The Execution Channel

Ken MacLeod clearly tried to do a great many things at the same time in his novel, and as far as I'm concerned, he pulled it off very well. Just to give a few examples, he explores how a Democratic Presidential victory in 2000 might have still resulted in ugly consequences, how the ongoing growth of disinformation can twist a society, and how individuals react when subjected to these pressures, how racial tensions develop during times of heightened security, etc. Most stories with a "mystery" component, which include most spy thrillers, are very predictable because most authors have a sufficiently low opinion of their readers that they telegraph it. MacLeod treats the reader as an adult, however, and keeps them guessing right up until the end. The underlying critique of American Empire includes a lot of shoe-on-the-other-foot business. How would Americans feel if, for example, China was developing an anti-ballistic missile shield? How would you feel if the CIA tortured one of -your- loved ones to death? Finally, while I have no wish to spoil the ending, it is well worth reading through the parts of the book which filled me with shame and anger at the direction the US is heading in. He actually managed to give this book a reasonably happy ending, all things considered. I've purposely not talked much about the story which runs through these events, because others seem to have covered that part relatively well. Their influence in the results of the book is there, but it is somewhat oblique, as one would expect from a tale about what are, essentially, "ordinary people" rather than Generals and high-ranking politicians. I've met people like his characters, and even when they are the sorts of people I hate, he still manages to get the reader to empathize with them to some extent.

Ken Macleod has written an angry book. I only wish he hadn't asked for Charlie Stross's advice. The book suffers from Macleod's placement of the story in an alternate "now" where 9/11 takes place in Boston and Al Gore was the president who had to deal with it. This alternate universe idea was apparently offered by Stross is response to some problems Macleod was experiencing with story development. When that otherness became obvious to me it took so much impact away from the story. Sure it protects the book from the bane of near-future thriller writers - the inevitable passage of events that invalidates the story - but it puts a barrier between the angry writer's message and his audience. All this is made clear in the author's afterword, but I felt cheated. Cheated of a much more powerful and relevant book. So the book misses out on 5 stars, and Maclead misses out on a masterpiece, by a small margin. The book is well worth the reader's time; especially so for our American friends, as it has a lot to say to them. If they wish to be told. ***spoiler warning*** Macleod also telegraphs the end by too much discussion of James Blish's "spindizzies". That particular homage should have been saved until the end. The execution channel itself is very much a device for the author's convenience and I wish he'd found some other method of achieving the same end because the scene in the pub with the MI5 agent Smith stretches credulity. Unless of course Smith arranged it all...hmmm. These quibbles aside - and they are quibbles - the book is a great read, believable characters, with believable motivations, good use of borderline science [my favourite kind] and also real technologies, a convincing take on current geo-politics, some obvious real-world experience with fringe politics, and some real insight into the world of conspiracy theories and spy tradecraft. I now feel confident in my ability to evade all of you who are following and watching... The Execution Channel

Ken Macleod's The Execution Channel very quickly made my favorite books list. Disinfo, blogging, spies, thermonuclear warfare (especially fear of), pandemics, dystopia, torture, execution pornography, hacking, fear, terrorism... all themes of today's world brought about in an engaging, well-written, thrilling novel. it's alternahistory and future speculative. al gore wins 2000. 9/11 occurred not in NYC but in Boston and Philadelphia. Global warming has quickly wreaked havoc, causing innumerable displacement of people. Pandemics have ravaged the globe. And some huge explosion on the scale of a nuclear bomb has exploded in Scotland, and inspired, terrorists blow up highways and crash planes into airports while skins and average joes attack "Mozzies" (muslims) indiscriminately. Around this is weaved the story of one family headed by a failed scientist cum IT hacker who turns to secretly spying for France while his daughter, an anti-war protester, is caught up in a Web surrounding the Leuchars explosion, having been previously warned by her brother, who is in the British military, that she should flee the area. This little book has a lot going for it, and I recommend it to anyone interested in the above dystopic themes.

Okay, let me start this review by noting that there were some things I did NOT like about this novel. The "execution channel" itself - a TV channel that broadcasts random execution scenes - seems like a plot device that is needed for one punch to the reader's stomach and then discarded. It makes clear how brutal the world depicted in the novel is, but we get that, thank you. The novel also depressed the heck out of me for days. It's a depressing story. The world has gone to the dogs, and lies are weapons of mass distraction that the governments use to obscure their dirty work. When a series of terrorist attacks cripples Britain after a nuclear detonation over a Scottisch airbase, the lies are so thick on the ground you never quite know if the terrorists are Al-Qaeda, someone pretending to be Al-Qaeda, someone run by Al-Qaeda, or all of the above. It's our world as it is today, but worse. And yes, it can get worse. Easily. I'll tell you what this novel is not. It's not preachy; it's indignant. Important difference. It's also not leftie Bush-bashing. It's an angry novel about people being afraid of their government, rather than the other way around. It made me angry. It's also MacLeod's angriest novel since "The Star Fraction" and I, for one, welcome the return of that anger, that justified distaste at the state of the world. I've enjoyed all his novels inbetween that first one and this, his latest one, but they were popcorn compared to the more substantial fare offered here. It's a great novel. It should make you angry too.

9/11 and the Iraq war are history. That was followed by the Iran conflict, a biblical proportional flu pandemic that made 1918 look like a minor statistic, and a geometric increase in terrorist attacks. The Neo-Cons proved right that is dead right even if they forced their prophecy to be fulfilled. In spite of the incredible advances in communication, misinformation and disinformation especially from officials have become the norm. In other words, humanity is in jeopardy of extinction as a now battered paranoid West is considering the nuke option and not just towards its long term enemies; former friends threaten one another with no nation trusting any other. Scottish software engineer James Travis blames much of the global insensitivities and atrocities on the United States. He and his daughter, Roisin, recently witnessed the nuclear bombing of a Scottish airbase. Immediately the spin doctors go to work to spread the gospel of lies and twisted truths by accusing terrorists or claiming an internal accident occurred as the government insists no nukes were fired stunning father and daughter who saw otherwise first hand.. Perhaps the only place a person can learn what really occurred is the rogue EXECUTION CHANNEL where alleged clips of sanctioned murders and executions are shown all day every day, but then again could the group behind that outlet be spinning too for the Bush 43 legacy is the end always justifies the mean. THE EXECUTION CHANNEL is an exhilarating thought provoking science fiction thriller that paints a dismal near future filled with paranoia and atrocities in which the media is used by those in power to tell the "truth" defined as whatever spin they need. The story line is action-packed as the audience will be stunned as much as the Travis duo with what the pair saw vs. the official news accounts. Ken McLeod, extrapolating from real events and technology provides a tense dark pessimistic future legacy. Harriet Klausner