scottish Knife Collection
Sea Kist
Joyce Paton
Chris Koujou
Author Portraits
Luath Press
Tychy
Dig-In Bruntsfield
Writers Blog
SF Writers' blogs
Dead by Dawn
Forbidden Planet
Ian McDonald
The Mumpsimus
Dr Ian Hocking
Barbaric Document
Mundane SF
Justina Robson
Neal Asher
Michael Rosen
Warren Ellis
John Scalzi
Sean Williams
Jack Deighton
Rudy Rucker
Glenda Larke
Alan Campbell
Gavin Inglis
Hannu Rajaniemi
Lou Anders
Nick Harkaway
Paul McAuley
Lois McMaster Bujold
LabLit
M. John Harrison
Kelley Swain
Robert J. Sawyer
Will Shetterly
Stefan Pearson
aiko writes: poems
The Lost Book
The Trease Project
Peter Watts
Karla Schmidt
Deborah J Miller
Juliet E McKenna
Mike Cobley
Philip Palmer
Nick Wood
Catherynne M. Valente
Gail Carriger
Liz Williams
Morag Edward
Adam Roberts
Jo Walton
Nicola Griffith
Alastair Reynolds
Kari Sperring
Alan Bissett
My Writing Life
Helen Jackson
Caroline von Schmalensee
N. K. Jemisin
Cici James
Joan Slonczewski
Gwyneth Jones
Michael Rosen
Ryan Van Winkle
C.J. Cherryh
Russell Jones
Georgina Bruce
Katrina Leno
Claire Askew
Steven Brust
Mary Robinette Kowal
Regi Claire
Ron Butlin
Ruth Sabath Rosenthal
Jaine Fenn
Nnedi Okorafor
Editor Blogs
John Jarrold
Publisher Blogs
Tim Holman
Brother Blogs
MacLeod Cartoons
Skiffy
Ansible
Redstone SF
Futurismic
SciFiDimensions
io9
Tor.com
Pyr
Orbit
PS Publishing
Feminist SF
World SF News
Biology in SF
Raritania
Steampunk Fashion
Torque Control
Post-Weird Thoughts
Ivor W. Hartmann
StarShipSofa
Star Wars Modern
The Outer Alliance
Eve's Alexandria
Beyond Victoriana
Strange Horizons
Salon Futura
Afrocyberpunk
pornokitsch
SciFi Ideas
Three, If By Robots
Brits Blog
The Sharpener
The Register
Velvet Glove, Iron Fist
Blood and Treasure
The Gaping Silence
The Yorkshire Ranter
Excuse Me Whilst I Step Outside
' ... a treeless, flowerless land, formed out of the refuse of the Universe, and inhabited by the very bastards of Creation'
Socialism First!
Red Paper
Aye We Can!
Bella Caledonia
Scottish Roundup
Scottish Politics
SSP
Solidarity
Scottish Left Review
Democratic Left Scotland
Between the Hammer and the Anvil
SNP Tactical Voting
A Place to Stand
Freedom and Whisky
Independence
Gerry Hassan
Better Nation
Bright Green Scotland
Caledonian Mercury
Lallands Peat Worrier
Lesley Riddoch
Clyde Space
Spaceport Scotland
Land Matters
Scottish Review
Scottish Review of Books
The Firm
STV Local
Frontiers
Whitehall 1212
Ian Smart
Notes from North Britain
Amazing Things
Astronomy Picture of the Day
Hubble Telescope
Fragile Oasis
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Dictionary of the History of Ideas
Internet SF DataBase
Arts and Letters Daily
3 Quarks
1911 Britannica
Wikipedia
BBC
Daily Mash
Fortean Times
BoingBoing
Three-Toed Sloth
James P. Hogan
MemeMachineGo!
small WORLD
Derelict London
Good News
Strange Maps
The Simulation Argument
Better Living Through Chemistry
Poems on the Book of Life
The Periodic Table of Science Fiction
RAW Illumination
The Realist Archive
The New Atlantis
Faith
Flat Earth
Fixed Earth
Geocentricity
6 ky Earth
10 ky Earth
4.5 Gy Earth
Creation Wiki
Sacred Texts
The Brick Testament
The LOLcat Bible
Reason
New Humanist
Edinburgh University Humanist Society
WTA
IEET
Cyborg Democracy
Nick Bostrom
Bad Astronomy
WorldChanging
Cosmic Variance
Sean Carrol
Bruce Schneier
i-studies
The Eternal Golden Braid
The Secular Web
NSS
Richard Carrier
Russell Blackford
Conscious Entities
David Chalmers
the Edge
Naturalism.Org
Talk Reason
Stephen Law
Science after sunclipse
The Threat to Reason
Atheists of Silicon Valley
Blag Hag
Rationally Speaking
Bad Science
Enemies of Reason
Tabloid Watch
Daily Mail Watch
Perpetual Motion
Skepticblog
This is What a Scientist Looks Like
Freethought Blogs
Crooked Timber
Kenan Malik
Atheism: Proving the Negative
Stoicism Today
Sense about Science
Evolution
Why Evolution is True
The Panda's Thumb
Pharyngula (SciB)
Pharyngula (FtB)
RichardDawkins.net
The Voyage of HMS Beagle
Evolving Thoughts
The Lancelet
Pleiotropy
The Digital Cuttlefish
Glenn Morton's Pages
Talk.Origins
Creation Science and Earth History
Creation 'Science' Debunked
ASA
The GeoChristian
NCSE
BCSE
Oolon Colluphid's Guide to Creation
Recovering YECs
Beyond the Firmament
Highly Allochthonous
Caught in a Bad Project
Playing Chess with Pigeons
Shit You Didn't Know About Biology
War and Revolution
Antiwar.com
Lenin's Tomb
Empire Burlesque
CounterPunch
World Socialist Web Site
British Army Rumour Service
Circling the Lion's Den
International Crisis Group
Baghdad Burning (Riverbend)
Iraq Today
Left I on the News
Informed Comment
Informed Comment Global
Tom Dispatch
It's No Accident
Empire Notes
the eXile
The Exiled
Inanities
Matt Carr's Infernal Machine
MidEast Shuffle
The Duck of Minerva
In the Mind Field
Mutualist Militants
Free Market Anti-Capitalism
Larry Gambone
Red Lion Press
crispin sartwell
In the Libertarian Labyrinth
Liberty Alone
Rad Geek People's Daily
Propaganda Lalaland
Markets Not Capitalism
Democratic Socialists
Scottish Labour
Tom Harris MP
Bob Piper
LabourList
Socialist Party, USA
Socialist Webzine
Chartist
Appeal to Reason
Labour and Capital
Left Futures
grimmerupnorth
The Bickerstaffe Record
The Socialist International
Labour Lords
Scarlet Standard
Shifting Grounds
Renewal
Impossibilists and Ilk
SLP
SPGB
Socialist Studies
Socialism or Your Money Back
Inveresk Street Ingrate
Vaux Populi
Mission
Timid Maximalist
Class Warfare
Reasons to be Impossible
Mailstrom
Ragged Trousered Philanthropist
Wobbly Times
Viva La Quarta
International Viewpoint
In Defence of Marxism
SWP
Socialist Worker (UK)
Socialist Worker (US)
International Socialism
Socialist Action (US)
CWI
AWL
Anti-SEP-tic
Socialist Action
Communist Parties
CP of Britain
CP of Ireland
CPUSA
CPI(M)
Iraqi CP
CP of Israel
SACP
ML Today
SolidNet
21centurymanifesto
Revolting Europe
L'Humanite in English
Other revolutionaries
CPGB
Worker-communist Party of Iran
the commune
Radical Resources
Housmans Bookshop
Morning Star
Critiques of Libertarianism
Hitler was a Capitalist
Labournet UK
China Labour Review
Marxists Internet Archive
From Marx to Mao
Leninist.biz
Autodidact
Amiel & Melburn Trust
The New Reasoner
Lawrence & Wishart
hegemonics
Marxsite
Marxmail
Marx Myths
Revolutionary History
Monthly Review
What Next?
William Blum
Grover Furr
Bertell Ollman
What's Left
Reality
Paul Cockshott
Critique
The Socialism Web Site
Spectrezine
21st C. Socialism
SolidarityEcon
Left Atomics
Socialist Economic Bulletin
naked capitalism
Thoughts on Economics
Debunking Economics
Research on Money and Finance
Southall Black Sisters
Ancient Communism
Key Trends in Globalisation
Readable Reds
Splintered Sunrise
Soviet Goon Boy
Renegade Eye
Dave's Part
Cedar Lounge
Unrepentant Marxist
Though Cowards Flinch
Mark Steel
Critical Montages
The Curmudgeon
A few words before we go
Stephen Gowans
Liam Mac Uaid
Socialist Unity
Southpaw Punch
Harpy Marx
Madame Miaow
Reading the Maps
Stroppy Blog
A Very Public Sociologist
Tendance Coatsey
Boffy's Blog
Penny Red
Show Biz Red
Stalin's Moustache
Lipstick Socialist
For the sake of the argument
Norman Geras
Sean Gabb
Libertarian Alliance (Official)
Libertarian Alliance (Provisional)
Libertarian Party UK
Spiked Online
Poumista
![[Powered by Blogger]](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/blogger_img_proxy/AEn0k_uJIOXimbar77e6ov3exrsLn1lslm1p81d6AjAbpeEBbANe037M67bdFUTOoLp-jDHq9tPTXOdecnBKOr5V9zLF-syy1m3VEltJca1cZ4iT=s0-d){kind=small}
Back from Deepcon 26
Deepcon is focused on DS9 and the Star Trek universe, hosting many big names from on screen or behind the scenes over the decades it's been running, but as you can see from the guest list it includes other writers and artists from Italy and elsewhere. Its motto is 'Science fiction from A for Asimov to Z for Zardoz.' Food is a big part of the con: lunch is from 13:00 to 15:00, dinner from 20:00 to 22:00 and both involve two starters, a main and dessert. Wine and water are in copious supply. I came back a kilogram heavier. Casey, Eric and his wife Debra, and Flora and Gabriella were good company at the table, along with an ever-changing group of fans.
Apologies to those I've missed out, or failed to photograph. One such omitted highlight was meeting again my good friend Francesco Verso, who had an impressive stall from which I bought Solar Punk Short Stories, so I hope he'll forgive me.
Deepcon 26
At the Glasgow Worldcon in August 2024, they and other Italian fans took us out to dinner and invited us both to Deepcon 25. We were of course delighted, and were very much looking forward to it. Sadly that never happened, and our friends understood very well why I didn’t want to go on my own in 2025.
So this year, they’ve invited me again, and (as I told my local paper the Greenock Telegraph) I’m honoured and happy to go.
Looking back, looking ahead
For me 2025 has been mostly a year of spending time with family and with getting on with stuff, and with letting some stuff pile up while working on my next novel, provisionally titled Empire Time. Progress has been slower than I’d hoped, but my agent and my editor have been very understanding. It’s now close to the end of the first draft, but I have a major plot thread to untangle and tie off, so that’s my writing priority for now (immediately after sorting out some of the other stuff I had let pile up, mostly urgent admin and, well, literal stuff piling up).
Things I didn’t write about but probably should have: I had a good time at Reconnect and at the first Pictcon, a one-day convention which was successful in every way and is scheduled for a return this year.
Some of the literal stuff piling up has been recent issues of New Scientist which I've yet to read, but the good people who work there weren’t to know that when they asked me to be interviewed for their Book Club about Iain M. Banks and his novel The Player of Games, which I re-read with much enjoyment and talked about with enthusiasm, as you can see. Alison Flood was an excellent interviewer, and made it a relaxed conversation. My office as you see it in the video is after I had tidied it.
Looking ahead: I’m reading and being interviewed as part of the Beacon Book Festival in Greenock in February.
For local writers and readers I’m giving a talk on writing science fiction to the Greenock Writers’ Club on 4 March. For members only, but new members are always welcome!
Looking back and ahead: in late 2024 my brother James came to Greenock to visit me and to give a talk, illustrated with slides and statistics, which went down very well with a large local audience. The topic of religious imagery on Scottish war memorials may seem narrow, even niche, but the way Professor James MacLeod handles it, I can assure you it’s not. Now, everyone in the world who wants to and can spare £5 has a chance to see it online, live on 15 January. Tickets here.
Fame at last
As the press release put it: 'Every item you purchase, every donation you make, goes towards helping Sue Ryder support people through the most difficult time of their lives. Whether that's dealing with the grief of losing a loved one or a terminal illness, your contribution can directly help fund the care and support the charity offers.' A worthy cause which I'm more than happy to promote.
I bought a copy of Longitude by Dava Sobel, a book I’d always meant to read, and did over the next couple of days. Highly recommended, and duly passed on to another keen reader.
Stuff I’m doing
Apart from that…
Usually, I don’t read science fiction while I’m writing it, and especially not in the sub-genre I’m writing in. But sometimes you have to make an exception. I read or re-read a stack of science fiction recently, to compile lists for the Scottish Book Trust’s Book Subscription: Science Fiction. There’s a choice of three or six months, with a book a month, attractively packaged and with a note from me saying why it’s worth reading. If you’re new to science fiction, or just starting out in the genre, you should find it a good overview. The selections cover a wide range: long books and short, classic and recent, from space opera to alternate history to near future.
I’m very much looking forward to going to Reconnect, the Belfast Eastercon. (Eastercon is the annual UK science fiction convention.) Despite my late decision to go, I’m on the programme, for which much thanks. With over 800 attending members, it looks like this Eastercon will be a good one.
Wish you were here
We used to take photos of our shadows: shadow selfies. ‘Smile!’ the one taking the photo would say, and we’d laugh.
This post is here to fill space. Skip it if you like. After it the blog will get back to its usual intermittent rambling about trivia, politics, science fiction, science, and materialism. I don’t want to click on it to check something, and be thrown back to the funeral. I have that photo of Carol framed in my living-room. This post is here to be a buffer, a shock absorber.
I’ve been getting on with things. I have family, and I have friends, and they’ve helped. There’s a book to write, which is coming together like a shape emerging from fog. There have been other projects. I had engagements, which I left too late to break. The first was a few days after Carol’s funeral, at the Seahorse Bookstore in Ardrossan. It was good to get out, and the owners and staff were lovely. One of my sisters and her husband, who live locally, came along. It was a good event, on a day of long bus rides. The worst pang was the bus back from Largs to Gourock, a short journey I’d often made with Carol.
Back in January, I’d got an invitation to the Gothenburg Book Fair. Carol and I had been to Sweden before, in August 2003. That was when we first met Alastair Reynolds and his wife Josette, and we’d been friends ever since. We’d explored Uppsala and Stockholm and its archipelago, met some of the SF-Bokhandeln people, and had a great time. And I’d been back since, this time on my own and to Gothenburg, in what was for me a busy and fraught year, 2015, for FSCONS.
So of course I asked Carol if she wanted to come with me, and of course she did. We paid her fare, and the Book Fair took care of everything else. They even put us up in the hotel for an extra couple of nights.
The flight was at 06:10 on Wednesday 25 September. I considered booking a taxi for 03:00, and decided to get a train and bus to the airport on Tuesday evening. It felt very strange to be locking the door for a trip and not having Carol going down the stairs ahead of me. I walked along to Cleats, where I had a half pint with the local SF crew, and on to the station. At Glasgow Airport I found a corner seat in Greggs, and read and dozed until it was time to join the queue. Apart from a two-hour delay in Amsterdam, the fight was uneventful. I was met by a taxi at the airport, and taken to Gothia Towers Hotel, adjacent to the venue, an enormous exhibition centre.
Erik Eje Almqvist met me in the lobby, treated me to a beer and lunch in the restaurant, and got me my guest badge and packet. The main theme of the Book Fair was Sápmi, the homeland of the Sámi people. A second theme was space. Quite a number of people in the corridors wore brightly coloured and embroidered Sámi clothing.
The room was splendid and had a spectacular view.
I had a nap, freshened up, and took the lift to the opening party. There the view was even more spectacular and even more people wore Sámi clothing. Everyone was speaking Swedish, but Erik spotted me and steered me into a conversation with a Lutheran clergywoman, so I had someone to chat with over my first glass. Later I had a couple of beers with Glenn Petersen of SF-Bokhandeln. A band played something that was meant to evoke space or cyberpunk, and Johan Stanberg McGuinne performed a joik. I was struck by some resemblances to Gaelic singing and the cadences of Highland heightened speech in preaching and poetry. Afterwards, I raised this rather tentatively with Johan, who surprised me by agreeing. Of Gaelic and Sámi heritage himself, Johan pointed out that these two cultures were unlikely to have influenced each other. An agreeable puzzle.
Thursday was one of my extra days, so after breakfast I picked up a Gothenburg tourist booklet in the hotel lobby and set off on the kind of local wander that Carol and I would have done. This included an amphibious bus tour, a late lunch of a massively filled sandwich at the food market, and a stroll through the botanic garden, which ended in me sitting on a bench and being acutely aware that Carol wasn’t beside me.
I walked back to the hotel just as the rain was starting, and had a look around the book fair, which was spread across four large and crowded halls.
The following days, these halls were packed. Every day, tens of thousands of people turned up. Every publisher and, it seemed, every reader in Sweden was there. I may write more about it sometime. I had a good time, I met new people, and I met up with Alastair Reynolds, Paul McAuley and Peter Hamilton, and we had breakfasts and beers. On the last day Glenn Petersen and his wife Ylva took us and their colleagues out for dinner at a Michelin starred restaurant. I asked Ylva if she could recommend somewhere to go on Sunday, the last of the free days we’d booked, and she suggested Marstrand Island. What I wanted to do, again, was take the sort of sight-seeing trip that Carol and I would have taken if she’d been there. This sounded exactly right.
It was. The bus rides were long, but the scenery was amazing, and every bus was on time. Marstrand Island is a five-minute ferry crossing from the terminus. Its main feature is a naval fortress, which unlike many such around the world has seen action.
Going around it was a pang. In 2023, Carol and I had explored a much larger naval fortress, at Pula in Croatia. Much larger, yes, but the layout has its own logic, and every corner had a sharp memory rising unbidden around it.
The views were great. Carol would have enjoyed it, if she'd been there.
Carol’s funeral
More people came to Carol’s funeral than there were seats in the crematorium chapel: our families, her friends and mine, some of whom had travelled a long way. The funeral directors, P B Wright and Sons, took care of the arrangements kindly and professionally. Catriona Miller, the humanist celebrant, conducted the service and delivered a warm and accurate tribute to Carol. I spoke about Carol’s life with me, and Michael spoke for himself and Sharon about Carol as a mother. Two hymns were sung that had also been sung at our wedding. The closing music was a song Carol had played countless times: ‘Stars’ by Simply Red.
The Order of Service booklet featured a fine recent photograph of Carol by Michael, and some of Carol's own photographs of Gourock's sunset skies.
The collection was for two charities that Carol had actively supported: the RNLI, and Medical Aid for Palestinians. It raised £1138.50, which yesterday I rounded up to £1200 and divided evenly into two donations in her memory.
Many, many thanks to all who attended, and to all who contributed so generously, at the collection and online. Thanks also for the many messages and cards of sympathy, for which I and all the family are deeply grateful.