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The causes of war have long been one of the major debating topics among historians everywhere. Wars don't just happen, even when there's a precipitating moment such as the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand or the firing on Fort Sumter, usually years of tension and disputes are involved before war actually breaks out. In The Quiet War, Paul McAuley takes us deep into the machinations, schemes, ind intrigues that serve to make a war seem not only necessary but inevitable, even to those who were against it in the first place.

Here's the scene. Climate change has left a ravaged but re-building Earth dominated by powerful aristocratic families who control, among other things, the large environmental projects upon which much of the populace labors Further out in the Solar System, the Outers control the moons of Jupiter and Saturn, and are engaged in social and technological experimentation that feels threatening to the interests of Earth. Through the lives of several characters, including Dave #8, a cloned spy, Macy Minnot, an environmental engineer who starts life on one side and ends up on the other, and Loc Ifriham, a diplomat of indeterminate loyalties, we follow the events, some of them planned, some not, that lead to war.

Paul McAuley began life as a science fiction writer with a series of first-rate novels, ranging in scope from the biological cyberpunk of Fairyland to the cosmic sweep of the Confluence series. He then wrote several near-future thrillers, all of which displayed lessons learned from writing SF. With The Quiet War, a hard science fiction novel with elements of political and spy thrillers, he has come full circle. Now McAuley is applying lessons learned from writing thrillers to the larger canvas afforded by science fiction. The result is a novel that ranges from Earth to the outer Solar System, contemplates technological wonders and grand schemes, but creates most of its dramatic tension through the lives and motives of individual characters.

At the same time, The Quiet War is a statement on the way political, economic, and military interests can either conspire or be manipulated into war, and how public opinion can be managed to support it. The characters in The Quiet War, some of them in favor of the war, some against, all attempt to influence events with varying degrees of success. If there's a lesson here, it's that it's a lot easier to manipulate people through fear and confusion than it is to persuade them with understanding and reason. That's a tough lesson, but fitting, for a novel that takes a compelling, insightful, and, yes, thrilling look at a future headed towards war.

Reviewer Greg L Johnson is happy to know that the sequel to The Quiet War, Gardens of the Sun, has already been published in Great Britain. His reviews also appear in the The New York Review of Science Fiction. And, for something different, Greg blogs about news and politics relating to outdoors issues and the environment at Thinking Outside.