MacLeod, Ken - The Execution Channel (2007 HB)

Tor Books

 

From the dust jacket:

It's after 9/11. After the bombing. After the Iraq War. After 7/7. After the Iran War. After the nukes. After the flu. After the Straits. After Rosyth. It's the day when the world changes all the way down to its fundamental assumptions.

 

HARVEY MACLEAN: SYRIA; DECAPITATION; ESPIONAGE

 

JIA LAN HUANG: SHANGHAI; CRANIAL SHOT; EMBEZZLEMENT

 

PAMELA BAKER: OHIO; ELECTROCUTION; INFANTICIDE

 

In a world just down the road from our own, online bloggers vie with old-line political operatives and new-style police to determine just where reality lies. And on every cable system, the mysterious Execution Channel broadcasts deaths from around the world, around the clock.

 

LARISA SOSNITSKAYA: RUSSIAN FEDERATION; CRANIAL SHOT; SERIAL MURDER

 

AHMED WAZIRIH: SYRIA; REPEATED APPLICATION OF LEGITIMATE FORCE CULMINATING IN CEREBRAL HEMMORHAGE; TERRORISM

 

ABRAHAM IRWIN: TEXAS; MULTIPLE GUNSHOT; LOOTING

 

James Travis is a British patriot and a French spy. On the day the Big One hits, Travis and his daughter must strive to make sense of the nuclear bombing of Scotland and the political repercussions of a series of terrorist attacks. With the information war in full swing, the only truth they have is what they're able to see with their own eyes. They know that everything else is - or may be - a lie.

 

BURT FRANKS: CALIFORNIA; LETHAL INJECTION; MURDER

 

ORLANDO ALARCON: VENEZULA; FIRING SQUAD; COUNTERREVOLUTION

 

AXELE CURBELO: VENEZULA; FIRING SQUAD; COUNTERREVOLUTION

 

For in this near future - our near future - day-to-day life becomes much like real intelligence work today: a world in which everything has meaning, and nothing has meaning, and the meanings change as lies build on lies, until someone who intends to lie is finally telling the truth.

 

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I've liked a lot of other books by MacLeod, so I am looking forward to this.

 

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Started: 2008-08-01

Finished: 2008-08-16

 

A near-future thriller taking place in a slightly alternate history. An explosion that destroys an air base in Scotland is quickly followed by several terrorist attacks against British infrastructure. The attacks drag the Travis family into the intelligence plots of the Western governments as various agencies try to figure out what happened, and to hide the truth.

 

I really enjoyed the book. It is a fast-paced quick read that kept my interest throughout. The way in which the history differs from our own, and how little difference it actually makes is interesting. Unlike MacLeod's other books, there is not much actual science fiction content for most of the book, although he does stick with his familiar ideas that the Western governments seem to be dooming themselves with their increasing paranoia about security and attempts at control. I did feel that the ending went a little over the top as it suddenly veers off in a direction that was hinted at throughout the book, but which also seems like something out of more of a pulp novel.

 

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