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Ken MacLeod

The Execution Channel: Novel Paperback – 13 March 2008

by Ken MacLeod (Author)

21 ratings

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Now in A format.

Ken MacLeod's most relevant and accessible novel to date.

Fighting has spread across the Middle East and Central Asia to the borders of China. In the US, refugees from climate-change disaster subsist in FEMA camps. Images of official executions circulate on the Internet like al Qaeda videos. State agencies sponsor conspiracy theories as cover-ups. As the troops of the last superpower stand astride the last of the oil, China and Russia aren't the only states considering their options: certain nations of Old Europe are quietly preparing for the worst.

James Travis is a middle-aged middle manager in a software company. He has a son in the army, a daughter in a peace-protest camp outside a USAF base, and a compromising relationship with a foreign intelligence service. When his cover is blown hours before a nuclear explosion destroys the base, Travis, his son, and his daughter are all in serious trouble. And as the spooks and disinformation specialists focus their efforts on his capture, Travis knows that all it will take is one mistake and his only memorial will be another grainy video on ... The Execution Channel

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Product details

Publisher : Orbit; 1st edition (13 March 2008)
Language : English
Paperback : 416 pages
ISBN-10 : 184149349X
ISBN-13 : 978-1841493497
Dimensions : 17 x 2.8 x 18.2 cm

Customer Reviews:
21 ratings

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Review

A master of politically charged sf, MacLeod channels our contemporary preoccupation with terrorism into an engulfing stream of espionage and international intrigue. -- BOOKLIST

Ken MacLeod's novels are fast, funny and sophisticated. There can never be enough books like these. -- KIM STANLEY ROBINSON

Science fiction's freshest new writer...MacLeod is a fiercely intelligent, prodigously well-read author who manages to fill his books with big issues without weighing them down. -- SALON

Ken MacLeod's The Execution Channel starts like a techno-thriller "ripped from tomorrow's headlines", a thrilling, fast-moving tale of suspense rife with paranoia and multiple conspiracy theories. However, it's deeper and more thoughtful than most thrillers. MacLeod vividly and economically portrays an all-too-plausible world in which war has spread across the Middle East and Central Asia; millions of Americans live in FEMA concentration camps due to climate change; the British Government is considering deporting all Muslims, and what's really happening is hidden in a blizzard of disinformation and propaganda. This is politically engaged, speculative fiction at its finest, with a conclusion that's absolutely mind-blowing. ― THE TIMES

Politically engaged, speculative fiction at its finest, with a conclusion that's absolutely mind-blowing ― The Times

Jaw-droppingly audacious ― SFX

A very good book, perhaps the best Ken MacLeod has written to date . . . The Execution Channel is an extraordinary novel ― STRANGE HORIZONS

Review

Ken MacLeod's The Execution Channel starts like a techno-thriller "ripped from tomorrow's headlines", a thrilling, fast-moving tale of suspense rife with paranoia and multiple conspiracy theories. However, it's deeper and more thoughtful than most thrillers. MacLeod vividly and economically portrays an all-too-plausible world in which war has spread across the Middle East and Central Asia; millions of Americans live in FEMA concentration camps due to climate change; the British Government is considering deporting all Muslims, and what's really happening is hidden in a blizzard of disinformation and propaganda. This is politically engaged, speculative fiction at its finest, with a conclusion that's absolutely mind-blowing. - THE TIMES

Politically engaged, speculative fiction at its finest, with a conclusion that's absolutely mind-blowing - The Times

Jaw-droppingly audacious - SFX

A very good book, perhaps the best Ken MacLeod has written to date . . . The Execution Channel is an extraordinary novel - STRANGE HORIZONS

5 star		30%
4 star		29%
3 star		9%
2 star		6%
1 star		27%

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Simon Stebbings

Lacking any real intelligence

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 21 November 2017

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I had no idea what was going on for the first part of the book, with no clear grounding when jumping between characters. Then it seemed like there was potential for something interesting to happen... but when the writer finally divulges what is happening in the last few pages, it turns out that there wasn't any real intelligence behind the story after all - quite the most ridiculous ending to any sci-fi book I've ever read: Dan Brown meets Dr Who!
Throw in a poorly disguised political rant in the middle and I was left feeling severely short-changed by the end of the book.

Amazon Customer

A return to top form.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 3 June 2008

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This is MacLeod's best book since "The Cassini Division". Everything he writes is worth reading, but with the exception of "Newton's Wake" his last few books have seemed a bit staid and lacking in the real passion of his earlier work.

No-one could accuse "The Execution Channel" of being a passionless work, it's filled with righteous anger at the amoral cynicism of the War Against Terror, and the corrosive effect this has on the morality of everyday life.

There is a splendidly complex conspiratorial plot and plenty of action to speed along the storyline, and the novel finishes with a terrifically uncompromising Hard SF finale, which has enough optimism and faith in the future of humanity to wipe out the sour taste of government corruption and brutality.

4 people found this helpful

Peter Bjørn Hansen

Massive disappointment. Holds you in an iron grip, and then utterly fizzes out.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 21 April 2009

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Starts as an iron-grip political sci fi, that is MacLeods signature genre, but is totally shattered in the last 40 pages of the book, with story elements that are loose ends and an ending that I cannot understand, or fathom was done at all.

I expected more from Ken than this. To this day, I cannot decide whether he did a "piss-take" on his audience, whether he got tired of the writing and threw in whatever he could grasp and the time. or if it was mis-categorized, and should have "political comedy".

One person found this helpful

osmonde

different

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 23 August 2015

Verified Purchase

Enjoyable, different sci-fi; a little disappointed towards the end

Roobarb

One Star

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 29 October 2017

Verified Purchase

Garbage complete garbage with pathetic ending/twist. Very disappointed

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The Execution Channel: Novel Paperback – 13 March 2008

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