I’m guessing it was about two weeks ago that I finished reading The Star Fraction by Ken Macleod.
I don’t know what it is about the UK right now, but there’s a lot of neato-keen science fiction coming out of there these days [well, they came out a few years ago, but it’s taken a few years for those books to be published in the States…], popping out of woodworks in all kinds of ways.
SO…. The Star Fraction: a deliriously weird, post-nation state UK, in which the entire country has been fractured (splintered really) into fringe political groups: religious fundies, anarchists, deep earther conservationists, communists, technophobes, technophiles and any other weird fringe political group that you can think of. Add in the heavy paw of the US/UN and a bizarrely separate “Space Command”, whose sole purpose seems to be to defend against the sudden manifestation and generation of computerized artificial intelligence (that is, willing to nuke the planet to prevent it, etc.). The prose is also startlingly lyrical in places. I liked it. And, apart from its occasionally heavy-handed politicking, I think you will too.
Here’s an interview: there’s an interesting bit about human longevity and fiction.
Another interview: talks about being a kid and Russians in Space, among other things. Me, I had the Challenger explosion… I can see how it would be easier to have a more glamorous view of the Space Race back then.
Another interview. This one starts out rather dull but gets more interesting in the last third.