Fairyland

Don't let this novel's fey title fool you. This is actually a chilling near-future dystopia tale about nanotechnology and genetic engineering running amuck, with some remarkable ideas by McCauley that give you the very uncomfortable impression that they could possibly come true some day. Psychological plagues are spreading throughout the human population through the use of microscopic "fembots" that can alter behavior and... Read Full Review

I have read a few of the books by this gent and to my way of thinking, this is the best. Published in 1995, it seems that everybody else is catching up with it now. Alastair Reynolds has written of indoctrinal viruses, but did they first appear in fiction between these covers?At the start we meet Alex Sharkey, ex-con, nuaghty boy, but no ogre, no monster. Young Mr Sharkey is mixed up with something hitech that he cooks... Read Full Review

The scenes taking place in a far future Eurodisney basically made the book for me, McAuley's vision of a rundown and ramshackle former childrens paradise being changed into a place of forboding evil is probably one of the strongest SF images of the last five years or so . . . and the best part is that the book is about much more than that. McAuley is one of those rare writers that refuses to do the same trick over and over... Read Full Review

I felt compelled to write this after reading the reviews of this novel (the exception being the bloke from Newcastle).What drew me into this novel is not just the Bladerunner meets Ribofunk imagery, but the almost travelogue quality of the narrative. From the tropical 21st century London, the slums in the shadows Eurodisney and the Parisian arcologies, and the still war torn Balkans, Fairyland reads like Robert Kaplan's... Read Full Review

There's nothing quite like 'Fairyland'. It's unneven in terms of its construction and character development, but more than makes up for it by the intensity of vision displayed by MacAuley. He has shown in his short fiction (see King of the Hill) that he is a master of the art of exploring the darkest recessess of our mythology (this is Brothers Grimm territory not Hans Christian Anderson!), and blending it into our worst... Read Full Review