The Execution Channel

Ken MacLeod is perhaps the most politically astute novelist working in Britain today. He brings a highly critical left-wing sensibility to his work, while at the same time being very funny about the internecine warfare between different versions of the left. That percipience allows him to write with great intelligence and conviction about the ways our present and our future are being shaped by forces beyond our control, often beyond our awareness. This sense of how a nation works is perfectly revealed in The Execution Channel, a novel which explores the way authoritarianism increases in the battle against terrorism.With a plot and tradecraft that owe a lot to John Le Carre, The Execution Channel is essentially a cat-and-mouse story of a father and daughter on the run from increasingly oppressive government agents after they discover that what seems like a terrorist act is really something much bigger and stranger.Why it's on the list: This is an alternate history story that taps in to the political paranoia that has built up in the West ever since 9/11. It's a distorting mirror that still reveals so much about the world we live in today.