Ken speaks
Top Scottish SF author and blogger Ken MacLeod takes that oft-asked question at conventions and author signings "where do you get your ideas from?" and decides to run with it over on his blog The Early Days of a Better Nation (a title taken from the great Scots writer and artist Alasdair Gray), allowing those of us who couldn't be at the recent Boskone convention to read his guest of honour speech.
It is relatively light on the old politics, which is understandable since Ken has used a fair bit of politics in his work over the years and is often now labelled as the political SF writer (or "Trotskyist libertarian cybperpunk" writer as he puts it) as if that is all there is to his multi-faceted work. Besides Ken has never been a preachy writer - when he does use politics it is in the service of the story or the world-building for his tale rather than a diatribe and his later works have arguably less overt politics in them, or at least a more generalised politics (politics with a small 'P' perhaps).
Since he has dealt with that one aspect of his work many times he is instead exploring some of the many other influences on his work, from his childhood on the island of Lewis through discovering the great philosophers to his time as a student of biology. It is fascinating reading even if you are not familiar with Ken's work - and if you are not then you have a serious gap in your bookshelves because every SF bookshelf requires some Ken MacLeod in my opinion - and even more interesting if you are familiar (his intelligent space-faring Kraken as seen in Cosmonaut Keep being a clear example of his biology studies interests coming up - actually what is it with SF writers and giant squid? Jules Verne, Ken MacLeod, Jeff VanderMeer... there's a paper in there for some enterprising lit student).
It is relatively light on the old politics, which is understandable since Ken has used a fair bit of politics in his work over the years and is often now labelled as the political SF writer (or "Trotskyist libertarian cybperpunk" writer as he puts it) as if that is all there is to his multi-faceted work. Besides Ken has never been a preachy writer - when he does use politics it is in the service of the story or the world-building for his tale rather than a diatribe and his later works have arguably less overt politics in them, or at least a more generalised politics (politics with a small 'P' perhaps).
Since he has dealt with that one aspect of his work many times he is instead exploring some of the many other influences on his work, from his childhood on the island of Lewis through discovering the great philosophers to his time as a student of biology. It is fascinating reading even if you are not familiar with Ken's work - and if you are not then you have a serious gap in your bookshelves because every SF bookshelf requires some Ken MacLeod in my opinion - and even more interesting if you are familiar (his intelligent space-faring Kraken as seen in Cosmonaut Keep being a clear example of his biology studies interests coming up - actually what is it with SF writers and giant squid? Jules Verne, Ken MacLeod, Jeff VanderMeer... there's a paper in there for some enterprising lit student).
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