The Cassini Division

Ken MacLeod is a science-fiction sensation in his native Britain, widely compared to Vernor Vinge, Bruce Sterling, and Iain Banks, but with a storytelling energy all his own. The Cassini Division, his first novel to appear in America, displays his astonishing power and range.

Ellen May Ngewthu is a young woman with centuries of experience, a soldier and leader of the Cassini Division, the elite defense force of the utopian Solar Union. Here in the twenty-fourth century, the forts of the Division, in orbit around a mysteriously transformed Jupiter, are the front line in humanity's long standoff with the unknowable posthumans--godlike and remote beings descended from the people who transformed themselves with high technology centuries ago.

The posthumans' capacities are unknown . . . but we know they disintegrated Ganymede, we know they punched a wormhole into Jovian space, and we know that the very surface of the solar system's largest planet has been altered by their incomprehensible artifacts. Worst of all, we know that they have been bombarding the solar system with powerful data viruses for generations.

Now Ellen has a plan to rid humanity of this threat once and for all. But she needs to recruit the right people to her cause--and convince them to mistrust the posthumans as much as she does.

Her quest will take her to the mid-Atlantic towers of Solar Union Earth, to the green ruins of London, and, in the farthest reaches of human space, to the long-separated libertarian colony of New Mars. In the process, much will be revealed--about history, about power, and about what it is to be human.

As an agent of the elite Cassini Division, Ellen May Ngewthu conceives of a bold plan to stop the incursions of godlike posthumans, whose arrogance nearly destroyed humankind and whose existence still threatens the safety of the Solar Union. Set in the 24th century, MacLeod's third novel features nonstop action and a tough-as-nails protagonist. Large libraries should consider this title for their old-style sf adventure fans.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

A rare but successful fusion of hard SF, space opera and serious political speculation, this is the third novel from MacLeod, who's Scottish, but his first to be published in the U.S. The story takes place in a 24th-century Sol system still recovering from a near-catastrophic clash between humanity and post-humanity, the latter a society of godlike, possibly insane former humans who have uploaded themselves into computers and set up their own civilization on Jupiter. At the center of the narrative stands Ellen May Ngwethu, commander of the spaceship Terrible Beauty and an officer in the Cassini Division. This semiautonomous military organization operates as Earth's frontline defense against the dangerous and enigmatic post-humans. Society on Earth, based on a unique combination of socialist and anarchist beliefs, has achieved a high degree of environmentally responsible prosperity in recent years, but the post-humans on Jupiter are an ever-increasing threat. As the forces of the Cassini Division prepare to destroy the post-humans without warning, Ngwethu finds herself on a dangerous mission through a wormhole to reestablish contact with another potential enemy, the long-lost, libertarian-capitalist interstellar colony of New Mars. Despite heavy doses of political theory, MacLeod generally manages to keep the first half of his novel moving at acceptable speed, aided by solid prose, a strong protagonist and some fascinating bits of high tech. The latter half of the tale, which features a battle in space, complete with comets used as superweapons, is more lively. This is an enjoyable and ambitious novel, and hopefully presages the American publication of MacLeod's earlier work. (July) FYI: MacLeod's first two novels, The Star Fraction and The Stone Canal, each received the Prometheus Award from the Libertarian Futurist Society.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Third novel, but first to reach these shores, from Scotland resident MacLeod. In the 24th century, Ellen May Ngwethu's Cassini Division patrols space around Jupiter, preventing excursions by the Jovians. In past centuries, you see, post-humans who transformed themselves with nanotechnology went crazy and almost destroyed human technical civilization with computer viruses, diseases, and mind-controlling memes. The surviving post-humans took up residence inside Jupiter, while the new, socialist-anarchist Solar Union developed virus-proof, non-electronic nanotechnological Babbage computers. Others, slaves of the post-humans, escaped the conflict through a wormhole to New Mars. Here, first-person narrator Ellen profoundly distrusts the Jovians and also suspects that the capitalist-anarchist New Martians possess downloaded copies of post-humans who, if woken, could pose the same threat as the Jovians (they live a thousand times as fast as humans and so have progressed unimaginably far). Ellen needs to control the wormhole, which was created by the post-humans from physics described by I. K. Malley. She grabs Malley from his tiny enclave on Earth, but he refuses to help her wipe the Jovians out without first attempting to communicate with them. The beautiful, ethereal Jovians respond through a consensus construct, providing information and reassurances. Ellen isn't convinced, though, and proceeds with her plans to bombard Jupiter with comets before taking her ship though the wormhole to New Mars. The New Martians are contemptuously confident that they can handle the Jovians, and they propose to go back through the wormhole to trade with them! So, if the comets strike and Ellen is wrong, an entire advanced civilization will die. But if the comets are diverted, and she's right, the Jovians will destroy humanity and enslave the survivors. Deliciously ironic, brilliantly imagined, MacLeod's witty and intelligent yarn packs a tremendous wallop. More, please! -- Copyright ©1999, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.