The Star Fraction
MacLeod’s debut novel. Set in a Britain fractured into small territories divided by religion, politics, etc. after a political settlement imposed after the fall of the British republic.
Lead character is Moh Kohn, a mercenary for a trotskyist defence collective who defends technological businesses from attack by militant green and anti-tech groups.
Through a strange combination of memory enhancing drugs, the limited AI of Kohn’s Gun and his father’s software development Kohn finds himself at the centre of the Black Plan and the mysterious Star Fraction.
This is thoroughly enjoyable science fiction. Let down only by a circuituous set up, no real payoff on the Star Fraction of the title and some poorly developed secondary characters. For a first novel, this is brilliant.
I’d recommend it to anyone with a weakness for literate science fiction and a decent awareness of the breadth of political thought.