This review is written with a GPL 4.0 license and the rights contained therein shall supersede all TOS by any and all websites in regards to copying and sharing without proper authorization and permissions. Crossposted at WordPress & Blogspot by Bookstooge’s Exalted Permission
Title: Lockdown Tales #2
Series: Polity #23
Author: Neal Asher
Rating: 4 of 5 Stars
Genre: SF
Pages: 337
Words: 150K
I read the first set of Lockdown Tales in ‘21. It was a strictly Polity universe set of stories and I enjoyed them. This time around, not every story was in the Polity universe. I’m still including this in my Polity numbering for the series, but there are one or two that aren’t Polity.
In his intro, Asher really lets loose against Civil Authorities overstepping the boundaries setup for them and how people just let them. He sounded very much like me in fact, or I sound like him (he’s older, so age before me). It made me laugh and cry because I completely agreed and yet a majority of the world didn’t, as they let fear, lies and manipulation determine their fate instead of taking it into their own hands.
I went into this collection thinking I would try to take notes on each story and write up my review that way, the way Marzaat (and others) do. However, that resolution didn’t last very long. With nine stories, each is a bit longer than just a “short story”, so I had to pay attention. I can’t read, pay attention, take notes AND enjoy the story all at the same time. So something had to give. Obviously, I just decided to not enjoy the stories and sacrifice my enjoyment for your edification. Because nobody is as important as you.
And if you believe that, you need some serious help. No, seriously, get some professional help. You rank about the same as monkey poop to me. Honest.
Therefore the notes went right out the window.
Xenovore was VERY similar to the previous book Weaponized and Asher even mentions that in his introduction. I was glad he did or else I would have felt very gypped. It wasn’t the same story but had enough of the same elements that I wished it had been shorter.
An Alien on Crete was a non-Polity story about an alien coming to Earth to awaken Earth’s guardian, blah, blah, blah. It didn’t engage me at all.
Skin was a story about a Polity citizen getting a new skin from a doctor who had run up against Polity rules. Of course, things go horrifically wrong and the skin ends up slithering away to the ocean. It was awesome.
Antique Battlefields was a tale of the Quiet War, when the AI’s took control. For me, this has always been the achille’s heel of the Polity Universe. I regularly overlook it every time I read a Polity book. The idea is that the AI’s are better than us without our corruption. We created them and thus they are inherently broken. That doesn’t fit Asher’s world view and so he just ignores it. It was interesting to see a quick snapshot of the war, but it really brought the aforementioned issue to my mind and so I just couldn’t ignore it.
Ha, would you look at that? I did ALL that without a single flipping note. My brain is awesome, that’s all I have to say. Suck it AI, you’ll never be anywhere near as talented in so many fields as I am.
There was one story where Asher lets loose his hatred of religion, but it was all of one sentence and in many ways felt more of an obligatory thing than because he actually feels that way. I think he does, but the fire is going out.
And that’s enough out of me. This is over 700 words now. Nobody needs to write or read something that long!
★★★★☆
Table of Contents:
LOCKDOWN TALES II An Introduction
XENOVORE
AN ALIEN ON CRETE
THE TRANSLATOR
SKIN
EELS
THE HOST
ANTIQUE BATTLEFIELDS
MORAL BIOLOGY
LONGEVITY AVERAGING
No comments:
Post a Comment