| SF Reviews by Aaron M. Renn | By Author - By Title - By Date Reviewed |
Conclusion: Highly Recommended
Another stellar job from MacLeod here. I've read three of his books so far, all of which have similar themes, but are different enough to keep things from getting old. In this one we have the various political movements of course, and the obligatory bits about AI and what it means to be human. But there's a lot more in there too.
The Stone Canal operates in two different time streams. One is Jonathan Wilde telling us his history from about 1975 to the 25th century. This is nice because it puts a little more structure around the events in The Star Fraction, as well as providing a nice backfill to The Cassini Division, which US readers will doubtlessly appreciate. The other is a series of events that happen over a couple of days on New Mars involving a vat grown clone of Wilde and a gynoid (a vat grown human body with an imprinted robot brain) who's trying to achieve autonomy. I personally found this book a lot easier to follow than The Star Fraction, which seemed to jump around randomly at times. Though I must say I probably enjoyed this one just ever so slightly less as well.
I really don't have much else to say about this book except that I loved it. To repeat my previous reviews, this MacLeod guy is great. It remains to be seen if he can keep coming up with great new stuff over the long term, but his first few books are absolutely first rate. This one is 100% worth special ordering from the UK or Canada. However, for those who are on a budget - or don't want to take my word for it - I hear that The Stone Canal will be out in the US sometime in the next year.
%A MacLeod, Ken %T The Stone Canal %I Legend %D 1997 (original publication 1996) %G ISBN 0-09-955901-3 %P 322 pp. %O trade paperback, £5.99
Reviewed on 1999-09-19
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