Ken MacLeod, The Execution Channel

For three-quarters of the book, it reads like a taut and politically cynical spy thriller that has the reader holding tightly onto the plot lines of key protagonists James Travis and his daughter Roisin, while spies, counter-spies, counter-terrorists, conspiracy bloggers and disinformation experts obscure what is really going on. Then comes the foreshadowed but unexpected science-fictional ending that leaves all the other plots and theories in the dust.

The precipitating moment to all of this is an explosion at a U.S. Base in Scotland, witnessed and photographed by peace camp volunteer Roisin Travis. As Roisin flees the authorities, further incidents, initially assumed to be terrorist attacks, spark anti-moslem frenzy in the british populace and hyperactivity in the world's intelligence circles. As Paul Kincaid notes in a review for Strange Horizons (http://www.strangehorizons.com/reviews/2007/06/the_execution_c.shtml):

But espionage is less about information than it is about disinformation, and deception lies at the heart of this novel. This is not just in the way that James and Roisin are constantly changing their appearance, or indeed the way that James regularly uses his computer skills to create new identities. We see the team of English, Scottish, and American agents chasing Roisin deceiving each other. We see the team of freelancers whose job it is to feed disinformation into the web. We see the differing ways that events are reported in the press. We see the American teenager who runs a top conspiracy website, and who slowly begins to see through the disinformation he is being fed. Yet even when anyone in this novel glimpses the truth it is only ever a glimpse, only ever partial. We live in a world, MacLeod tells us very convincingly, in which it is now impossible to know the whole truth, and in which partial truths are as deadly as outright lies.

This is the second novel I've read by MacLeod, and I've been delighted each time by both the storytelling and the incisive political critique embedded in it.

Karen Armstrong, The First Christian

An early work by the acclaimed writer on religious issues Karen Armstrong, The First Christian: St. Paul's Impact on Christianity, explores the life and writings of St. Paul, giving insight both into how his became the voice that shaped the philosophical core of Christianity, and why it was his views that prevailed over those of other early interpreters of christian ideas and ideals.

It places the source of many key elements of Pauline Christianity - the most important of these for me being the anti-sex and anti-woman sentiments that strongly informed church teachings - in the cultural milieu, the nature and survival needs of the nascent Christian church, and the deeply felt millennialism of Paul himself.

Interesting read for anyone curious about the history of religions in general or Christianity in particular.