Biography Ken MacLeod Ken MacLeod (born 2 August 1954), an award-winning Scottish science fiction writer, lives in South Queensferry near Edinburgh. He graduated from Glasgow University with a degree in zoology and has worked as a computer programmer and written a masters thesis on biomechanics. His novels often explore socialist, communist and anarchist political ideas, most particularly the variants of Trotskyism and anarcho-capitalism or extreme economic libertarianism. Technical themes encompass singularities, divergent human cultural evolution and post-human cyborg-resurrection. MacLeod's general outlook can be best described as techno-utopian socialist, though unlike a majority of techno-utopians, he has expressed great scepticism over the possibility and especially over the desirability of Strong AI.

He is known for his constant in-joking and punning on the intersection between socialist ideologies and computer programming, as well as other fields. For example, his chapter titles such as "Trusted Third Parties" or "Revolutionary Platform" usually have double (or multiple) meanings. A future programmers union is called "International Workers of the World Wide Web", or the Webblies, a reference to the Industrial Workers of the World, who are nicknamed the Wobblies. There are also many references to, or puns on, zoology and palaeontology. For example in The Stone Canal the title of the book, and many places described in it, are named after anatomical features of marine invertebrates such as starfish.

Bibliography

Fall Revolution series

The Star Fraction (1995; US paperback ISBN 0-7653-0156-3) -- Prometheus Award winner, 1996; Clarke Award nominee, 1996
The Stone Canal (1996; US paperback ISBN 0-8125-6864-8) -- Prometheus Award winner, 1998; BSFA nominee, 1997
The Cassini Division (1998; US paperback ISBN 0-312-87044-2) -- Clarke, and BSFA nominee, 1999 [6]; Nebula Award nominee, 2000
The Sky Road (1999; US paperback ISBN 0-8125-7759-0) BSFA Award winner, 2000 ; Hugo Award nominee, 2001

Engines of Light Trilogy

A series which begins with a first contact story in a speculative mid-21st century where a resurgently socialist USSR (incorporating the European Union) is once again in opposition with the capitalist United States, then diverges into a story told on the other side of the galaxy of Earth-descended colonists trying to establish trade and relations within an interstellar empire of several species who travel from world to world at the speed of light.

Cosmonaut Keep (2000; US paperback ISBN 0-7653-4073-9) -- Clarke Award nominee, 2001 ; Hugo Award nominee, 2002
Dark Light (2001; US paperback ISBN 0-7653-4496-3) -- Campbell Award nominee, 2002
Engine City (2002; US paperback ISBN 0-7653-4421-1)

Other work

Newton's Wake: A Space Opera (2004; US paperback edition ISBN 0-7653-4422-X) -- BSFA and Campbell Awards nominee, 2005 [14]
Learning the World: A Novel of First Contact (2005; UK hardback edition ISBN 1-84149-343-0) Prometheus Award winner 2006; Hugo, Locus SF, BSFA, Campbell and Clarke Awards nominee, 2006 [15]
The Highway Men (2006; UK edition ISBN 1-905207-06-9)
The Execution Channel (2007; UK hardback edition ISBN-10: 1841493481 ISBN-13: 978-1841493480) -- BSFA, Campbell, and Clarke Awards nominee, 2008 [16]
The Night Sessions (2008; UK hardback edition ISBN-10: 1841496510 ISBN-13: 978-1841496511) -- BSFA nominated, 2009 [17]
The Restoration Game (2009)

Short fiction (selection)

The Web Cydonia (1998; UK paperback edition ISBN 1-85881-640-8) collected in Giant Lizards from Another Star
The Human Front (2002) (Winner of Short-form Sidewise Award for Alternate History 2002) collected in Giant Lizards from Another Star
Who's Afraid of Wolf 359? (The New Space Opera, 2007) – nominated for Hugo Award for Best Short Story

Collections

Poems & Polemics (2001; Rune Press: Minneapolis, MN) Chapbook of non-fiction and poetry.
Giant Lizards From Another Star (2006; US trade hardcover ISBN 1-886778-62-0) Collected fiction and nonfiction.

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