UNLIKE OTHER FUNDAMENTAL elements of our lives — food, sex, and death, or even gravity — money has mostly escaped speculative examination in science fiction. Relatively few alternatives to money as a system of exchange have been proposed. Generally, it’s assumed that ...

FROM THE FIRST, with two series of novels whose ambitious narrative arcs moved from near-future Earth settings to distant planets and increasingly strange cultures populated by posthumans and a variety of artificial intelligences, Ken MacLeod’s science fiction has been ...