Rating: 
Summary: Frustrating initially, but ultimately satisfying
Review: For some reason Ken MacLeod insists upon withholding key information about (A) the time relationships between the two story lines of this novel, and (B) the background history of his fictional universe. Worse yet, I can't see that this obfuscation helps to move the plot along in any way. It just made this reader confused, hoping that the author would at some point deign to explain what's going on. He eventually does, and the book concludes in a satisfactory manner. But a couple of times I almost gave up and chucked it in my library's donation bin out of frustration.If you want a few hints that are not really plot spoilers:
1. Matt Cairns is the ancestor of Gregor Cairns.
2. The Matt Cairns storyline takes place in near future, and Gregor Cairns storyline takes place in a more distant future.
3. There's a hierarchy of intelligences in this fictional universe: our hominid cousins (the pithkies), humans, the saurs (intelligent dinosaurs), the krakens, the Grays, the gods (some sort of sentient colonial micro-organism). Pithkies, humans, saurs, and krakens all originated on Earth and were exported (over the eons) to the surrounding planetary systems by the gods, greys, and/or some other intelligent life form.
4. The immortality of the original cosmonaut crew is not explained until the end of the novel, and then only in passing. The implications are that everyone back on Earth are now immortal, too. (Will this be a key fact to know in the next novels in this series?) Never fear. Half way through this novel, most of your questions will be answered, and your enjoyment will begin to outweigh your frustration.
Rating: 
Summary: Thoughtful plot, but hard to follow.
Review: I had to sort of work my way through this novel. I was interested in the characters and in the depiction of relationships between the 'saurs and the humans. However, the jumping back and forth between the two time periods, novel & interesting at first, became rather annoying to me. However, this is rather good space opera, and should satisfy those who enjoy "hard" science-fiction. It's good enough that I'll be reading the second part of the trilogy.
Rating:
Summary: Cyber punk meets world making
Review: I suspect this is one of those series that gets better as you go along. The opening salvo in a space opera saga is always going to be difficult. There is so much world building going on that there is little room for the story. So the writer faces a challenge, does he produce something on the scale of fellowship of the ring, which is so large it will put many readers off? Or does he write something small enough to attract purchase, but which will never satisfy expectations. So this Author has gone for a small book as a sampler of things to come. And he has done an excellent job in that regard. The story jumps between two universes, a near future earth, and a distant planetary confederation. And the latter is the more interesting place, reptilian saurs who live thousands of years, Gigants and elegant Pithkies, star travelling merchant traders who are transported on ships belonging to giant squid, and planet bound humans who are somehow descendants of those in the near future earth thread. A lot of homage is paid to cold war politics, workable communism (as if) and Area 51. There are some good laughs for computer programmers in a world where an archeology degree may include a module on MS-DOS or Windows applications. Technologically this book brings nothing new to the table, and as a result has a certain comfortable familiarity that makes all the technology seem accessible. I think I'll invest in book 2, and see where it goes from there!
Rating:
Summary: Still not sure - but a good hook!
Review: I suspect this is one of those series that gets better as you go along. The opening salvo in a space opera saga is always going to be difficult. There is so much world building going on that there is little room for the story. So the writer faces a challenge, does he produce something on the scale of fellowship of the ring, which is so large it will put many readers off? Or does he write something small enough to attract purchase, but which will never satisfy expectations. So this Author has gone for a small book as a sampler of things to come. And he has done an excellent job in that regard. The story jumps between two universes, a near future earth, and a distant planetary confederation. And the latter is the more interesting place, reptilian saurs who live thousands of years, Gigants and elegant Pithkies, star travelling merchant traders who are transported on ships belonging to giant squid, and planet bound humans who are somehow descendants of those in the near future earth thread. A lot of homage is paid to cold war politics, workable communism (as if) and Area 51. There are some good laughs for computer programmers in a world where an archeology degree may include a module on MS-DOS or Windows applications. Technologically this book brings nothing new to the table, and as a result has a certain comfortable familiarity that makes all the technology seem accessible. I think I'll invest in book 2, and see where it goes from there!
Rating: 
Summary: Interesting ideas, not enough heart
Review: I tried to like this book, really I did. McLeod is clearly an intelligent, inventive writer who can create future worlds that are detailed and believable. (Well, except for Communist "Russkis" taking over Europe; by 2000 that scenario should have been discarded.) And I found many of his ideas fascinating: the evolved, sentient dinosaurs; the "Second Sphere" of humanity to which the lost tribes of man (and saurs) have been transported; the true story of the flying saucers of New Mexico. As I read, I fully expected to get sucked in to the story. . . and it never happened. I kept plodding along, working to understand the politics and technology, assuming this was a long stage-setting for what would be a great story. And you know what? Maybe it is! But by the time I got to about page 160, I decided I didn't care enough about the characters and their plight to keep going. It was fascinating, but it wasn't interesting (if that makes sense). I couldn't help but compare "Cosmonaut Keep" to another book I was reading at the time, "Trading in Danger", by Elizabeth Moon. In comparison, Moon's book is a rather simple, predictable story, but it has characters you come to care about, and you want to keep reading to find out what happens to them. That was simply not the case with "Cosmonaut Keep". Perhaps I gave up too easily, but you know, there are other books on my shelf waiting to be read. The emotional payoff to this book is not worth the intellectual investment.
Rating:
Summary: Cyber punk meets world making
Review: I usually don't like the genre of books that alternates scenes and characters every chapter, leaving you to trying to remember where you left off on each story. However, this book does it well and quickly. You know you're coming together on the two story lines about half way through and this makes each one take on more meaning. I enjoyed the cyber-punk, near future story line and loved the ancient mix of wonderful creatures and gods on the strange, new world. It's a quick and not too complex read, with interesting characters and happily 2 more books to follow. I'm looking forward to the next book in the series.
Rating:
Summary: New Series for MacLeod: Still Excellent
Review: I've rapidly become a huge fan of Ken MacLeod's. I much liked his first four novels, which were all linked to each other, somewhat complexly. But it's nice to seem him branching out somewhat with _Cosmonaut Keep_. This book is set in an entirely different future, and instead of AI's, it features several different species of aliens. The author who seems most present as an influence on _Cosmonaut Keep_ is Poul Anderson: there are several direct echoes of Andersonian themes, and one or two passages that seem almost stylistic hommages to Anderson. Like all of MacLeod's books except his first, it's told in two timelines. After a mysterious prologue, which only makes sense at the end of the book, we are introduced to Gregor Cairns, a student on the planet Mingulay, and his fellow researchers Elizabeth Harkness and Salasso. Salasso is a saur: an intelligent dinosaur-like being. Elizabeth and Gregor are of different social classes: Elizabeth, it seems, is a "native", while Gregor is a descendant of the "cosmonauts", who arrived at Mingulay some centuries earlier from Earth, in a starship which is now unusable. Soon another starship arrives: this one bearing human traders from Nova Babylonia, traders who in some ways resemble Anderson's Kith (and Heinlein's Traders from _Citizen of the Galaxy_, and Vinge's Qeng Ho), though their starship is actually controlled by aliens called Krakens, who naturally enough are huge entities that live in water. Details about this future interstellar civilization, called the "Second Sphere", are slow to be revealed, and I won't say much here, but they are neat and clever and intriguing details. At any rate, Gregor soon meets a beautiful trader girl and falls in love: but all this is complicated by various personal issues, including the "Great Work" of Gregor's family, and the question of what the traders really want. The other timeline follows a Scotsman named Matt back in the middle of the 21st century. He's a manager of programmers: the actual programmers are either AI's or aging geeks who remember legacy code like DOS and Unix. He's got a thing for an American named Jadey who is involved with the Resistance movement in England: and before long she's giving him a disk with some very interesting information on it. At the same time, an announcement stuns the world: the (Communist) European Union has been contacted by aliens in an asteroid they've been studying. Soon Jadey is under arrest, and Matt is fleeing to Area 51, then to the asteroid, where they learn that the information Jadey had Matt smuggle out is plans for a spaceship and a space drive. All this is highly destabilizing to the world political situation, which teeters on the brink of chaos while the scientists on the asteroid try to talk to the aliens and build the spaceship. It's easy to see where this is going, given that it has to mesh with the other story, but it's still clever and suspenseful. This is a very good novel, one of the best I've read in 2000. It's got a nice, well-contained story, involving mainly Gregor and Matt's personal lives mixed with the Great Work (for Gregor) and with Matt's obvious destiny. At the same time this story is clearly a setup for potentially fascinating future books in its series. (The title page says this is Book One of Engines of Light.) It's full of nifty SFnal ideas. Behind the scenes, just barely hinted at, are some really scary implications, and some really well-done half-evocations of deep time. MacLeod's prose continues to improve: he has a habit of mostly just writing sound, clever, workable stuff, then every so often winding up to an emotional and even quasi-poetic peak. The characters are decently drawn, though not especially deep, and there is a certain sense that their romantic lives are resolved rather conveniently. (Which isn't to say necessarily happily.) Mostly, this is just good solid Science Fiction, with plenty of sense of wonder inducing ideas.
Rating: 
Summary: Massive Effort, But Still Falls Flat.
Review: If publishers were serious about their claim that the best style is one that is not noticed, Ken MacLeod would never have been published. MacLeod contorts the English language, in attempts to be witty, or perhaps iconoclastic, which invariably fall flat on their faces. His usage of alliteration is ludicrious. His style remains pretensious throughout, and most of the time unbearably so. In short, Cosmonaut Keep is a Herculean effort, in which MacLeod assures that the audience is always conscious of his effort.
MacLeod does do some things very well: his imagination is vivid, and his ability to describe the world that he has created is wonderful. His balance of narrative and dialogue is excellent, but his characters never have anything to say. The storylines that he creates are interesting, but the linkage comes too late to save the drowning plot.
If, as the cover proclaims, MacLeod represents a SF revolution unto himself, the genre is dead.
Rating:
Summary: Massive Effort, But Still Falls Flat.
Review: If publishers were serious about their claim that the best style is one that is not noticed, Ken MacLeod would never have been published. MacLeod contorts the English language, in attempts to be witty, or perhaps iconoclastic, which invariably fall flat on their faces. His usage of alliteration is ludicrious. His style remains pretensious throughout, and most of the time unbearably so. In short, Cosmonaut Keep is a Herculean effort, in which MacLeod assures that the audience is always conscious of his effort.
MacLeod does do some things very well: his imagination is vivid, and his ability to describe the world that he has created is wonderful. His balance of narrative and dialogue is excellent, but his characters never have anything to say. The storylines that he creates are interesting, but the linkage comes too late to save the drowning plot.
If, as the cover proclaims, MacLeod represents a SF revolution unto himself, the genre is dead.
Rating:
Summary: Stylish and challenging
Review: In "Cosmonaut Keep," MacLeod develops a complex future history every bit as imaginative as that of "The Cassini Division" and "The Stone Canal." Barbed, thoughtful and cryptically beautiful, "Cosmonaut Keep" is a refreshingly brainy novel that does for alien contact what William Gibson's "Neuromancer" did for computers. MacLeod's novel is consistently bold, laced with eye-popping scenery, moments of utter alien spookiness, and a delicious sense of humor. MacLeod is as good as they come: a techno-mongering satirist with an imagination as vast as the universe he depicts. "Cosmonaut Keep" is an invigorating experience by one of the genre's very best stylists.
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