Propulsive is an understatement here—BEYOND THE HALLOWED SKY has so much velocity it tore a hole in my brain. MacLeod drops the hammer at around the third page and doesn't let up until the final paragraph. Looking forward to wherever the Lightspeed trilogy jumps next.

I read this novel in preparation for an interview with the author.

Beyond the Hallowed Sky begins with a mystery and a scientific discovery. Brilliant scientist Lakshmi Nayak receives in the post a letter from an unknown source in Kabul. That is strange enough, but when Lakshmi looks at it, she finds a mystery equation.

Nayak discovers that the letter has been sent to her by herself. It contains equations that suggest that Faster-Than-Light (FTL) travel is possible. Excitedly, Nayak checks the formula, which appears to work. However, when sharing with her established peers, instead of being lauded, Nayak finds herself attacked, both professionally and personally.

The story then moves forward three years and broadens to take in the consequences of this through other character’s perspectives.

The reason why Nayak’s discovery was not well-received globally was that FTL travel was not new, nor as revolutionary as she/we thought. China, Russia and the US have actually known about FTL for decades but kept it jealously as a secret. Any scientist who has by chance discovered the concept has conveniently gone quiet or even disappeared. Nayak herself goes into hiding in Scotland.

This allows the reader to observe the future political situation. As Nayak escapes to Scotland, we find that much of Europe (including Scotland) and the US are part of a Union, whilst Britain steadfastly adheres to the Alliance, a grouping of countries including India. In addition, there’s the Co-ordinated States made up of Russia, China and their dependencies. As today, none of these groups trust each other, which has led to a complex Cold War type scenario.

What the reader then discovers is that, unknown to most, scientists have travelled in secret to other Earth-like planets using FTL. The novel then goes to the planet Apis, where scientist Emma Hazeldene is part of a scientific research expedition.  Emma and her colleagues have been on Apis for over fifteen years, although they are not the only people there. Defectors and deserters known as Exiles also live a shadowy existence away from the scientific base. Emma and her colleagues discover and make contact with an alien lifeform, although the Exiles have been there first.

Back on Earth, John Grant was an active participant of the revolution known as the Rising. Now a submarine builder on the Clyde, near the Alliance Faslane defence base. His son Myles is newly returned to Dunoon from university, his partner Ellen is working on building the Nordzee Barrier across the North Sea, a consequence of dealing with climate change. Whilst working there, Grant sees a submarine disappear in front of his eyes, which suggests that there’s something going on.




We then take an abrupt left turn to Venus, where Cloud City hovers above the planet. Here Union and Alliance live together exploring Venus’s surface. Much of this part of the book is focused upon Alliance Secret agent Marcus Owen, who is also a human-form robot, who goes to Venus on a mission - to ensure that the scientific communities do not uncover a major secret on the planet’s surface.




As usual, Ken does a good job of juggling these different characters and perspectives before having them interlink. Ken’s stories usually reflect political and social issues as well as the science fictional ones, and so it is here. The different viewpoints give us a mosaic picture of the future and are, by turns, exciting, mysterious and dangerous. Throughout all of this, though, there are a number of key themes underlying the character’s actions. There are some interesting consequences of Climate change, COVID-like epidemics and a Union Artificial Intelligence named Iskander that has integrated itself into social norms are all involved in this future setting.

Socially there’s much talk of movement, migrants and refugees, with various characters moving to different places by choice or by being forced to move, which clearly echoes current earth-bound issues today, but unlike some recent novels Ken doesn’t hammer the points home repeatedly. They’re there but not overstated.

As this is the first book in a trilogy, it shouldn’t be too much of a surprise to find that there is a fair amount of scene setting in the novel, although to be fair it never feels particularly forced. As this is the first book of a trilogy, don’t expect everything to be resolved, but by the end things are motoring along nicely. The ending is exciting and brings much to an appropriate point, whilst also setting up elements to be continued in the future books.

Big themes, alien contact, a range of people and planets, political manoeuvring, social commentary – it’s all here. Beyond the Hallowed Sky is the work of a proficient writer who brings us a view of an intriguing future with a diverse range of characters. Great read, and a series I look forward to continuing.

Empecé la lectura de la nueva obra de Ken MacLeod con mucho interés, porque me apasiona la idea de recibir mensajes de tu yo futuro como base de una novela. Esto implica muchas cosas, como que el viaje en el tiempo sea posible y claro, mientras no hayas mandado esa información tienes la inmortalidad “asegurada” (ya sé que estas afirmaciones son totalmente discutibles, pero son una consecuencia “lógica” del escenario que plantea el autor). Uno de los personajes que conforman el nutrido elenco de Beyond the Hallowed Sky, recibe este mensaje con una demostración de que el viaje más rápido que la luz es posible, con todo lo que ello implica.


MacLeod no se conforma con este comienzo, si no que también nos plantea un futuro con tres grandes potencias que se reparten el poder en la Tierra, robots indistinguibles de los seres humanos (ni ellos mismos saben que lo son), inteligencias artificiales, aliens de tecnología indescifrable… Vamos, unas premisas de gran novela. Pero, por desgracia, el desarrollo de los acontecimientos y del libro en sí no alcanzan las expectativas que yo misma me había creado.

Las tres potencias de las que hablaba antes juegan en un tablero claramente desigual, ya que dos de ellas cuentan con una ventaja tan claramente desequilibrante que es casi una broma pensar que la otra pueda hacerles frente. Estamos más bien ante un teatrillo para que puedan seguir con su “agenda oculta”. La trama de espionaje es bastante floja o al menos así me lo parece, porque el principal operativo que realiza las misiones “secretas” es menos discreto que James Bond mezclado con la vieja del visillo, algo imperdonable.

Quizá es más interesante la trama de primer contacto, pero es precisamente la menos desarrollada de toda la novela, dejando mucho para la segunda entrega de la serie. El autor escocés prefiere presentar una inteligencia alienígena cognoscible, aunque tan eminentemente superior que la humanidad es menos amenazante que un bebé que alza sus manos hacia las estrellas.

Espero que el siguiente libro, con los personajes ya establecidos y el escenario ya presentado consiga atraparme un poco más, porque con esta primera entrega MacLeod no ha conseguido engancharme.

This is book one of a trilogy and, although this episode ends at a decent place, the story is far from over. We begin with a scientist who gets a letter from herself explaining how faster-than-light (FTL) travel IS possible. She publishes it with a view to seeing how possible it is and, well, that goes a bit wrong, she is shunned and her career plummets. But the paradox. How could she send the letter if... well... it's all a bit timey wimey (to steal from Dr Who).
Meanwhile we also meet a guy who builds submarines and who follows the possibility of FTL, even having evidence and, well, long story short, offers to build her FTL drive into one of his submarines.
But here's the crux. FTL travel has already been around for a while and we meet a bunch of people who are (literally) living proof of this having colonised a planet outwith our solar system. And then there's a colony on Venus being spied on by a rather clever sentient AI. All these are a bit interconnected and sometimes take a bit to get to grips with but there's a few "aha" moments!
Sounds a bit convoluted... well... it kinda is. And the first half sort of got a bit bogged down in itself setting all of this up. But, and here's the crux. After starting and giving up a couple of times, I cleared my decks and really gave it a long decent chance and, well, what do you know, after the bumpy (to me) start, about half way through it really just took off for me. And I actually "got" the characters and started caring about what happened to them. OK so most of the sciency stuff was a bit out of my league but I don't think that mattered and I was well able to just accept a bunch of stuff as "it just is" and move on with the story, rather than question everything.
As the first book in a trilogy, as also with a series, you expect there to be a fair amount of setting up, introducing, and world building. This book did not buck that trend but it was nothing too much. That said, I would expect the second book, the middle third, to pick the ball up and run with it. Hopefully it won't be too long coming.
My thanks go to the Publisher and Netgalley for the chance to read this book.

More speculative fiction than sci-fi, it's a compelling and entertaining story that I enjoyed.
There's politics, classic sci-fi, physics and a cast of interesting characters.
Good world building and plot development.
I'm not a fan of the storytelling, a bit flat at times
Recommended.
Many thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for this ARC, all opinions are mine

This was such a good book! There were so many things packed into those 320 pages. There was a little bit of everything for an everyday reader, if I am being honest. There’s science fiction, a little bit of a thriller and political intrigue along with first contact as cherry on the top. The characters were fleshed out and the plot itself was intriguing.

A letter from the future arrives at a young scientist’s address and at first, she’s completely baffled as to what the calculations might mean because it’s in her handwriting and she does not remember any of them being done in her life. They were also highly impossible in her present time as far as she could think. Still, thinking it was truly one of her calculations that she, incredibly, forgot, she presents it to her professor and unfortunately, it then makes rounds around her peers and she’s ridiculed for the idea of FTL that she’s calculated for. However, unbeknownst to her, FTL has been found for quite a while and has even been implemented already.

This is just enough to tempt a person into reading this, right? Well, guess what? There’s more. So much more. The first half of the book was a bit of a jumble for me, if I am being honest. There were multiple POVs and locations that we were given a view of quite abruptly and it took a while for me to get used to it. The second half is where I really started getting invested in what was happening. I feel like now that I know how the book is structured, I might be able to enjoy the next books more? Also, the characters are familiar, that’s always a plus!

We see FTL being realised from calculations to FTL submarine being built, there’s POV from a colonized planet that makes things far more interesting than I thought and there’s a AI/ robot spying on one of the cities. It’s truly fun once you get the hang of how the book is structured. I think that’s the only reason I have given this one 3.5 stars instead of a solid 4 star? Because everything else worked for me. Sure it took a while for the first half of the book to grow on me but the thing is, I read a lot of fantasy series and the first books are almost always a little hard to read. The setup and everything takes a bit to get used to.

Overall, I really enjoyed the ideas presented in this book because more often than not, you see books where space travel is so easy and old and taken for granted whereas this one offers a unique perspective. I really want to see where this series goes in terms of scope.

Science fiction, time travel and physics!

I was really intrigued by the concept of the book and so decided to request it. I have seen this author's name around, but have never read any of their books, so this was a new and cool experience! It's interesting because this book focused more on the actual faster than light travel and based everything around it, rather than just having planetary politics, which was frankly refreshing for me.
The characters and plot I enjoyed, but the writing fell a little flat for me personally. It was quite info-dumpy at times and felt quite dense. Still, the plot and characters made up for it. This was an interesting read, and I may just pick up other books by this author!

Thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for an e-arc!

Every since his debut The Star Fraction Ken Macleod has made it his mission to write the future of Scotland into his work, and so it is here in what is one of the first overtly post-Brexit works of sci-fi. In 2070 the world is split between the Union ( Europe including Scotland), the Alliance (England, the US, India) and the Co-ord (Russia and China). Macleod sets three plots in motion: in Scotland a mathematician proves that faster than light travel is possible; on colonised exoplanet Apis the authorities struggle with a first contact scenario; and on Venus a scientific outpost is infiltrated by a spy determined to keep a lid on new discoveries on the surface.All these events are happening at the same time - and the cleverness of this novel’s construction is the working out of the contradictions between the three. If an FTL drive is being now developed in Scotland, how can a colonised planet have been already reached using it? If aliens are already talking to humanity on Apis, then what is the point of trying to cover up evidence of their existence on Venus?

His strengths of well-drawn characters - from a Clyde shipbuilder to a robot spy -and a lightness of touch in the writing are well in place. The first half of this novel however can at times be slightly indigestible - the plots are not only disconnected, they appear to be mutually exclusive. The second half brings them together and resolves these tensions in an extremely satisfactory way - and as with all his work he speculates about politics as much as technology.

This is the first part of a trilogy, and perhaps the ending is a little more open and inconclusive than a standalone novel. There’s plenty of literal and figurative space to explore in parts two and three. Macleod is perhaps a voice to value particularly now: rather than succumb to dystopian themes his futures tend to contain the possibility of positive change.

I enjoyed this a lot. But I have a problem. I’m not sure that part of what I enjoyed about it is something that’s going to travel (ironically enough). A good third of the novel is set in and around the Firth of Clyde in Scotland and a definite part of the pleasure of the book for me was to see the countryside where I grew up featured so heavily, particularly as it featured the area’s shipbuilding heritage finding a revived future (the novel is set in 2070). Just in general, it’s nice (and disgracefully rare) to see a novel set in the west of Scotland that doesn’t feature either grittily terminal urban despair or merely as a backdrop for generically grisly murder.
This is not my first Ken MacLeod novel but it is I think his best. I always tend to associate him with the late and much-missed Iain Banks and I think the two were close friends. And if you were a fan of either Banks’ mainstream literary thrillers or his harder SF then I think you’d find much to enjoy here as MacLeod has once again proved himself adept at marrying those two ostensibly disparate styles. The hard SF of the sections set on the planets Venus and Apis are well realised, highly believable and gripping in their own right while the more Earth-bound, occasionally bordering on Le Carre-esque intrigue of the Scotland sections are just as compelling. He’s also adept at utilising an old structural trick often used by Banks in having three or four separate narrative strands throughout the novel that become combined by the end.
MacLeod’s conception of the geopolitical scene in 2070 is also compelling and seems at least at the moment to be pretty credible (although in all likelihood it will seem rather risible and naive to anyone reading in the real 2070). Scotland has separated politically from England and has joined the EU, while England is part of an anglo-Alliance with the US, Australia and India and with the third political bloc seems to be a resurgently communist state. This last one seems less credible and more a device to create the narrative requirements for a new global Cold War but as it is a minor factor in the plot it’s fairly easy to accept this.
The over-arching plot concerns an arms race to develop a faster-than-light spaceship, as well as humanity’s first contact with a mysterious alien force known as the Fermi. Little of this is actually resolved by the end of the novel and it’s clear that MacLeod is more concerned here with laying the groundwork for a new series of books. And in this context, it more than succeeds. He’s taken the time to create a compelling and believable set of characters, and ones that you find yourself wanting to see again. Certainly, I’ve already developed a deep dislike for the android Owen and I’ll be interested to see if the remains the case in the books to come. But it’s still a thrilling and thought-provoking book in its own right. There are some great ideas here but unlike in some SF novels, they’re never allowed to swamp the action or sense of character and overall this is a gripping page-turner of a novel.

Ken MacLeod is an absolute master of near future SF thrillers that intelligently reflect politics and society as well as science. So Beyond the Hallowed Sky is securely rooted in a not so far off* Scotland, part of a multi-nation Union that has undergone revolutionary transformation but in a low key way (the 'Cold Revolution'). It's set against the Alliance, an array of anglo powers who have recently restored democracy, and Co-ord (China and Russia).

There's a lot of stuff about defections from one to the other (which seem fairly easy) and a glimpsed history that involves some nuclear exchanges, though I don't think all out war. But many here, including one of the main protagonists, John Grant, aren't keen on recalling history too much, either what they did (Grant is a responsible, a key figure in the Revolution) or what happened more widely. Macleod rather brilliantly portrays this future society through small details and hints, not outright description, so making it more of a living and breathing thing that if there were lengthy passages setting out what had happened or how things are structured.

A central theme of the story is, I think, one of technological change and transformation: what becomes of this world when a crazy, impossible idea - faster-than-light travel - turns out to be attainable (and actually, rather easy to realise). Evoking such upheavals as the launch of Sputnik-1 and the fall of the Berlin Wall, MacLeod shows how such an event - despite not having a direct impact, or much impact at all, on the ordinary lives of many people, might still play with the psychic moorings of a society, its sense of worth and purpose. He has I think further shocks in store for the folk of the 2070s because in another thread of the narrative we see attempts to come to terms with a truly alien sort of alien, one which seems intimately linked to our planet and its history and to be capable of great harm.

The way that this book brings together great themes - Space exploration! Aliens! FTL! - with the little details of individual lives - a boy and a girl meeting while out hiking, a trip on a ferry that will change lives, an evening spent in a bar listening to traditional music, the rhythms of life in a workplace - was for me one of its strengths. I enjoyed that this isn't for the most part "zappy" SF, although MacLeod shows himself more than capable of that when the story calls for it, as it does in the final quarter, when some concepts arise that - if I could name them here which I can't because of spoilers - would seem absurd in cold pixels. In context, however, and arising from the very ordinariness of much of the earlier story, they just makes sense and work.

Another theme, which is worth looking out for because it's so well integrated and embedded that it almost seems a matter of course, concerns the place of AI in these future societies. In Beyond the Hallowed Sky, it shows up incarnated in a sort of super-Siri virtual assistant available always and everywhere and charged with meeting needs before they're stated (the kind of thing I think that visionaries might hope could replace the action of markets?) It also figures embodied in robots, given a remarkable amount of latitude, you might think, and there are some intriguing conversations about consciousness, conscience and freedom here which perhaps aren't quite so integrated into the narrative but were thought-provoking.

All that may make Beyond the Hallowed Sky sound over-ideasy, perhaps, which would be quite a false impression. I love ideas in a book but I also love believable, quirky characters, especially the bad guys, an active and twisty plot, and being kept guessing about where everything bis going. And Beyond the Hallowed Sky scores very well on all that, and more, as well as being an engaging and complex opening to a trilogy whose subsequent volumes I'm already looking forward to reading.

It feels like Ken MacLeod was overshadowed by Iain M.Banks at some point, as if we couldn't have two Scottish science fiction ones, and if we were going to forget one it might as well be the commie. But I have always enjoyed his work, not least because a tiny section of a previous book referenced my old workplace which showed an intricate knowledge of the web of Marxist society in Britain. What I have always liked about MacLeod is his enjoyment in playing with some of the the implications of second hand sci-fi ideas. I remember being absolutely delighted when at the end of The Execution Channel he pulled out James Blish's old spindizzies as a clever ultimate technology game changer for humanity. And interestingly here he toys with a similar idea again. If a still warring and fractious humanity gained the ability of faster than lightspeed travel - what would they do with it? The suggestion here is one rooted in cold war paranoia which underpins part of the narrative thrust. The other part is pure Scottish exceptionalism which also tries to juggle the issue of the Trident base in Clyde and what would happen to it (and the expertise around it) if Scotland gained independence. Basically there are a few hard sci-fi ideas, a number of social extrapolations and then a robot spy bit too.

Revolution is never far away in MacLeod's work and whilst we've moved on from Soviet Space Opera, this is set fifty years hence once the world had split onto three mutually distrusting blocs. Europe (including Scotland), a far right bloc of North America, England and India (spinning out from current global alliances no doubt), and the rest of the world In this a particle physicists receives a letter from herself outlining how to crack FTL travel - which she assumes must have come from the future. There's some nicely cynical work on how - when published - such work would be covered up. But there is also a question about - if your ship didn't use any kind of combustible thrust and could be frictionless, what might make a good spaceship (the answer a submarine). And so we have a number of concurrent narratives around the building of the craft, something approaching first contact on another planet and some 2001 style shenanigans on Venus. Packed with interesting characters who have political beliefs and backgrounds, feel properly fleshed out, human and funny. Because that was always the other thing I enjoyed about MacLeod, he writes with a lightness that is often very funny.

I enjoyed Beyond The Hallowed Sky so much that I forgive its unfinished nature - it is the start of a series and all the balls are in the air at the end here whilst still being a satisfying ending. There's a sense of utopia constant postponed by politics which I liked here, most of the characters are striving for advancement and a better world but are strapped in a system where any technological leap is seen first as how it might benefit the faction rather than humanity. The lead characters are on the whole ordinary engineers, scientists and bureaucrats who have to negotiate the burden of the past and the current situation. Often in a book with distinct narrative threads I hunger to go back to my favourite characters, the ones with the most interesting journey, and one of the greatest compliments I can give this is that with the three threads here, I never did. It was great to be reminded how satisfying and fun MacLeod's writing can be.

There is a good story here struggling to get out. This is partly because every chapter for the first part of the book is told from a different POV and the character who opens the book is not heard of again until nearly half way through. These constant changes make it hard to feel any interest in the various characters. However, it's worth staying with it as the second half of the book improves as the various plot strands come together.
On the plus side there are some intriguing ideas which hopefully will be developed in future volumes, notably how FTL travel was invented in about 2020.
And who couldn't love FTL submarines?

"Beyond the Hallowed Sky" was an interesting reading experience. This book grabbed me, let me go, then grabbed me again, over and over. It's written very well, but I found the characters a little bit flat for the most part. The plot is very good, but feels far too slow at times and I kept losing interest. I want to love this book, but it's kept me at arm's length.

My thanks to the author, publisher, and NetGalley. This review was written voluntarily and is entirely my own, unbiased, opinion.

Ken MacLeod's Beyond the Hallowed Sky starts with an interesting premise - some time travel shenanigans giving the secrets to faster than light travel (don't ask about the causation). But this thread almost immediately branches off into a bunch of other directions that include a secret planetary survey involving alien life, submarines that travel through wormholes, a colony on Venus, sentient robots who don't know that they are robots until they are forced to admit it and then fully embrace being robots, all within a new political structure for Earth.
There are some intersting parts here but all in all, just way too many ideas and way much going on to allow readers to become invested in any of the characters or their situations so that the whole is less than the sum of those parts.

Many Space Operas start off with a colonized galaxy based on Faster Than Light (FTL) travel. There aren't many which investigate the invention of FTL, and none that I know of is set in our near future. MacLeod produces an interesting combination of SF's flagship form of traveling with a believable projection of our current political landscape:  the (European) Union, including Scotland, vs. North America plus UK, vs. Russia/China, all featuring post-singularity AIs governing the countries.

But how could FTL technology be produced at all? By time-travel. A genius scientists receives from a future self a specification of an FTL drive, because FTL opens up time-travel. A reclusive group builds the drive into a submarine, problem solved. 

Lo and behold, everyone else has been secretly implemented FTL since 50 years or longer. They even have colonized another planet. 

The novel spreads out to three different locations - one focuses on the Atlantic coast of Scotland where the FTL submarine is built. Another one investigates mysterious forces on that colonized planet outside of our Solar system. And the third one follows a conscious robot spying on the Union's city within the clouds of Venus. 

The first half of the book dragged on and on, and I was on the brink of giving it up. I simply couldn't connect to the multiple POVs starting an interesting plot. I liked the ideas in it but didn't care much for anything else at all. Only in the second half the novel took slightly off, involving a creative form of first contact story.

It might sound crazy, but I think that the next novel might work for me better, now that the characters are established. Given the huge amounts of existing Space Operas, this new series isn't worth it in my opinion.

I loved the sound of this book, what a brilliant idea. However I struggled with it when I started to read the book. I just didn't take to the main character, and struggled with the story. Hopefully it was just me, and other readers will enjoy it more.