He paints an alarmingly possible picture of the 21st century world of rampant marketeering, one dominated in the next 20 or so years by a malevolently chauvinistic and (most importantly) space-weaponed USA, utilising proxy forces to maintain fine grained "order" in localities around the world - much of which activity is via is execution squads etc. of locals put onto the list via intelligence gathering in a porous informational world. Charming.
But worth a read as this only provides the backdrop, many of the other themes are very broadranging, indeed, ahem, "universal"...
The first of the series is the Star Fraction, followed by The Stone Canal, then The Sky Road, and the Cassini Division (all from Orbit in the UK, dunno about the US).
There is an increasing maturity of writing through the series, but enough of a relationship of characters and ideas as to make it worth going through in order (but they aren't "linked" as such, and can each be read standalone).
But what I think will amuse lbo'ers is that Macleod takes his politics /seriously/, if having a rather individual slant. Certainly he comes over as knowing a lot about the fractionations of the trot left in the UK at least (far more than I do, so if he is bullmanuring I wouldn't be able to tell :-)
I have often thought that for all our buffing away hereabouts about the evils of market corporate globalism, a few good story books would reach far more people more convincingly than anything a bunch of dried out hacks can lecture.
Anyway, read and enjoy, I strongly recommend them. I'd also be interested in any recommendations of future fiction with a competent political knowledge underlying them...?
Malcolm