Ken MacLeod

Kenneth Macrae MacLeod (born 2 August 1954) is a Scottish science fiction writer. His novels The Sky Road and The Night Sessions won the BSFA Award. MacLeod's novels have been nominated for the Arthur C. Clarke, Hugo, Nebula, Locus, and Campbell Memorial awards for best novel on multiple occasions. A techno-utopianist, MacLeod's work makes frequent use of libertarian socialist themes; he is a three-time winner of the libertarian Prometheus Award. Prior to becoming a novelist, MacLeod studied biology and worked as a computer programmer. He sits on the advisory board of the Edinburgh Science Festival. MacLeod has been chosen as a Guest of Honor at the 82nd Worldcon, Glasgow 2024

For other people named Ken MacLeod, see Ken MacLeod (disambiguation).
Ken MacLeod
Addressing the 63rd World Science Fiction Convention, Glasgow, August 2005
Addressing the 63rd World Science Fiction Convention, Glasgow, August 2005
BornKenneth Macrae MacLeod
(1954-08-02) 2 August 1954
Stornoway, Scotland
OccupationWriter
GenreScience fiction
Notable awardsBSFA Award, Prometheus Award
Website
kenmacleod.blogspot.com
Ken and Carol MacLeod at Boskone 43, 2006

Biography

MacLeod was born in Stornoway, Scotland on 2 August 1954.[1] He graduated from Glasgow University with a degree in zoology and has worked as a computer programmer and written a masters thesis on biomechanics.[2] He was a Trotskyist activist in the 1970s and early 1980s[3] and is married and has two children.[1] He lived in South Queensferry near Edinburgh before moving to Gourock, on the Firth of Clyde, in June 2017.[4]

MacLeod is opposed to Scottish independence.[5]

Writing

He is part of a group of British science fiction writers who specialise in hard science fiction and space opera. His contemporaries include Neal Asher, Stephen Baxter, Iain M. Banks, Paul J. McAuley, Alastair Reynolds, Adam Roberts, Charles Stross, Richard Morgan, and Liz Williams.

His science fiction novels often explore socialist, communist, and anarchist political ideas, especially Trotskyism and anarcho-capitalism (or extreme economic libertarianism).[6] Technical themes encompass singularities, divergent human cultural evolution, and post-human cyborg-resurrection. MacLeod's general outlook can be best described as techno-utopian socialist,[7][8] though unlike a majority of techno-utopians, he has expressed great scepticism over the possibility and especially over the desirability of strong AI.[7]

He is known for his constant in-joking and punning on the intersection between socialist ideologies and computer programming, as well as other fields. For example, his chapter titles such as "Trusted Third Parties" or "Revolutionary Platform" usually have double (or multiple) meanings. A future programmers union is called "Information Workers of the World Wide Web", or the Webblies, a reference to the Industrial Workers of the World, who are nicknamed the Wobblies. The Webblies idea formed a central part of the novel For the Win by Cory Doctorow and MacLeod is acknowledged as coining the term.[9] Doctorow and Charles Stross also used one of MacLeod's references to the singularity as "the rapture for nerds" as the title for their collaborative novel Rapture of the Nerds (although MacLeod denies coining the phrase[10]). There are also many references to, or puns on, zoology and palaeontology. For example, in The Stone Canal the title of the book, and many places described in it, are named after anatomical features of marine invertebrates such as starfish.

Books about MacLeod

The Science Fiction Foundation have published an analysis of MacLeod's work titled The True Knowledge Of Ken MacLeod Archived 8 October 2018 at the Wayback Machine (2003; ISBN 0-903007-02-9), edited by Andrew M. Butler and Farah Mendlesohn. As well as critical essays it contains material by MacLeod himself, including his introduction to the German edition of Banks' Consider Phlebas.

Bibliography

Series
  • Fall Revolution series
    1. The Star Fraction (1995; US paperback ISBN 0-7653-0156-3) – Prometheus Award winner, 1996; Clarke Award nominee, 1996[11]
    2. The Stone Canal (1996; US paperback ISBN 0-8125-6864-8) – Prometheus Award winner, 1998; BSFA nominee, 1996[11]
    3. The Cassini Division (1998; US paperback ISBN 0-312-87044-2) – BSFA nominee, 1998;[12] Clarke, and Nebula Awards nominee, 1999[13]
    4. The Sky Road (1999; US paperback ISBN 0-8125-7759-0) BSFA Award winner, 1999;[13] Hugo Award nominee, 2001[14] – represents an 'alternate future' to the second two books, as its events diverge sharply due to a choice made differently by one of the protagonists in the middle of The Stone Canal[15]
    • This series is also available in two volumes:
      1. Fractions: The First Half of the Fall Revolution (2009; US paperback ISBN 0-7653-2068-1)
      2. Divisions: The Second Half of the Fall Revolution (2009; US paperback ISBN 0-7653-2119-X)
  • Engines of Light Trilogy
    1. Cosmonaut Keep (2000; US paperback ISBN 0-7653-4073-9) – Clarke Award nominee, 2001;[14] Hugo Award nominee, 2002[16] Begins the series with a first contact story in a speculative mid-21st century where a resurgently socialist USSR (incorporating the European Union) is once again in opposition with the capitalist United States, then diverges into a story told on the other side of the galaxy of Earth-descended colonists trying to establish trade and relations within an interstellar empire of several species who travel from world to world at the speed of light.
    2. Dark Light (2001; US paperback ISBN 0-7653-4496-3) – Campbell Award nominee, 2002[16]
    3. Engine City (2002; US paperback ISBN 0-7653-4421-1)
  • The Corporation Wars[17]
    1. Dissidence (2016)
    2. Insurgence (2016)
    3. Emergence (2017)
  • Lightspeed Trilogy[18]
    1. Beyond the Hallowed Sky (2021; Orbit ISBN 9780356514796)
    2. Beyond the Reach of Earth (2023; Orbit ISBN 9780356514819)

Other work
  • Newton's Wake: A Space Opera (2004; US paperback edition ISBN 0-7653-4422-X) – BSFA nominee, 2004;[19] Campbell Award nominee, 2005[20]
  • Learning the World: A Novel of First Contact (2005; UK hardback edition ISBN 1-84149-343-0) Prometheus Award winner 2006; Hugo, Locus SF, Campbell and Clarke Awards nominee, 2006;[21] BSFA nominee, 2005[20]
  • "The Highway Men" (2006; UK edition ISBN 1-905207-06-9)
  • The Execution Channel (2007; UK hardback edition ISBN 978-1841493480) – BSFA Award nominee, 2007;[22] Campbell, and Clarke Awards nominee, 2008[23]
  • The Night Sessions (2008; UK hardback edition ISBN 978-1841496511) – Winner Best Novel 2008 BSFA[23]
  • The Restoration Game (2010). According to the author, "In The Restoration Game I revisited the fall of the Soviet Union, with a narrator who is at first a piece in a game played by others, and works her way up to becoming to some extent a player, but – as we see when we pull back at the end – is still part of a larger game."[24]
  • Intrusion (2012): "an Orwellian surveillance society installs sensors on pregnant women to prevent smoking or drinking; and these women also have to take a eugenic 'fix' to eliminate genetic anomalies.[24]
  • Descent (2014):[25] "My genre model for Descent was bloke-lit – that's basically first-person, self-serving, rueful confessional by a youngish man looking back on youthful stupidities... ... Descent is 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."[24]

Short fiction

Collections
  • Poems & Polemics (2001; Rune Press: Minneapolis, MN) Chapbook of non-fiction and poetry.
  • Giant Lizards From Another Star (2006; US trade hardcover ISBN 1-886778-62-0) Collected fiction and nonfiction.

References
  1. Raven, Paul (February 2007). "The New British Catastrophe". The SF Site. Retrieved 20 March 2012.
  2. "Ken MacLeod's official page at Orbit Books". Orbitbooks.co.uk. Archived from the original on 17 December 2005. Retrieved 20 March 2012.
  3. Walker, Jesse (November 2000). "Anarchies, States, and Utopias". Reason Magazine. Retrieved 20 March 2012.
  4. MacLeod, Ken (4 March 2018). "Other Good News". The Early Days of a Better Nation.
  5. MacLeod, Ken (19 December 2012). "Never knowingly understated". The Early Days of A Better Nation. Retrieved 27 February 2014. Of the 27, I counted 15 who would give a definite Yes to independence. Only two of the others – Jenni Calder and myself – give a definite No.
  6. "Lifeboat Foundation Bios: Ken MacLeod, M.Phil". lifeboat.com. Retrieved 30 July 2020.
  7. "SF Zone interview with MacLeod". Zone-sf.com. Archived from the original on 24 October 2005. Retrieved 20 March 2012.
  8. Butler, Andrew M.; Mendlesohn, Farah, eds. (2003). The True Knowledge Of Ken MacLeod. SF Foundation. ISBN 0-903007-02-9.
  9. Cory Doctorow (2010). For the Win. HarperVoyager. ISBN 978-0765322166. MacLeod is thanked in the Acknowledgements section: "Many thanks to Ken MacLeod for letting me use IWWWW and 'Webbly.'"
  10. "Communism failed. What about the ideal of global humanity? – Ken MacLeod | Aeon Essays". Aeon. Retrieved 18 August 2018.
  11. "1996 Award Winners & Nominees | Science Fiction & Fantasy Books by Award". Worlds Without End. Retrieved 11 June 2010.
  12. "1998 Award Winners & Nominees | Science Fiction & Fantasy Books by Award". Worlds Without End. Retrieved 11 June 2010.
  13. "1999 Award Winners & Nominees | Science Fiction & Fantasy Books by Award". Worlds Without End. Retrieved 11 June 2010.
  14. "2001 Award Winners & Nominees | Science Fiction & Fantasy Books by Award". Worlds Without End. Retrieved 11 June 2010.
  15. "The Falling Rate of Profit, Red Hordes and Green Slime: What the Fall Revolution Books Are About" – Nova Express, Volume 6, Spring/Summer 2001, pp 19–21
  16. "2002 Award Winners & Nominees | Science Fiction & Fantasy Books by Award". Worlds Without End. Retrieved 11 June 2010.
  17. MacLeod, Ken. "The Shape Of Things To Come". The Early Days of a Better Nation. Retrieved 28 April 2016.
  18. MacLeod, Ken. "Beyond the Hallowed Sky". Fantastic Fiction. Retrieved 8 June 2020.
  19. "2004 Award Winners & Nominees | Science Fiction & Fantasy Books by Award | WWEnd". Worldswithoutend.com. Retrieved 11 June 2010.
  20. "2005 Award Winners & Nominees | Science Fiction & Fantasy Books by Award". Worlds Without End. Retrieved 11 June 2010.
  21. "2006 Award Winners & Nominees | Science Fiction & Fantasy Books by Award". Worlds Without End. Retrieved 11 June 2010.
  22. "2007 Award Winners & Nominees | Science Fiction & Fantasy Books by Award | WWEnd". Worldswithoutend.com. Retrieved 11 June 2010.
  23. "2008 Award Winners & Nominees | Science Fiction & Fantasy Books by Award". Worlds Without End. Retrieved 11 June 2010.
  24. Winter, Jerome (24 February 2014). "Turbulent Years Ahead: An Interview with Ken MacLeod". Los Angeles Review of Books.
  25. "Ken MacLeod - Descent". Upcoming4.me. Archived from the original on 2 February 2014. Retrieved 18 August 2013.
  26. "The Early Days of a Better Nation". kenmacleod.blogspot.com. Retrieved 27 April 2023.
  27. Alexander, Niall (12 June 2014). "Step into the Stars: Reach for Infinity, ed. Jonathan Strahan". Tor.com. Retrieved 13 December 2015.
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