The protagonists are Hugh and Hope Morrison, a couple with a young son in a near-future, post-climate change London during the "Warm War".

In practice, this amounts to an attempt to create a conformist dystopia, "strongly encouraging" its citizens to make "the right choice".

This brings the pregnant Hope into conflict with the state when she decides that she does not want to take "the Fix", a single-dose pill that would correct genetic errors in her unborn child.

Cory Doctorow reviewed Intrusion as "a new kind of dystopian novel: a vision of a near future "benevolent dictatorship" run by Tony Blair-style technocrats who believe freedom isn't the right to choose, it's the right to have the government decide what you would choose, if only you knew what they knew.

Whichever end of the political spectrum you fall, on MacLeod will push your buttons – and make you think.