Science Fiction book help, please.

Cafe Society
1

I read a book, I liked it, and for the life of me I can’t remember the title or the writer (only that I’ve never read anything else of his).

In a nutshell - on some planet several centuries after Earth’s supposed destruction, the immortal, cybernetically-enhanced woman who founded the colony is facing a Marxist rebellion, while suddenly a ship appears claiming to be from home. The whole story takes place in the last few days before the ship arrives, and it has a nifty little twist ending.

It’s a recent book - last five years or so - and it’s written in an intelligent, subtle fashion, focusing more on characters than on gadgets. It’s also quite political, and you all know how rare that is in SF. The writer is someone well-regarded, and - I’m pretty sure - male.

Anybody?

2

Hmmm…I want to say Ken Mcleod, but his stories take place on Earth for the most part…

Here, try this link . It’s a list of books that “every socialist should read”. You should be able to find what you’re looking for there.

3

Was this set really far in the future, and were the women of this world’s genitalia different from those of modern humans in any way? If so I know what story you are talking about, and the author is on the tip of my tongue (he wrote several stories in the same general future history), but I can’t remember right now.

4

No, it wasn’t far-future - in fact, I’d call it “post-cyberpunk”. Sort of a Heinlein future. NOt much of an emphasis on technology, really.

And it was stongly anti-Marxist, although it used extreme examples to prove its point.

5

Hmmm…no way in hell it could be Ken Mcleod then. He’s a staunch leftist. The link probably didn’t help either, did it?

For some odd reason, David Brin comes to mind and so does Harry Turtledove. I don’t know why. I guess it’s easier to just throw author’s names to see if one sounds like what you’re looking for. Heheeheh

6

David Brin probably comes to mind because he wrote ‘Glory Season’, which was a novel set on a world dominated by women.

7

The thing is, this isn’t a society dominated by women, it’s a society dominated by a woman - a government super-agent who fled Earth’s destruction in a spaceship packed with human embryos, and set up a benign, centuries-long dictatorship. Earth, BTW, was destroyed by A.I.s/Hackers/computer viruses (what they were is never fully explained) named after some sort of mythological beast - banshees, maybe.

Sorry to nag you guys about this, but I really enjoyed this book, and my copy is packed in a box 7,000 miles away.

8

IIRC, Ken Macleod’s The Stone Canal is set in a quasi_Heinleinian anarcho-libertarian dystopia (as distinct from the anarcho-communist dystopia in its sequel The Cassini Division). Some of the other details seem to fit… but it’s a while since I’ve read The Stone Canal.