Alert: this review contains a minor spoiler IF you've not already read the first novel.

This second volume in MacLeod's Lightspeed trilogy continues the story from where we left off, with groups from all three world power blocs getting to grips with the reality of suddenly having extra-terrestrial worlds to explore and settle. At the same time, the super-intelligences who seem to reside wherever there are worlds to inhabit, the Fermi (as one character christened them) seem to be considering their reaction. And suddenly, previously unexpected side-effects of the faster-than-light drive make themselves known...

This is a very recent novel: and it shows in an interesting way. The use of FTL travel has been a black operation for some fifty years by the time of the novel (2070). That black operation had been started by the scientists and personnel who first discovered the FTL and harnessed it, but who all decided fairly quickly that they had to conceal it from their political masters - and at this point, MacLeod namechecks well-known and controversial leaders of our time from East and West. Fill in the names yourself.

MacLeod also rather cheekily names the British intelligence service the "British Council", which is (in our world) the UK international cultural organisation; and its chief operative in the novel, an android AI called Marcus Owen, seems to me to be a thinly-disguised Kim Philby. I would expect no less of Ken MacLeod.

There are instances where there are some expository lumps, but the plot demands it (the example I just quoted is one of them) and they are slipped in fairly unobtrusively - no "Tell me, Professor, what makes your spaceship go so fast?" here. Otherwise, we have a good "middle novel" that just whets the appetite for the conclusion. ( )

The fun of reading a space opera by Ken MacLeod is in the details that make you shake your head and chuckle. If the equations for faster-than-light travel imply time travel, why not send yourself a letter in the past with the key equation? If you need to build a pressure hull for a spacecraft, why not adapt a submarine? The ancient, mysterious aliens are called Fermis. Of course they are. And why not have continental drift be the result of alien action? And why not make Scotland a major power in the early interstellar age? MacLeod’s humor is always dry and acerbic. Consider this bit of self-analysis by one of his characters in Beyond the Reach of Earth (Orbit, 2023): “Francesca Malloy. Educated by scientists. Trained by astronauts. Fucked by robots.” ‘Nuf said. 4 stars. ( )