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Newton's Wake by Ken Macleod
01/04/2004 . Source: Paul Hanley 
pub: Orbit/Times Warner. 369 page hardback. Price: £17.99 (UK). ISBN: 0-84149-175-6. Buy from Amazon US - Buy from Amazon UK
nb: US titles may only be available from Amazon US, and UK titles from Amazon UK. check out website: www.OrbitBooks.co.uk and www.TimesWarnerBooks.co.uk
'Newton's Wake' is a stand-alone story, self-billed as a space opera. It opens with a team of 'combat archaeologists' exiting a gateway onto a distant world, Eurydice, with the intention of looting a vast and ancient monolith.
The rather inexperienced leader, Lucinda Carlyle, leads them to disaster when machines within the monolith are roused and those of her party not killed by them are mostly finished off by the settlers who arrive in force. Carlyle is captured by the settlers, thanks in part to the treachery of her spacesuit which is run by a downloaded personality of a former human, and who takes this opportunity to escape her control.
Using a personality in this way is regarded by the settlers as akin to slavery. Gradually, it is revealed that centuries before the very distant Earth had effectively been destroyed during the course of a major war between the US and a United Europe.
The settlers are the descendants of people who fled the disaster. Carlyle is a member of the family Carlyle descended from Glasgow gangsters who control the only web of gateways between the stars. They are just two of the groups that survived the 'Hard Rapture' when, as well as nuclear destruction engulfed the old world, it was over run by war machines. These groups are all traceable back to Earth, such as the AOs, standing for Americans Offline who are the descendants of redneck farmers.
The discovery of Eurydice sets in train many such forces all eager to profit from the newly discovered world. Ken Macleod has written a good story which unfolds well from the beginning as an adventure story. The background is slowly revealed to us. The Carlyles are still essentially gangsters after loot who are
determined to cling onto everything they regard as their own. This is also a world where people can be 'downloaded' so should they die the retained personality or human essence, can be downloaded into a new body. Macleod makes this seem quite possible and believable and it enables his characters to return after annihilating experiences. It also enables the personality in the suit, Professor Shlaim, to be reconstituted as a person.
He had been serving 'time' for his alleged responsibility for the Hard Rapture of centuries before. Having been used by the Carlyles for years, he is determined to get his own back and causes as much difficulty for Lucinda Carlyle and her family as he can. Eurydice holds many personalities in stasis and as the threat from a variety of groups, including re-awakened machines from the monolith, begins to group they began to 'thaw out' personalities from the past with military and other appropriate experience.
It becomes clear that many of these wanted to retake the Earth from the machines (Returners) not flee from it. Amongst them, are a pair of folk singers, Winter and Calder, whose old songs roused the human defenders against the machine centuries before. This is a multi-layered tale, told from several viewpoints and in addition to the threats to Eurydice from outsiders, the pressures began to cause problems within the society itself.
Macleod also brings up similar pressures within other groups such as the descendants of Asiatic Communists who terraform worlds. As well as a climax on Eurydice, there is also a final climax on old Earth itself and something of what had occurred long ago is revealed. I though that this started off as a good adventure story with plenty of action. The author skilfully revealed more and more information about the true nature of events and did so in a very readable style.
The technology he deploys is well done and the reader can suspend his or her disbelief and believe that not only will this work but accept the writer's view of how this might effect the society. For instance, the ability to 'reprint' a person's essence onto a new body enables a team under Lucinda Carlyle to contemplate what is otherwise a suicide mission. Those that do die and are 'reborn' do not, of course, have any recollection of the mission as they were 'copied' before the actual mission was undertaken.
Despite this being a possibility, it is an unpleasant experience people are not eager to voluntarily repeat. Whilst I enjoyed the book I have to say that it rather seemed to lose its way towards the end. I did not finding the ending satisfactory. The expected battle on Eurydice was rather a damp squid and the final ending on Earth I found unsatisfactory.
It rather lapsed into wordy explanations that failed to ravel or unravel everything which had gone on in the book. I like space opera. On balance, this was a good read but could have been better, especially the ending.
Paul Hanley 
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