Well holy shit, I was not expecting this. I had never heard of Ken MacLeod before finding out about Newton’s Wake on io9. For years I kept myself to a small group of authors, only occasionally branching out, and then quickly running back to my cave when those works people love (i.e. Dune) couldn’t hold my interest no matter how hard I tried to read them.

This year has been different, I’ve been trying to read as many different authors as I can. Lots of them have been terrible in my opinion; which is why I don’t have 30 ‘what I think about the book posts’. I see no reason to slam a fellow author’s work…So I’ve been reading a lot of different authors and loving it.

I’m glad I’ve been branching out because Newton’s Wake is phenomenal. Everything about it is great. The casual story telling, Carlyle’s who talk like the sophisticated gangsters they are, the giant ideas. Shit, Lucinda even feels like a 25 year old. At first I couldn’t place why she didn’t seem all that grownup, at times showing lack of maturity, and then he mentions her age and the writing instantly became even better. Good job Ken, it’s no small feat making characters that each feel the age they are across a range of ages; instead of the characters feeling the same age even though they’re not.

And I’m really digging these books that don’t go out of their way to explain things in long paragraphs, rather everything just comes together by the end.

I’m definitely looking forward to reading more of Ken’s books.