The Night Sessions
Ken MacLeod
324 pages
published in 2008
It was only when Ken ran a blurb on his blog for a promotion event for his new novel, that I realised that I hadn’t read his previous one The Night Sessions yet. So when my sweetie was running an Amazon order anyway and asked me what I wanted as a gift, this is what I asked for. Glad I did too, as it is of the usual high quality I expect from Ken.
You could call The Night Sessions a thematic sequel to The Execution Channel. That novel took place at the height of a decades long extension of the War Against Terror, while this takes place some decades after the end of what’s now called the Faith Wars in the US/UK, the Oil Wars anywhere else. Ended in a defeat for the coalition of the willing, it led to serious political repercussions in the west: the UK has disintegrated, the US is undergoing a second civil war (something Ken has used before) and in Scotland, as elsewhere religion is well and truly disestablished. There’s not just a separation of church and state, but an official constitutional police of no cognisance: the state doesn’t recognise priests, vicars, bishops, mullars or other religious offices, not even on the level of acknowledging their titles. It’s a world that fits in with Ken’s current hardline secularist attitude, as witnessed by his blog.
George Berger
June 12, 2010 at 8:43 amDear Mr. Wisse—I am now reading Mr MacLeod’s “Learning the World,” with great pleasure. It puts a needed smile on my face.
I decided to write to you, since I read your remarks on Crooked Timber last night. I put a few historical comments on line there. I left NL in 09 and now live in Sweden. I am a retired teacher who lived in A’dam for nearly 37 years. I am an avid SF reader and frequent contributer to Ken MacLeod’s blog.