Imperial Purple

Ken MacLeod
The Execution Channel
Orbit 2007

The Execution Channel is an odd mixture of thriller, spy story and science fiction. Mostly it is a thriller set in the very near future. An apparent tactical nuclear explosion destroys a military base in Scotland; simultaneously (for reasons that were never completely clear to me) sundry motorways and bridges across Britain blow up; an Englishman working as a spy for the French (sacré bleu!) goes on the run; his daughter is arrested by a sinister secret service; and shadowy conspiracies er shadow everything.

Jolly good fun with thrilling chases across country and dastardly deeds behind closed doors.

Then there are the odd bits.

There is an alternate history element. Apparently Gore won the 2000 election not Bush. The 9/11 attacks were a bit different. The bit of the middle east that got clobbered was slightly different. Otherwise everything seems pretty much the same or at least could reasonably develop that way. There didn’t seem to be a lot of point to it.

The final chapters appear to have been taken from a SF novel and have only a tenuous connection with the rest of the book. I can only assume the MacLeod was simultaneously working on a piece of full-on techno-futuristic science fiction and the final pages got unfortunately mixed up with this one. I understand that these accidents can happen but I really think the structural editors at Orbit should have picked it up.

Oh yes, and there is a saccharine postscript where all the characters live happily ever after and the evil step-mother gets her just desserts. Oh, hang on – I’ve got the wrong novel again. Maybe it was the big, bad wolf.

Despite this it deserves three stars. The thriller bit was excellent and kept me reading. It was just that I kept finding myself in the wrong book which detracted considerably from what might otherwise have been a four star experience.