Is art political?

That’s probably too big a question to open a review with, but if we can answer that, we can get to why my thoughts on Ken MacLeod’s debut series fall the way they do.

I don’t think art is inherently political. Sometimes a nice drawing of a tree is just that. A drawing of a tree. It’s not necessarily a comment on deforestation or ecological policies. People who say all art is inherently political will go on to tangle themselves up in arguments about how having access to trees is the result of politics, and thus the drawing of a tree is political. Yo that I say phooey. I think there’s a real conflation of politics and culture going on in the worlds today that is the source of many of our current problems. But that’s not really an issue to be discussed on a science fiction blog.

Is science fiction political? I hear you ask. Again, I have to say the answer is not always. Certainly, there is plenty of science fiction out there that has no deliberate political message. However, there is also a lot that does. Why? Because a large part of science fiction relies on worldbuilding. And if we’re building a world, we have to build cultures, and cultures include politics. A lot of the very best science fiction wrangles with politics and political issues at a foundational level. I love science fiction that tackles the big questions.

However, something I’m rather less keen on is when science fiction relies too much on real-world politics. Just look at how the Vietnam War was instrumental in the birth of military SF. The stories are still good, often great, but for people born long after the War in question ended, and for whom it was never taught in schools, the bluntness of the allegory (if there is even an allegory) results in a less effective story. By all means, give me a story about how democracies struggle with the balance between competing ideologies, but if you start throwing Republicans, Plaid Cymru, Liberal Democrats, or the CCP around willy-nilly, I’m going to be less interested than if you’d created something original. I read science fiction for the exploration of ideas, not to hear your thoughts on real-world political parties.

Ken MacLeod clearly disagrees with me. Politics featured heavily in his standalone Newton’s Wake, and now that I go back to his debut work, I can see that it was even stronger when he started out. The Fall Revolution series is all about different political ideologies, all stemming from or obviously based on real-world groups. To it’s credit, The Star Fraction tells a somewhat interesting tale with these components. There is at least a narrative going on. Far from the best I’ve ever read, but also a long way off being the worst.

Unfortunately, The Stone Canal is where everything falls apart. If you want to read about people having sex with robots while they debate the benefits of Leninism, then this is the boo for you. If you’d rather read a good book, then look elsewhere. About the only good thing I have to say about this book, beyond the fact that the spelling and grammar is in top form, is that I can’t quite identify MacLeod’s personal political beliefs in the text. This is not a preachy novel. Instead it’s a messy and unhinged grumble about just about everything, from communism to capitalism. This is an angry and nihilistic book that includes such delights as Germany starting the Third World War by invading Ukraine, and a tyrannical United Nations threatening everyone with nuclear annihilation. In the hands of some authors I can think of, this would read like a conspiracy manifesto. From MacLeod, it just feels simultaneously ridiculous and tedious.

I would have given up on the series then and there, had I not already purchased the final book in the series. No, I don’t own the third, but the fourth is actually an alternate sequel to the first. Hey, if Stephen Baxter can get away with it, why not other people? It’s not the unholy mess of the second, but The Sky Road does continue the trend of meandering rants and nonsensical future histories. It’s as unpleasant as it is unenjoyable.

Newton’s Wake gave me hope of having found a new author to explore science fiction with. The Fall Revolution proves that hope to be false. The saving grace of reading the books in this order is the witnessed proof that MacLeod improved over time.