Subject: Review: The Stone Canal, by Ken MacLeod (1996)

From: [email-masked] (Rich Horton)
Date: 09 Jan 1998 12:02:05 -0500

The Stone Canal, by Ken MacLeod
		Legend, UK, 1996
	Trade Paperback edition: Legend, 1997, =A35.99, ISBN: 0099559013
		Review copyright 1998 by Rich Horton

It's long been true that a lot of the best SF comes from British or
UK-based writers.  Nowadays, frustratingly for those of us in the US, a
lot of very fine SF is being published first in the UK and not until much
later in the US.  Iain M. Banks, Greg Egan, and Terry Pratchett are
examples of this.  Worse, some fine stuff doesn't seem to get published
here at all!  Many of Iain Banks' supposedly non-SF novels and Tom Holt's
later comic fantasies, for instance.  Now here comes another new British
writer, and a very impressive one on the evidence of this novel, who isn't
so far getting published in the US.

_The Stone Canal_ is MacLeod's second novel.  It is apparently related to
his first novel (_The Star Fraction_) and his third novel (_The Cassini
Division_, forthcoming in 1998), but I am told it can be read without
difficulty on its own, and I found it to stand alone just fine.  At a
first brush, MacLeod reads like Iain Banks meets Bruce Sterling.  The
novel's opening, with a somewhat smart-alecky "human-equivalent" robot
briefing a confused newly-awakened man, and its structure, alternating
chapters on different timelines, definitely echo some of Banks's work.
Note that Banks acknowledges MacLeod's help with _Use of Weapons_, in
terms which suggest to me that he may have helped with that book's unusual
structure.  The deeply political concerns, and central character's habit
of talking at length about politics, as well as some of the technology and
the attitude towards technology, reminded me of Sterling and also, in a
different way, Kim Stanley Robinson.  Which is to say, at times this book
is a bit talky.  But in the final analysis, _The Stone Canal_ is a very
original, very impressive novel.  It's true SF, chock full of sense of
wonder concepts, interested in new technology, in future politics, and in
how technology affects politics and human life in general.

The novel opens with a man awakening in the desert of a Mars-like planet,
accompanied by a "human-equivalent" robot.  Soon we meet another robot,
Dee Model, this one a "gynoid" (female android), who has escaped her owner
for whom she was a sex toy, and is proclaiming her autonomy.  The man is
soon revealed to be Jonathan Wilde, a legendary figure of political
resistance among the inhabitants of New Mars, and the gynoid is based on a
clone of Wilde's long-dead wife.  The two encounter each other, and both
end up in the hands of the "abolitionist" movement, which favors freeing
intelligent robots from human slavery.  Soon they are jointly involved in
lawsuits brought by Dee Model's owner, who is Wilde's friend, long time
rival, and apparent murderer, Dave Reid.

This seems like plenty of background for a novel in itself, especially
given the interesting environment of New Mars, with its single City,
5/6ths of which is given over to "wild machines," and with the pervasive
semi-VR technology, the grounds for speculation about the nature of human
vs. machine intelligence, and the semi-anarchist political structure of
the colony.  But in parallel tracks we follow the early life, on roughly
present-day Earth, of Jonathan Wilde, Dave Reid, and the two important
women in their lives: Myra and Annette.  Reid is a diehard Trotskyite
socialist, and Wilde an anarchist and "space nut;" and the tension between
their political views, as well as the tension resulting from their
relationships with the two women, is followed over the decades.  Both men
become very powerful in the decaying near-future environment; as both in
their ways push to open up space travel for people in general.

The two timelines inevitably converge, and the real concern of the novel
comes clear: understanding of the nature of the "fast folk" -- originally
human simulations run on very fast computer hardware -- and understanding
the link between New Mars and Earth.  MacLeod speculates fascinatingly on
nanotechnology, virtual reality, and astrophysics.  Everything is
well-tied together in the end, although in a slightly disappointing
manner.  This is one way in which I rather suspect reading _The Star
Fraction_ might improve this novel, as I gather it may show some more the
nature of MacLeod's future.  The first and last lines of _The Stone
Canal_, by the way, are both stunners, if a bit contrived, as overtly
"stunning" lines often are.  The characters of Wilde and Reid are very
well presented, though the female characters are a bit sketchier.  The
novel's weaknesses are an occasional tendency to talkiness, the rather
familiar setup of the relationship of the main characters, along with
their realization of enormous political power, and the slight flatness of
the ending.  But all in all this is an excellent pure SF novel, and one
which bodes well for a career to watch.  If only a US publisher would pick
up MacLeod!

%A Ken MacLeod
%T The Stone Canal
%I Legend (Random House UK)
%C London
%D 1996
%G ISBN: 0099559013
%P 322 pp.
%O This edition, Trade Paper, 1997, UK=A35.99