Kargadan

The Execution Channel by Ken MacLeod

Ken MacLeod’s new novel takes us from a shocking explosion in a near-future Scotland, to the world of ultra-sophisticated conspiracy bloggers and the shady government operatives who play and spin them. The Travis family lead their own lives, but each of thejm is in some way complicated by the ongoing war on terror. It is all a good enough scheme, but for all the ways in with The Execution Channel is a science fiction novel, even a counter-factual history, it is the resonance with our fucking reality from which it gains vigor and the power to possess.

Usually I find MacLeod’s politics fascinating but alienating. I live in a worl where we fight Nader to get centrist Democrats as our best hedge against apocalyptic corporate servitude from our government. I live in a world where I praise the flawed virtues of mere statist liberal democracy because it seems hard enough to keep in good health. MacLeod’s novels often seem to come from a world I cannot imagine, one that scoffs at the small victories of incrementalism, and those skeptical of revolution.

These times and this novel render all of these discomforts I have with MacLeod into abrasions and lacerations of enlightenment, a gift to see just past the callouses of these years of nonsensical war. MacLeod draws a world that Dick Cheney could masturbate to, full of fear and justification. But this world isn’t quite that world, and somehow it helps to burn anew at rendition and stress positions.

MacLeod’s novel may be ephemeral in its impact, I hope so, but for now it is a 9/10. He blogs.