Before I'd read The Star Fraction, I recognized the name Ken Macleod as a friend of Iain Banks. Reading the book, one can tell they might be friends. Birds of a feather one might say. Macleod goes in a bit more for clever word play. Banks' work has a more sweeping, elegaic quality.

There's quite a bit of ideology, or rather references to ideology and ideological positions. I imagine there's something of Macleod's own background here. Perhaps he attended meetings of socialist groups in his youth?

I understand this is his first book, I'm interested to see how his writing develops...