The novel “Engine City” by Ken MacLeod was published for the first time in 2003. It’s the third book in the Engines of Light Trilogy and follows “Dark Light“.
Ancient cosmonauts gave humans the chance to fly again among the stars without having to resort to the services of the saurs and the krakens and even managed to communicate on their own with one of the gods. They also received a warning about enemies who want to overthrow a balance that has existed for a very long time.
Various species of hominids were transported to the Second Sphere and built new cities on various planets. Nova Babylonia is the largest of these cities and becomes the center of a new series of changes that follow interventions from humans and from a new alien species that seems to have a lot to offer.
“Engine City” is the concluding novel of a trilogy that includes a number of great ideas mixed together in a way that sometimes is uneven. The beginning is a sort of summary of what happened not only in the first two novels but also in the background of a bigger story with particular attention to the role of the gods, so much so that I’m tempted to recommend reading only this novel.
Ken MacLeod took two novels to provide some clarification on the nature of the gods and their relationship with the other sentient species present in the Second Sphere. At last a great story that crosses an immense space and time has a number of references that clarify various events, the saurs’ attitude, the presence of various hominids among the stars and much more. At this point, the author adds a new species of aliens who introduce themselves as friends but meet skepticism if not hostility from a part of the population.
In the course of the trilogy, Ken MacLeod exploited folklore in various ways including species that remind of ancient legends and the saurs are basically the grays that are seen in UFO stories. In “Engine City” he exploited even more that kind of stories in telling certain actions by the octopods, the new aliens that have an important part in this final part of the Engines of Light Trilogy.
It wouldn’t be a Ken MacLeod’s novel if there were no revolutions and civil wars. In this case the problem is that sometimes the big changes are simply mentioned after they happened. The choice to write novels that have a limited length for today’s standards implies a need to choice what to tell and can be a limit for a series like the Engines of Light Trilogy, which includes many themes and follows various characters on different planets. On several occasions the protagonists are at the center of important events that are only mentioned, in particular cosmonaut Volkov, while other events characters witnesses only are told.
Despite this, “Engine City” seemed to me the most balanced novel of the Engines of Light Trilogy in the sense that the political and social elements are less heavy, even if compared to the previous novels what changes is the amount of space about them. In the end, it seems that in human societies it’s impossible to avoid chaos so a static society decays to collapse but when there are changes in a society they typically lead to violent clashes.
These themes have less space in “Engine City” thanks to the importance of the octopodes. The relationships between human beings and other species was already central in the first two novels, so much so that the saur Salasso is an important character, but in the third novel the octopods actively intervene in the Second Sphere changing every balance.
The Engines of Light Trilogy ends with several twists and big changes in the Second Sphere. Nova Babylonia represented an example of the civilization built by the human beings descended from those who came from the Earth and showed its limits. When Volkov speaks at the Academy of Sciences offering his help to rediscover the secrets of the longevity treatment it’s clear how much the city scientists are more similar to the philosophers of the Earth’s Middle Ages than to the researchers of the 20th and 21st century. The arrival of the octopodes changes everything.
“Engine City” has a quite open ending like the previous novels but Ken MacLeod wrote no more sequels to this series. If you liked the first two novels, in my opinion this final book is a must-read.
