The Night Sessions
A Novel
Format:Paperback
Publisher:Little, Brown Book Group
Published:2nd Apr '09
Currently unavailable, and unfortunately no date known when it will be back
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A stunning new SF thriller from the critically acclaimed author of The Execution Channel
'As ever, MacLeod's depiction of the near future is achieved through solid characterisation and brilliant detail. His forte is the depiction of how belief systems can corrupt, and The Night Sessions is a stunning indictment of fundamentalism of all kinds.' - The Guardian
'A twisting conspiracy tale shot through with MacLeod's gloriously mordant sense for the absurd.' - BBC FOCUS
A priest is dead. Picking through the rubble of the demolished Edinburgh tenement, Detective Inspector Adam Ferguson discovers that the explosion wasn't an accident. When a bishop is assassinated soon afterwards, it becomes clear that a targeted campaign of killings is underway.
No one has seen anything like this since the Faith Wars. In this enlightened age there's no religious persecution, but believers are a marginal and mistrusted minority. And now someone is killing them. But who? And - perhaps more importantly - why?
The more his team learns, the more the suspicion grows that they may have stumbled upon a conspiracy way outside their remit. Nobody believes them, but if Ferguson and his people fail, there will be many more killings - and disaster on a literally biblical scale . . .
A stunning new SF thriller from the critically acclaimed author of The Execution Channel
Books by Ken MacLeod:
Fall Revolution
The Star Fraction
The Stone Canal
The Cassini Division
The Sky Road
Engines of Light
Cosmonaut Keep
Dark Light
Engine City
Corporation Wars Trilogy
Dissidence
Insurgence
Emergence
Novels
The Human Front
Newton's Wake
Learning the World
The Execution Channel
The Restoration Game
Intrusion
Descent
The characterisation is good, the processes realistic and the plot suitably complex, though never enough to confuse. Ken leads his audience through a number of set pieces to a satisfying ending. I must admit that, despite not being a religious person myself, I did have my doubts that such an extreme situation could come about in reality, though if you are able to suspend your disbelief (as I did) there's a lot to get your teeth into here. In summary then, as good as I had hoped after The Execution Channel. Intelligent, entertaining and knowledgeable, this is everything you might expect or hope for from a Ken MacLeod SF novel. Perhaps slightly more SF than The Execution Channel, though not that much more, it does make an interesting counterpoint with Charles Stross' Halting State, which has similar elements in a near-future setting (and who, coincidentally, is acknowledged at the beginning of the book.) Of the two, although I liked Halting State a lot, I preferred this. -- SFF WORLD
In Hollywood terms, it's high concept: in a world where religion is banned, what happens when robots find God? ...The Night Sessions is a fast, entertaining read with some challenging ideas behind it. ... if The Night Sessions' conclusion is not quite as audacious as that of the previous novel, it is nevertheless strikingly brutal and brave, a welcome sign of a novelist willing to follow through the implications of his set-up -- STRANGE HORIZONS
MacLeod spins a yarn that moves at a fast pace, and which doesn't disappoint; exciting and intriguing, it keeps a consistent level of interest throughout its passage ... a satisfying read -- SCIFINOW
Gripping and clever near-future thriller -- Lisa Tuttle, THE TIMES
A stunning indictment of fundamentalism of all kinds -- Eric Brown, GUARDIAN
MacLeod spins a yarn that moves at a fast pace, and which doesn't disappoint; exciting and intriguing, it keeps a consistent level of interest throughout its passage ... a satisfying read * SciFiNow *
A twisting conspiracy tale shot through with MacLeod's gloriously mordant sense for the absurd * BBC Focus *
Gripping and clever near-future thriller * Lisa Tuttle, The Times *
A stunning indictment of fundamentalism of all kind s' Eric Brown, Guardian
ISBN: 9781841496481
Dimensions: 180mm x 114mm x 27mm
Weight: 208g
400 pages