It's all in the game.

• Author: Walker, Jesse
• Position: Briefly Noted - The Restoration Game (Orbit - Brief article

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The Scottish science fiction writer Ken MacLeod--a leftist with libertarian sympathies, or perhaps it's the other way around-produces some of the most consistently fascinating political novels being published today. His latest, The Restoration Game (Orbit), hasn't found an American publisher yet, but it's worth the trip to amazon.ukto encounter what must be the only plot to center on the video game industry, political intrigue in post-Soviet Asia, and the possibility that we're all living in a Matrix-style simulation.

Much of the story is set in a fictional country called Krassnia, a place...