Ken MacLeod
Ken MacLeod
Kenneth Macrae "Ken" MacLeodis a Scottish science fiction writer...
NationalityScottish
ProfessionWriter
Date of Birth2 August 1954
optimistic thinking long
I'm a long-term optimist, and I don't think the problems with our society are from being overly optimistic.
leaving fiction strange
Science fiction made me aware of how big and strange the universe was, leaving aside the whole question of aliens.
responsibility ideas justice
The idea of determinism combined with complete human responsibility struck me as very hard to reconcile with an idea of justice, let alone mercy.
falling-in-love personality loved-ones
Falling in love indicated that your genes were complementary to those of the loved one. It told you nothing about when your personalities and sexualities were compatible.
simple wings philosopher
For us scientists, on the other wing, life is not quite so simple. Because we learn the unknown. Unlike, hah-hah, our esteemed friends the philosophers, who learn the unknowable.
astronomy superstitious
Of all the sciences, astronomy was the one the superstitious liked least.
writing interesting people
Anyway...I find what you write interesting." "That's what people usually say when they disagree with it.
two long world
It had long been established in the Civil Worlds that public business was to be transparent, and personal business opaque; but it was as well recognised that the two would always have a turbulent interface, and that the clique, the caucus, and the conspiracy were as ineradicable features of civility as the council or the committee.
stars struggle life-is
All life is a struggle for existence. Why should it cease to be a struggle if it spreads among the stars?
war character men
I enjoyed Old Man's War immensely. A space war story with fast action, vivid characters, moral complexity and cool speculative physics, set in a future you almost want to live into, and a universe you sincerely hope you don't live in already.
country kings children
Hey, this is Europe. We took it from nobody; we won it from the bare soil that the ice left. The bones of our ancestors, and the stones of their works, are everywhere. Our liberties were won in wars and revolutions so terrible that we do not fear our governors: they fear us. Our children giggle and eat ice-cream in the palaces of past rulers. We snap our fingers at kings. We laugh at popes. When we have built up tyrants, we have brought them down. And we have nuclear ********* weapons.
what-if impossible socialism
What if capitalism is unsustainable, and socialism is impossible?
writing secret becoming
The secret of becoming a writer is to write, write and keep on writing.
believe mythology ufo
I don't believe in the UFO mythology but I find it fascinating. Episodically, I find it fascinating.