ISBN 0-09-955871-8 (UK hbk)

"Moh Kohn is a security mercenary, his smart gun and killer refexes for hire to the okay guys -- scientists under siege from the anti-tech terrorists and the US/UN technology cops, known as Stasis. In a society where computer literacy is the only kind that counts, Moh's found his niche: his father wrote the revolutionary programs used around the world. But he reached for a world without borders, and met a fate Moh can't forget.

"Janis Taine is a scientist, working on memory-enhancing drugs. The Stasis heavies warn her off, unaware that she's already made the breakthrough. Norlonto's capitalist anarchy is the only place to hide -- and to get there she needs Moh's help.

"Jordan Brown is a teenager in the Christian enclave of Beulah City -- formerly Islington -- dealing in theologically-correct wares for the world's fundamentalists. He wants out...of Beulah City, his stultifying life. He needs freedom's only passport -- money.

"In a Balkanized world where the peace process is deadlier than the wars, the US/UN's spy satellites and laser weapons have everybody in their sights. But the Watchmaker has other plans, and the lives of Moh, Janis and Jordan are part of the programme. Spectres of a betrayed revolution haunt the fight for space and freedom, as the Army of the New Republic prepares its fourth 'final' offensive and the green barbarians close in on the divided cities..." [jacket blurb, UK hbk, 1995]

"Stunningly assured, inventive and intelligent, The Star Fraction is richly readable and riddled with accuracies. This book takes near-future fiction into cyberian places it hasn't dared go before. SF bibliophiles better take note; grab a first edition now before they disappear; this man's going to be a major writer." --Iain Banks.

"If you want a one-sentence summary, Ken MacLeod's The Star Fraction is a post-cyberpunk libertarian science fiction novel, but that label obscures two important points. First, the novel's cyber elements show that Richard Dawkins has influenced MacLeod's work far more than has Ilya Prigogine, with both memes and 'the blind watchmaker' forming vital chunks of the novel's intellectual underpinning. Second, its libertarian roots come out of the European leftist/radical tradition rather than the American anti-communist right of Ayn Rand and Robert A. Heinlein. The result is a rich, zesty, Eurocentric stew that not all stateside readers attracted to the 'libertarian cyberpunk' tag will find to their taste." --Lawrence Person (in SF Eye , Issue #15, Fall 1998).