But MacLeod's future also contains anarchocapitalists. The protagonist, Ellen May Ngwethu, is a trusted member of the Cassini Division, who personally remembers the global struggle to overthrow capitalism. Beyond such allusions, MacLeod's use of language is playful in the best way, starting with the title, which turns out to be the name of the only elite military force in a communist anarchist solar system, chosen as a joking reference to the dark band in Saturn's rings. Other literary sources are echoed as well for example, the protagonist's spaceship is named Terrible Beauty from a poem by William Butler Yeats. To start with a small point, the allusiveness, Macleod's chapter titles are a series of tributes to classic works of science fiction and utopianism, starting with Looking Backward and eventually reaching In the Days of the Comet.

In any ordinary year it would be the obvious choice for the award in 1999, it will make the choice even harder as it goes up against the other obvious choices that came out in a year of literary delights. It offers a vision of a radically different (and hard sf) future, its political themes are clearly libertarian, and it's also a sophisticated piece of writing in a wittily allusive prose style. David Langford, .The Cassini Division is everything LFS members look for in a Prometheus Award nominee. Witty, skillful, provocative, but just a trifle too glibly resolved. In a climax of slam-bang space battle, MacLeod crashes the ongoing ethical debate into a brick wall and leaves you gasping. But the Division's political philosophy is brutally tough, with alarming plans to use a planet-wrecking doomsday weapon against 'enemies,' who may not be hostile at all.

Her wild doings in the 24th century's anarcho-socialist utopia make for fun reading-everyone will covet her smart-matter clothing that can become a spacesuit, combat outfit, evening gown, or satellite dish at will. Enter heroine Ellen May Ngwethu of the Cassini Division, an elite space-going force created to defend against the fast-folk.

Most relevant is book two, which established a colony on the remote world of New Mars via a spatial wormhole created by superhumans-transcendent machine-hosted intelligences called the 'fast-folk.' The original fast-folk crashed from too much contemplation of their metaphorical navels, but their descendants on Jupiter still harass Earth with virus transmissions that have killed off computers and the Internet. With his third novel, Ken MacLeod elaborates on the future timeline from his first two works, The Star Fraction (1995) and The Stone Canal (1996).

The cassini division ken macleod