Line #36 Creator/KenMacLeod


1	[[quoteright:275:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/rsz_ken_macleod.png]]
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3	Ken [=MacLeod=] is a Scottish science fiction writer. His works include the Literature/FallRevolution series, the Engines of Light trilogy, and numerous stand-alone novels.
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5	The Engines of Light trilogy consists of:
6	* ''Cosmonaut Keep''
7	* ''Dark Light''
8	* ''Engine City''
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10	His novels ''The Sky Road'', ''Cosmonaut Keep'', and ''Learning the World'' were nominated for the UsefulNotes/HugoAward, and ''The Cassini Division'' was nominated for a UsefulNotes/{{Nebula\|Award}}.
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12	Went to school with fellow Scottish science-fiction writer Creator/IainBanks, and remained good friends.
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14	Not to be confused with Music/KevinMacLeod.
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17	!!Works by Ken [=MacLeod=] with their own trope page include:
18	[[index]]
19	* The ''Literature/FallRevolution'' series[[note]]''The Star Fraction'', ''The Stone Canal'', ''The Cassini Division'', ''The Sky Road''[[/note]]
20	[[/index]]
21
22	!!His other works provide examples of:
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24	* AdventurerArchaeologist: Lucinda Carlyle from ''Newton's Wake'' is a self-described "combat archaeologist." This involves mostly jumping through wormholes and gunning down post-singularity alien robots.
25	* AlternativeNumberSystem: In ''Learning the World'', the aliens are four-fingered, and count in base 8. When they learn that humans use base 10, their reaction is that having a base that isn't a power of two must be awfully inconvenient.
26	* ArcWords: In ''The Night Sessions'': "capitalism with Russian characteristics" (rule of the BIZNESMENI); "boots in the pews".
27	* AsteroidMiners: Asteroid miners don't actually make an appearance in ''Newton's Wake'', but the folk duo play some of their work songs.
28	* BigBrotherIsWatching:
29	** A defining element of ''Intrusion''.
30	** Played with in ''The Star Fraction'', where one of Jordan's rants points out that Little Brother is watching.
31	* EternalEnglish: ''Learning The World'' takes place 14,000 years in the future, by which time it seems virtually certain that English will have changed drastically, in the unlikely event that anything that could be called English still exists at all. Despite this, an important plot point hinges on the fact that the word "bug" could mean either "insect" or "spying device".
32	* FasterThanLightTravel: ''Newton's Wake'' features both a network of wormholes (called the Skein), and starships with warp drives (which are ridiculously expensive to build, but nonetheless possessed by every major galactic power). Both are based on technology left behind by super-human intelligences after a particularly violent technological singularity.
33	* FirstContact: The entire plot of ''Learning the World''.
34	%%* FutureImperfect
35	* ImmortalImmaturity: Lampshaded in ''Newton's Wake''; a rejuvenated woman says people like her just get a bit "cannier", and passes the rest of it off as fatigue poisons and neural decay.
36	* KrakenAndLeviathan: the kraken are an alien race in the Engines of Light trilogy
37	* ManipulativeBastard: Not only are Volkov and Matt Cairns in The Engines of Light this, despite their frequent ideological and personal cross-purposes, but the "gods" in their collective relations with the lesser races are Manipulative Bastards.
38	* NoTranshumanismAllowed: Averted in several of his books.
39	* ARealManIsAKiller: In ''Dark Light'' the characters come to the planet Croatan (Yes, it's where the Roanoke colonists went), where the population is divided into three cultures: "Christians" (Post-Industrial Revolution Victorians), "Heathens" (Autochthonous people with a cottage craft system capable of producing highly complex creations), and "Savages" (Hunter Gatherers who live on the outskirts of the actual civilization). The Heathens have a sort of gender-caste system, where gender is not determined by actual sex, but by conduct and career. The ritual to "become a man" involves the Heathens going out and killing a "Savage".
40	* {{Ruritania}}: The Former Soviet Autonomous Region of Krassnia in ''The Restoration Game''. The book is mostly set in [[TheNewTens the present]], in which Krassnia is a bit of the Georgia/Chechnya border with its own language and dreams of independence, but has extensive {{Flashback}}s to Krassnia under the Soviets in TheThirties and TheEighties and as part of the [[UsefulNotes/TsaristRussia Russian Empire]] in TheEdwardianEra. The name is a ShoutOut to an allegory by J.B.S. Haldane, in which the Republic of Krassnia has "materialism" as a state religion, and this very much informs the character of [=MacLeod=]'s Krassnia.
41	* SelkiesAndWereseals: Selkies are one of many varieties of "changed" human in the ''Engines of Light'' trilogy.
42	* TheSingularity: Addressed in several works, including ''Newton's Wake''.
43	* SpySpeak: In ''The Restoration Game'', this is how Ross Stewart exchanges briefcases with his [[{{Ruritania}} Krassnian]] contact; a brief sign/countersign about cigarettes followed by a complete non sequitur just to be on the safe side.
44	* SinisterSurveillance: in ''Intrusion''. Of course, it's all for our own good...
45	* {{Ultraterrestrials}}: The Engines of Light trilogy is set in the Second Sphere, an area of space colonized by successive waves of intelligent Earth-evolved life forms, starting with hyperintelligent giant squid, and uplifted dinosaurs. Who fly around in saucers and happen to look a lot like [[TheGrays grays]].
46	* ViolentGlaswegian: The 'Bloody Carlyles' in ''Newton's Wake''.

Context Creator / KenMacLeod