Cosmonaut Keep: The Opening Novel in An Astonishing New Future History

Ken MacLeod

Macmillan, Apr 1, 2010 - Fiction - 300 pages

Ranging from a gritty near-future Earth to a distant alien world, Ken MacLeod's Cosmonaut Keep is contemporary science fiction at its highest level. A visionary epic filled with daring individuals seeking a place for themselves in a vast, complex, and enigmatic universe.

Matt Cairns is a 21st-century outlaw Programmer who takes on the shady jobs no one else will touch. Against his better judgment, he accepts an assignment to crack the Marshall Titov, a top-secret orbital station operated by the European Space Agency. But what Matt will discover there will propel him on an extraordinary and quite unexpected journey.

Gregor Cairns is an exobiology student and descendant of one of Terra Nova's first families. Hopelessly infatuated with a lovely young trader's daughter, he is unaware that his research partner, Elizabeth, has fallen in love with him. Together, Gregor and Elizabeth confront the great work his family began three centuries earlier-to rediscover the secret of interstellar travel.

Cosmonaut Keep is a 2002 Hugo Award Nominee for Best Novel.

At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

Contents

• PROLOGUE: 1
• 1 SHIP COMING IN: 3
• 2 RESIDENT ALIEN: 22
• 3 BAT SONGS: 41
• 4 LEGACY SYSTEMS: 60
• 5 COSMONAUT KEEP: 79
• 6 TRUSTED THIRD PARTIES: 99
• 7 THE GREAT WORK: 113
• 8 THE DREAMLAND GATE: 132
• 9 LIGHT YEARS GONE: 153
• 10 LAUNCH ON WARNING: 171
• 11 MANUFACTURING PLANT: 188
• 12 ORBITAL COMMIE HELL: 207
• 13 GRAVITY SKIFF: 226
• 14 REVOLUTIONARY PLATFORM: 242
• 15 THE SPACE PORT: 262
• 16 COOL STUFF: 281
• 17 JUDGEMENT OF KRAKENS: 301
• 18 SOCIAL ENGINEERING: 320
• 19 THE FIRST NAVIGATOR: 341
• 20 BLASPHEMOUS GEOMETRIES: 357
• 21 THE DARKER THE NIGHT THE BRIGHTER THE STAR: 382

About the author

Ken MacLeod holds a degree in zoology and has worked in the fields of biomechanics and computer programming. Three of his novels, The Star Fraction, The Stone Canal, and Learning the World each won the Prometheus Award; The Cassini Division was a finalist for the Nebula Award; and The Sky Road won the British Science Fiction Association Award and was a finalist for the Hugo Award, as were Cosmonaut Keep, Dark Light and Learning the World. Ken MacLeod lives near Edinburgh, Scotland, with his wife and children.

Bibliographic information

• Title: Cosmonaut Keep: The Opening Novel in An Astonishing New Future History; Volume 1 of Engines of Light
• Author: Ken MacLeod
• Edition: unabridged
• Publisher: Macmillan, 2010
• ISBN: 1429977159, 9781429977159
• Length: 300 pages
• Subjects: Fiction / Science Fiction / Alien Contact; Fiction / Science Fiction / Space Opera