Song Of Stone

Author: Iain Banks

One of the abiding themes of science fiction in the early twenty-first century is a careful delineation of everyday life in the near future, a future in which the steady deterioration of the political and environmental situation is generally balanced by technological advances. One of the very best examples of this is Ian MacLeod's Song of Time, which won both the Arthur C. Clarke Award and the John W. Campbell Memorial Award.Beginning late in the current century, it tells of an aging classical musician who lives by the coast in Cornwall and who rescues a figure from the sea. This event prompts her to start recalling her life, with music serving as the balm that soothes her in the face of terrorist atrocities, political collapse, environmental disasters and more.Why it's on the list: More than any other novel on this list, Song of Time reads as though MacLeod has carefully studied today's newspaper headlines and extrapolated from them a course through the next half-century that seems not only convincing but almost inevitable. It's an example of the fact that only science fiction at its best can produce an essential state of the nation novel.