Rating: 
Summary: Flimsy, unlikeable SF
Review: This book is described as a political SF book of ideas. Where were they? So we're told the future is communist...but very little evidence is given as to how this works, why it works, and how it is enforced. It is simply stated as a matter of fact and hardly tied into the plot at all. The main character, Ellen, is quite unlikeable. In fact, I was openly hostile towards her and was hoping the plot would twist around somehow in a way that put her at a grisly end. As for the plot, there hardly is one. The conclusion is of no significance and there are no rewarding revelations to be had. Skip this book.
Rating: 
Summary: Warning!
Review: This book, while good, is VERY confusing if you haven't read the earlier books in the series. Lots of things are just there with no explanation whatsoever, and the plot has a few holes. Some of it just confused the heck out of me, and the ending was really lame.
Rating:
Summary: Decent Adventure Novel
Review: This is a reasonably entertaining book. The plot concerns the efforts of humans, assisted by advanced technology including everyone's fad favorite, nanotechnology, to combat sentient 'post-human' entities who developed from a melding of human minds with computer technology. This book contains a lot of entertaining ideas and suffers from MacLeod's tendency to pack a large volume of material into a relatively short book. Plot and characterization suffer considerably as a result.
Rating:
Summary: Decent Adventure Novel
Review: This is a reasonably entertaining book. The plot concerns the efforts of humans, assisted by advanced technology including everyone's fad favorite, nanotechnology, to combat sentient 'post-human' entities who developed from a melding of human minds with computer technology. This book contains a lot of entertaining ideas and suffers from MacLeod's tendency to pack a large volume of material into a relatively short book. Plot and characterization suffer considerably as a result.
Rating: 
Summary: Great Novel of the Future
Review: This series tackles some of the major issues we'll be facing in the very near future. If you like fiction with Ideas, The Fall Revolution is sure to please. Highly quoteable, sharp, and whitty. These books have everything I look for in fiction.
Rating: 
Summary: Average pulp fiction with some neat ideas
Review: This was a fast read; I rated it above average not because of MacLeod's somewhat fractured and mediocre writing style, but because of the interesting ideas in the story. The author does manage to introduce some very subtle twists. This book is not a "shoot-'em-up". There is a lot of talking, a lot of arguments, introducing different idiological points of view. It was a refreshing twist to have the heroine as a defender of the Solar Union's social anarchy, which somehow achieves the ideal of everyone just getting along and contributing to society. As the book unfolds, your assumptions about the heroine and her beliefs are gradually challenged and altered. At some points you pause to wonder who is the bad guy. By the end you have been exposed to the merits of three dramatically different points of view; the darwinist social anarchists, the materialistic capitalist, and the inexplicable post-human Jovians. Even weeks after reading it I still am thinking about some of the arguements in the book, which is probably the best anyone could say about a novel.
Rating:
Summary: Average pulp fiction with some neat ideas
Review: This was a fast read; I rated it above average not because of MacLeod's somewhat fractured and mediocre writing style, but because of the interesting ideas in the story. The author does manage to introduce some very subtle twists. This book is not a "shoot-'em-up". There is a lot of talking, a lot of arguments, introducing different idiological points of view. It was a refreshing twist to have the heroine as a defender of the Solar Union's social anarchy, which somehow achieves the ideal of everyone just getting along and contributing to society. As the book unfolds, your assumptions about the heroine and her beliefs are gradually challenged and altered. At some points you pause to wonder who is the bad guy. By the end you have been exposed to the merits of three dramatically different points of view; the darwinist social anarchists, the materialistic capitalist, and the inexplicable post-human Jovians. Even weeks after reading it I still am thinking about some of the arguements in the book, which is probably the best anyone could say about a novel.
Rating:
Summary: A novel of lazy ideas
Review: While this book was not altogether unenjoyable, I found it difficult to feel for any of the characters. Most of them were cardboard cut-out people with little to distinguish between them save physical appearance. The few paragraphs that were given over to character development didn't serve to make me any more sympathetic. The character of Ellen May Ngewthu, who I will term heroine for lack of any other better character, was unlikable. She is a soldier of the future who knows nothing of diplomacy, stealt, or it would seem, combat. I am glad our world is not defended by these weaklings. This book is dubbed 'a novel of ideas', but the only well-developed theme is that the ultimate truth of 'Right' as opposed to wrong can be defined as 'Right for us'. The themes of greater weight are given cursory treatment, simply background for an uninteresting story. In terms of science fiction or philosophy there are far better books out there. Ken MacLeod's future contains a few interesting structures and themes, but they are bogged down under the weight of staightforward writing and a boring, ill-defined plot. Not to be recommended.
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