The new Paul McAuley novel has been getting favorable attention in various places. I found a copy at the Clute’s, read the back cover blurb, and promptly went out to Waterstones to bag my own before heading out to the US. The blurb talks enthusiastically of “gene wizards”, “scientific utopias” and “who decides what it means to be human?” It sounds rather like a marriage of Charlie Stross and Ken MacLeod. Actually, of course, it is a Paul McAuley novel, and while it might address themes of extropianism and politics, it does so in McAuley’s own way.

In particular the novel ends up having quite a lot to say about the “current situation” (to steal a term from the book). I shall be using the herring gull analogy myself on many occasions, I suspect. Furthermore, the book is packed full of interesting ideas about how humans might colonize the moons of Jupiter, Saturn and Uranus. If ever anyone asks you to provide an example of a “hard biology” SF novel, you can point them at The Quiet War.