| Ken MacLeod | |
|---|---|
Addressing the 63rd World Science Fiction Convention, Glasgow, August 2005 |
|
| Born | 2 August 1954 Stornoway, Isle of Lewis, Scotland |
| Occupation | Writer |
| Genres | science fiction |
|
Influences
|
|
|
kenmacleod.blogspot.com |
|
Ken MacLeod (born 2 August 1954), is a Scottish science fiction writer. MacLeod was born in Stornoway.[1] He graduated from Glasgow University with a degree in zoology and has worked as a computer programmer and written a masters thesis on biomechanics.[2] His novels often explore socialist, communist and anarchist political ideas, most particularly the variants of Trotskyism (MacLeod was a Trotskyist activist in the 1970s and early 1980s[3]) and anarcho-capitalism or extreme economic libertarianism. Technical themes encompass singularities, divergent human cultural evolution and post-human cyborg-resurrection. MacLeod's general outlook can be best described as techno-utopian socialist,[4][5] though unlike a majority of techno-utopians, he has expressed great scepticism over the possibility and especially over the desirability of Strong AI.
He is known for his constant in-joking and punning on the intersection between socialist ideologies and computer programming, as well as other fields. For example, his chapter titles such as "Trusted Third Parties" or "Revolutionary Platform" usually have double (or multiple) meanings. A future programmers union is called "International Workers of the World Wide Web", or the Webblies, a reference to the Industrial Workers of the World, who are nicknamed the Wobblies. The Webblies idea formed a central part of the novel For the Win by Cory Doctorow and MacLeod is acknowledged as coining the term.[6] There are also many references to, or puns on, zoology and palaeontology. For example in The Stone Canal the title of the book, and many places described in it, are named after anatomical features of marine invertebrates such as starfish.
He is part of a new generation of British science fiction writers, who specialise in hard science fiction and space opera. His contemporaries include Stephen Baxter, Iain M. Banks, Alastair Reynolds, Adam Roberts, Charles Stross, Richard Morgan and Liz Williams.
Macleod is married and has two children.[1] He lives in South Queensferry near Edinburgh.
Contents |
This series is also available in two volumes:
A series which begins with a first contact story in a speculative mid-21st century where a resurgently socialist USSR (incorporating the European Union) is once again in opposition with the capitalist United States, then diverges into a story told on the other side of the galaxy of Earth-descended colonists trying to establish trade and relations within an interstellar empire of several species who travel from world to world at the speed of light.
(incomplete selection)
The Science Fiction Foundation have published an analysis of MacLeod's work The True Knowledge Of Ken MacLeod (2003; ISBN 0-903007-02-9) edited by Andrew M. Butler and Farah Mendlesohn. As well as critical essays it contains material by MacLeod himself, including his introduction to the German edition of Banks' Consider Phlebas.
| Preceded by James White |
ESFS award for Best Author 2000 |
Succeeded by Valerio Evangelisti |