Cosmonaut Keep

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Cosmonaut Keep
CosmonautKeep.jpg
First ed. cover
Author Ken MacLeod
Cover artist Lee Gibbons
CountryUnited Kingdom
LanguageEnglish
Series Engines of Light Trilogy
Genre Science fiction
Publisher Orbit Books
Publication date
2003 (first edition)
Media typePrint
Pages308 p.
ISBN 1857239865
OCLC 53096139
Followed by Dark Light  

Cosmonaut Keep is a science fiction novel by Scottish writer Ken MacLeod, published in 2000. It is the first book in the Engines of Light Trilogy, a 2001 nominee for the Arthur C. Clarke Award, [1] and a 2002 Hugo Award Nominee for best novel. [2] [3]

Contents

Reception

Publishers Weekly had mostly praise for the novel saying:

MacLeod handles the strands of the plot deftly, weaving one beautifully realized world with the other and highlighting the parallels between the two. Rarely does a book demand so much of the reader and then deliver. Densely written with a remarkable depth of cultural texture, though occasionally confusing in its politics (which includes socialists, "Webblies" and libertarian capitalists), MacLeod's story is spoiled only by the false notes of two parallel love interests. [4]

Reference in other work

In Cosmonaut Keep, MacLeod makes fleeting reference to a future programmers' union called the "Information Workers of the World Wide Web", or the Webblies, a reference to the Industrial Workers of the World, who are nicknamed the Wobblies. The idea of the Webblies formed a central part of a later novel For the Win by Cory Doctorow, where it is given much greater prominence. MacLeod is acknowledged by Doctorow as coining the terms. [5]

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References

  1. "2001 Award Winners & Nominees". Worlds Without End. Retrieved 20 July 2009.
  2. http://www.locusmag.com/SFAwards/Db/Hugo2002.html Archived January 12, 2008, at the Wayback Machine .
  3. "2002 Award Winners & Nominees". Worlds Without End. Retrieved 20 July 2009.
  4. Zaleski, Jeff; Peter Cannon (9 April 2001). Publishers Weekly. 248 (15): 55. ISSN   0000-0019.{{cite journal}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)
  5. Cory Doctorow (2010). For the Win. HarperVoyager. ISBN   978-0-00-735201-2. MacLeod is thanked in the Acknowledments section: "Many thanks to Ken Macleod for letting me use IWWWW and 'Webbly.'"