Bookstooge's Reviews On the Road: Neal Asher

Showing posts with label Neal Asher. Show all posts

Wednesday, April 24, 2024

War Bodies (Polity #24) 3.5Stars

Title: War Bodies
Series: Polity #24
Author: Neal Asher
Rating: 3.5 of 5 Stars
Genre: SF
Pages: 454
Words: 174K

Most of Asher’s books never grab me by the throat and choke me into enjoyment. It’s always on the re-read that I end up enjoying the story so much more. I still enjoy the initial read, but I’m not excited. War Bodies follows this pattern.

Lots of ultra violence and killing Prador (the giant xenophobic alien crabs that want to kill all humans) and techno-babble about the techno-scyenze inside Piper’s bones (Piper is the main character). We’re talking massive amounts of technobabble. Planck level of technobabble in fact.

This wasn’t as enjoyable as Weaponized because Piper had so much internal angst/emotions/thoughts all on display all of the time. There is a reason for it and it plays directly into the story but I didn’t want to read it. In some ways, it felt like reading someone else’s journal or private correspondence. You ever done that? If you have, you know the feeling I’m talking about. If you have done that and you don’t know that feeling, you’re probably a psychopath with no feelings or sense of shame and guilt.

I know I’m waffling a lot here. I can’t help it. I love the Polity books in their entirety but sometimes the specific books leave me less than 1000% enthused.

Changing subjects here. Reading order. Some people have asked what is the best place to start with the Polity, now that it is over 20 books long and broken up into sub-series and standalone novels. I always recommend Publication Order, just because. Read as Asher wrote them. But I stumbled across an internal chronological list and so wanted to give that out because I know that sometimes people like to read things in that order.

Weaponized (2300 AD)
Prador Moon (2310 AD)
Shadow of the Scorpion (2339 AD)
Gridlinked (2434 AD)
The Line of Polity (2437 AD)
Brass Man (2441 AD)
Polity Agent (2443 AD)
Line War (2444 AD)
The Technician (2457 AD)
Dark Intelligence (Circa. 2500 AD)[9]
War Factory (Circa. 2500 AD)
Infinity Engine (Circa. 2500 AD)
The Soldier (Circa. 2750 AD)[10]
The Warship (Circa. 2750 AD)
The Human (Circa. 2750 AD)
The Skinner (3056 AD)
The Voyage of the Sable Keech (3078 AD)
Orbus (3079 AD)
Jack Four
Hilldiggers (3230 AD)

You might notice there are only 20 books and that this reviewer calls this book the 24^th Polity book. That is because Asher didn’t include the various short story collections that I do include. Because I’m just that awesome. And I didn’t even charge you anything for it either. You are welcome.

★★★✬☆

From the Publisher & Bookstooge.blog

Long ago, the Cyberat left Earth to co-evolve with machines. Now, led by the powerful dictator Castron, their Old Guard believe that machines should replace the physical body. But these beliefs are upended with the arrival of the human Polity – and their presence ignites rebellion.

Piper was raised as a weapon against the Cyberat, implanted with secretive hardware. When his parents are captured by the Old Guard, the Polity offer him unexpected aid. Piper knows the Polity want more from him, but at what cost? The rebellion also attracts the deadly prador, placing an entire world in peril.

As war rages across the planet, Piper must battle with the unknown technology implanted in his bones. It may be the Polity’s answer to their relentless fight against the prador. It could also be civilization-ending Jain tech – or something far more extraordinary.

After the surrender of the Prador, Piper returns home, a war seasoned general with millions of loyal troops at his command. Castron has fully taken over the planet and subjected the cyberat to prador thralling techniques. With the help of an Agent and a sparkind unit, it will be up to Piper to set himself free from the entity inhabiting his bones and in the process destroy Castron and set the Cyberat free.

Thursday, March 14, 2024

Lockdown Tales #2 (Polity #23) 4Stars

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

Tuesday, January 23, 2024

Weaponized (Polity #22) 4Stars

Title: Weaponized
Series: Polity #22
Author: Neal Asher
Rating: 4 of 5 Stars
Genre: SF
Pages: 481
Words: 163K

It’s been almost two years since I read Jack Four, the previous Polity book by Asher. I still vividly recall that book though because of all the pooping. Thankfully, in Weaponized, Asher moves away from that. However, what he moves into is as close to body horror as I ever want to get. I’ll talk more on that later.

This novel takes place before and around the beginning of the Prador War. We follow one Ursula as she moves into the ennui stage of life (somewhere around the 200 year mark for most humans, kind of like a very deadly puberty phase of life), then beyond it and then into the present, where she is trying to colonize a world outside of Polity control. Asher slices the story up into Past, Near Past and Present and slices each time line up and interweaves them. So for Chapter 1, you’ll have Present, about Ursula fighting on the planet. Then we’ll switch to Near Past about the colonists discovering whatever they are fighting in the Present. Then we’ll go to the Past which starts with her going through the military and getting kicked out because of the ennui. While it was handled well, I didn’t like it. It was very different from his previous novels and I suspect he did it just to see if he could but I sure hope he’s done with that little “phase”.

The pace here was just as unrelenting and furious as in Jack Four. Which leads into the body horror. This was also a Jain tech novel. By now, fans of Asher know how horrible Jain tech is, how pervasive, twisting and overpowering it is. But instead of the jain changing the colonists over a period of years, it happens within months, days and even hours. They change from humans to whatever is needed to survive, not only physically but also mentally and emotionally. It was degradation on every level. What made it worse is that they chose it, even if they were under the influence of the jain tech. It became so bad that a Polity golem sacrificed herself to set off the entire CTD arsenal in a prador dreadnaught. Ursula STILL managed to survive and the novel ends with her entity being taken to a Polity AI to be studied. It was brutal. Asher does a great job of showing that the Polity is not some benevolent technocracy but just a series of programs weighing what is the best outcome for the greatest number. There have been times it felt like he was promulgating the idea that they were truly benevolent, but either my perceptions have changed or his writing has changed. Either way, it feels much more inline with my worldview and I for one am ok with whatever the reality of the change actually is.

Another fantastic journey into the heart of a future as envisioned by Neal Asher. I continue to recommend this Polity series.

★★★★☆

From the Publisher

With the advent of new AI technology, Polity citizens now possess incredible lifespans. Yet they struggle to find meaning in their longevity, seeking danger and novelty in their increasingly mundane lives.

On a mission to find a brighter future for humanity, ex-soldier Ursula fosters a colony on the hostile planet Threpsis. Here, survival isn’t a given, and colonists thrive without their AI guidance. But when deadly alien raptors appear, Ursula and her companions find themselves forced to adapt in unprecedented ways. And they will be pushed to the very brink of what it means to be human.

As a desperate battle rages across the planet, Ursula must dig deep into her past if she is to save humanity’s future.

Tuesday, December 21, 2021

Jack Four (Polity #21) ★★★★☆

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, & Librarything by Bookstooge’s Exalted Permission
Title: Jack Four
Series: Polity #21
Authors: Neal Asher
Rating: 4 of 5 Stars
Genre: SF
Pages: 334
Words: 139K

Synopsis:

From the Inside Cover

Created to die – determined to live . . .

Jack Four – one of twenty human clones – has been created to be sold. His purchasers are the alien prador and they only want him for their experimentation program. But there is something different about Jack. No clone should possess the knowledge that’s been loaded into his mind. And no normal citizen of humanity’s Polity worlds would have this information.

The prador’s king has been mutated by the Spatterjay virus into a creature even more monstrous than the prador themselves. And his children, the King’s Guard, have undergone similar changes. They were infected by the virus during the last humans-versus-prador war, now lapsed into an uneasy truce. But the prador are always looking for new weapons – and their experimentation program might give them the edge they seek.

Suzeal trades human slaves out of the Stratogaster Space Station, re-engineering them to serve the prador. She thinks the rewards are worth the risks, but all that is about to change. The Station was once a zoo, containing monsters from across known space. All the monsters now dwell on the planet below, but they aren’t as contained as they seem. And a vengeful clone may be the worst danger of all.

My Thoughts:

Asher has never been shy about biological functions in his stories, what with jain tech invading like a cancer or the spatterjay turning someones tongue into a leech that wants to eat you to giant crabs mating. But in this book he seems to have an obsession with poop and the main character, Jack Four, is constantly voiding his bowels and Asher lets us know about it more than is necessary. Maybe Asher was having issues of his own and so it was on his mind? I don't know but if you do read this book, be prepared for bowel voiding like it is some sort of contest, hahahaha!

In this story, Asher brings most of his most dangerous creations (Jay Hoop level of hoopers, hooders and other monsters from his various books) altogether and has a prador scientist messing around with them trying to make them even more dangerous. The biggest scary was the prador trying to re-weaponize the hooders as war machines and thralled under prador control. It is scary as all get out but also immensely satisfying when the hooders overcome the thralling and turn on everybody.

It is pretty obvious (at least to me) who Jack Four was based on once you meet the template early on. I was wracking my brains to see if we'd been introduced to any Jacks who were ECS agents in earlier books but there my mind fails. I could probably go find some sort of Polity character list but I don't care THAT much.

By the end of the book I was exhausted. This felt like it was a non-stop ultra violent sprint. From Jack Four's awakening to the very end, the pace is relentless and Jack is on the run. With the runs a lot of the time (if you know what I mean) BA DUM TISH!

While I am pretty sure this is supposed to be a standalone Polity story, it is possible that this will turn into a trilogy. I hope it doesn't though. Asher is pretty good about telling one book stories and this is just fine the way it is.

★★★★☆

All of My "Polity" Reviews

Wednesday, June 09, 2021

Lockdown Tales (Polity #20) ★★★✬☆

Title: Lockdown Tales
Series: Polity #20
Author: Neal Asher
Rating: 3.5 of 5 Stars
Genre: SF
Pages: 329
Words: 151K

Synopsis:

A collection of short stories about the Polity as it becomes the Post-Polity. This consists of:

The Relict
Monitor Logan
Bad Boy
Plenty
Dr Whip
Raising Moloch

My Thoughts:

From what I could gather, the Polity didn't collapse so much as it simply ceased to exist as the AI's bootstrapped most of humanity up to their level and they all decided to stop playing government. The little clues make it seem like this all took less than 100,000 years. There's no mention, that I can remember, of the newly raised Atheter or any mention of what happened to the Prador. While it all might have made sense in Asher's head, to me it felt very “I'm bored with this particular literary construct, thus I'll wave my authorial hand and …..”

Don't get me wrong. Besides the first story where Asher lets his vitriol against religion take front and center, I enjoyed these stories. They all had his ultra-violence that I've come to expect from him as well as the techno-babble that I just skim over now.

What threw me for a loop was that these were not ALL post-Polity. Monitor Logan takes place squarely during the height of the Polity/Prador standoff and Bad Boy takes place on Spatterjay and involves a situation where the AI lets things run their course hoping the inhabitants will apply for Polity membership. It just made me feel like the secondary title on the cover What Comes After the Polity was misleading.

I think this might be a very good jumping on place for anyone new to the Polity. There are 19 previous Polity books and I can imagine it is daunting to a new person to figure out where they want to start.

★★★✬☆

All of My "Polity" Review

Wednesday, December 02, 2020

The Human (Polity: Rise of the Jain #3) ★★★★☆

Title: The Human
Series: Polity: Rise of the Jain #3
Author: Neal Asher
Rating: 4 of 5 Stars
Genre: SF
Pages: 402
Words: 159.5K

Synopsis:

Publishers Blurb and Me

A Jain warship has risen from the depths of space, emerging with a deadly grudge and a wealth of ancient yet lethal technology. It is determined to hunt down the alien Client, and will annihilate all those who stand in its way. So Orlandine must prepare humanity’s defense.

Both humanity and the Prador thought their ancient foe—the Jain—had perished in a past age. And they resolve to destroy these outliers at any cost. Orlandine wants the Client’s inside knowledge to act, but the Client has her own agenda. Earth Central therefore looks to the Prador for alliance, after the Jain destroy their fleet. However, not everyone is happy with this, and some will do anything to shatter this fragile coalition.

As the Jain warship makes its way across the galaxy, it seems unstoppable. Human and Prador forces alike struggle to withstand its devastating weaponry. Orlandine’s life work is to neutralize Jain technology, so if she can't triumph, no one can.

Riker, the Hooper with Jain tech, takes on the Jain warship, believing that the only way to conquer the Jain is to subsume the ship. In the process, Riker becomes what he's trying to subsume and he takes down Orlandine, now a Jain entity infesting an entire world. The Client was prepared for such an eventuality and prepared a weapon that the other Hooper, Cogulus, uses against Riker. It spreads out in a chain reaction, destroying all the jain connections.

The jain entity survives, but only its mostly dead body. It hides and begins building its strength for the millennia when the galaxy will have forgotten about it.

My Thoughts:

This was the longest book in the trilogy but Asher needed every page to wrap things up. I was concerned when I didn't see a clear solution by the 75% mark. I was afraid he was going to pull some sort of shenanigans like some other authors, but thankfully, I shouldn't have worried. And what's more, the jain are still around to be the bogeyman if he ever needs it in the future. I like that.

The main reason this got a 4 star instead of higher, at least this time around, was because of Asher's penchant to describe all the “stuff”. He really likes getting into the nitty gritty of what a starship looks like or how many and what kind of weapons it has and what they look like. And the techno-babble about communications and upgrades, etc, it was just a bit much for me this time around. I don't think it was actually any more indepth than in previous books, but this time I just didn't care.

The battles were awesome, as always. Asher has done a good job of keeping things interesting. There is always the danger of just making things bigger or badder or both but describing it in the same manner and thus losing your audience. I think he's skirting that line in places but so far, I'm still interested. Part of that is the continued use of the Hoopers and the Spatterjay virus.

Now I have to wait for him to write some more, sigh. He's written some standalone books before and I wouldn't mind if he went that route for a couple of books instead of another trilogy. I guess only time will tell.

★★★★☆

Wednesday, October 28, 2020

The Warship (Polity: Rise of the Jain #2) ★★★★☆

Title: The Warship
Series: Polity: Rise of the Jain #2
Author: Neal Asher
Rating: 4 of 5 Stars
Genre: SF
Pages: 350
Words: 138K

Synopsis:

Cobbled Together from Various Places

Orlandine has destroyed the alien Jain super-soldier by deploying an actual black hole. And now that same weapon hoovers up clouds of lethal Jain technology, swarming within the deadly accretion disc’s event horizon. All seems just as she planned. Yet behind her back, forces incite rebellion on her home world, planning her assassination.

Earth Central, humanity’s ruling intelligence, knows Orlandine was tricked into releasing her weapon, and fears the Jain are behind it. The prador king knows this too – and both foes gather fleets of warships to surround the disc.

The alien Client is returning to the accretion disc to save the last of her kind, buried on a ship deep within it. She upgrades her vast weapons platform in preparation, and she’ll need it. Her nemesis also waits within the disc’s swirling dusts – and the Jain have committed genocide before.

When the Clade, a swarm AI, assassinates multiple nodes of Orlandine’s consciousness, the Polity and the bellicose alien Prador Kingdom are alarmed and send armadas to the Jaskoran system. On Jaskor, Clade units cause further mayhem as they employ war and assassin drones to battle the no-longer-human (but still sympathetic) Captain Trike, who’s been overcome and made monstrous by the Spatterjay virus. Meanwhile, in the vicinity of the accretion disc, something mysterious is emerging from Underspace, and the Polity fears it’s a Jain ship.

In the end, Orlandine survives, the Jaskoran system is declared a 3^rd party “empire” by both Polity and AI, Trike embraces his Spatterjay/Jain transformation, the Clade are dead and a fully deranged Jain Warship has escaped into the galaxy.

My Thoughts:

So, here is what I am finding with Asher's books. I enjoy them pretty well on the first read through. It doesn't really wow me or leaving me desperately wanting to read the next one but I enjoy it immensely and don't feel cheated in any way, ie, time or money. However, any re-reads seem to get me past a barrier and I REALLY enjoy the books. Weird huh?

That was just a roundabout way of saying that this book was pretty good and I enjoyed it, but not as much as my previous Polity reads. In fact, my enjoyment of this new trilogy is following the exact same footprint as when I read the Transformation trilogy (which dealt with the black AI Penny Royal). I fully expect to enjoy it more the next time I do a Polity re-read.

One thing I am really liking about this trilogy is the inclusion of Spatterjay Hooper Old Captains and Prador. This time around, we also get a Prador vessel that is akin in size and power to the Cable Hogue, a legendary Polity vessel that has appeared in earlier books. We get to see a lot more how the spatterjay virus has and is changing the Prador leadership and making them into beings able to at least work with the Polity. I would not be surprised if in later books the Polity and Prador became a united Entity against an outside threat.

I also enjoyed Orlandine's downfall. Asher does a great job of showing that a fallible being doesn't stop having blindspots just because they are/become more intelligent. But at the same time, her fall doesn't destroy her. It was good to see her pick the pieces back up and start fighting again.

★★★★☆

The Soldier (Rise of the Jain #1)

Monday, September 14, 2020

The Soldier (Polity: Rise of the Jain #1) ★★★★☆

Title: The Soldier
Series: Polity: Rise of the Jain #1
Author: Neal Asher
Rating: 4 of 5 Stars
Genre: SF
Pages: 343
Words: 138K

Synopsis:

From Kobo.com

In a far corner of space, on the very borders between humanity’s Polity worlds and the kingdom of the vicious crab-like prador, is an immediate threat to all sentient life: an accretion disc, a solar system designed by the long-dead Jain race and swarming with living technology powerful enough to destroy entire civilizations.

Neither the Polity or the prador want the other in full control of the disc, so they’ve placed an impartial third party in charge of the weapons platform guarding the technology from escaping into the galaxy: Orlandine, a part-human, part-AI haiman. She’s assisted by Dragon, a mysterious, spaceship-sized alien entity who has long been suspicious of Jain technology and who suspects the disc is a trap lying-in-wait.

Meanwhile, the android Angel is planning an attack on the Polity, and is searching for a terrible weapon to carry out his plans?a Jain super-soldier. But what exactly the super-soldier is, and what it could be used for if it fell into the wrong hands, will bring Angel and Orlandine’s missions to a head in a way that could forever change the balance of power in the Polity universe.

In The Soldier, British science fiction writer Neal Asher kicks off another Polity-based trilogy in signature fashion, concocting a mind-melting plot filled with far-future technology, lethal weaponry, and bizarre alien creations.

My Thoughts:

Whoowhee, another Polity trilogy to dig into!

I like that we're getting another storyline from Orlandine. She is a character from the Agent Cormac series and was under-utilized? Well, a side character, so not under-utilized so much as just not the main presence, which makes sense. We also get a couple of Hooper Old Captains from Spatterjay, so the Spatterjay trilogy, while not 100% necessary to understand this, would make this a much better read. Cormac himself is mentioned, so once again, Asher is really tying this into his previous books.

I “think” my only complaint is the lack of what Asher calls a baseline humans, ie, you and me. If you can be bothered to track down a timeline of the Polity, which I can't as I simply don't care, I think this is several hundred years after even the Transformation trilogy with the rogue Black AI Penny Royal? Asher seems to deliberately not introduce a hard timeline, even though I'm sure he's got one. 1 year, 1 decade, 1 century, eh, it is all the same. Anyway, by that time, I wonder if there are even such things as baseline humans. I wouldn't think so, as they simply couldn't live in a world with everyone else who is amped up in one way or another. The Separatists aren't even heard from in this book, and they seemed to be the last sizable holdout against the improvement of humanity in terms of adding machineware to enhance everything.

I do feel like the title is a bit misleading. I was imagining a lone super Jane-soldier taking on the entire Polity and giving them a run for their money. While it does start out small, it quickly turns into a mile long ship size entity that is more intent on fulfilling its secret mission than on taking on the Polity. This trilogy is appearing to be more about revealing secrets of the Jain (and a possible schism that destroyed them) than anything. Whatever, I'm along for the ride!

We also get another alien introduced to us, the Client. It helped the Polity during the Polity/Prador War as the Prador had wiped out its homeworld and species. Turns out it is Jain based and now, with nudgings from Dragon, has pretty much gone exploring. What we don't get is anything about the Atheter, who seemed to have a big part in the Transformation series. I figured they would turn into a threat, but I guess not.

I enjoyed this book and am looking forward to reading the rest of the trilogy as it rotates through my kindle.

★★★★☆

All of My "Polity" Reviews

Wednesday, July 22, 2020

Jupiter War (Owner Sequence #3) ★★★★★

Title: Jupiter War
Series: Owner Sequence #3
Author: Neal Asher
Rating: 5 of 5 Stars
Genre: SF
Pages: 350
Words: 139.5K

Synopsis:

Saul continues to upgrade the Argus station into an interstellar spaceship. He must deal with his sister who is jealous of Saul's abilities but won't admit it to herself, other scientists on board who have come to consider him near-omniscient to former Committee members who want to displace Saul and take over the ship and “be free”. While all of this internal conflict is happening, Saul must also deal with the continued threat presented by Serene Gallahad and her drive to recover the Gene Bank from him to restore the biosphere of Earth. This results in a battle out by Jupiter where Saul ends up destroying the two Committee ships but almost being destroyed in the process.

Gallahad continues to tighten her control of Earth and has become more powerful than ever. Unfortunately for her, several rogue elements working in tandem destroy her powerbase and leave her vulnerable. Her own bodyguard kills her and the lower level Committee members end up all working against each other, thus delaying Earth's return to space for almost a century. This enables Saul to complete his upgrades and leave the Solar System.

My Thoughts:

I have enjoyed this re-read of the Owner Sequence so much more this time around than I did back in '11-'13. I think a big part is that back then I was expecting it to be more tightly tied to Asher's Polity universe and so my expectations were a bit different. Now that I know this isn't another Polity spinoff, I can appreciate it for itself. It excels as an origin story for the Owner.

As my 5stars should indicate, I had a great time reading this. I've been trying to think how to adequately describe the action here. It still gets the ultra-violent tag but at the same time it wasn't frenzied and frenetic. I never felt like I had run out of breath after the battles like I do in some books. That's not a bad thing at all, mind you, just a quirk that stuck out to me.

The Proctors, the nigh-indestructable helpers of Saul, provide a sounding board for Saul to bounce ideas about human nature and freedom off of. While I wish they had been used more as ultimate Killing Machines, I can understand why Asher wrote them the way he did. They are supposed to help keep Saul from losing all touch with what's left of his own humanity.

I know that Asher has written another Polity trilogy recently, which I plan on reading next (Rise of the Jain) but after re-reading this, I wouldn't mind at all if he decided to write another Owner trilogy. I'd be even happier if he just wrote a book of short stories exclusively about the Owner and various adventures he has throughout space.

★★★★★

Sunday, April 26, 2020

Zero Point (Owner Sequence #2) ★★★★★

Title: Zero Point
Series: Owner Sequence #2
Author: Neal Asher
Rating: 5 of 5 Stars
Genre: SF
Pages: 585
Words: 159K

Synopsis:

From Nealasher.fandom.com & Me

The billions of Zero Asset citizens of Earth are free from their sectors, free from the prospect of extermination from orbit, for Alan Saul has all but annihilated the Committee by dropping the Argus satellite laser network on it. The shepherds, spiderguns and razorbirds are somnolent, govnet is down and Inspectorate HQs are smoking craters. But power abhors a vacuum and, scrambling from the ruins, comes Serene Galahad. She must act before the remnants of Committee power are overrun by the masses. And she has the means.

Galahad was instrumental in implementing the ID chip technology. What nobody knows is that she inserted some code of her own that is a kill switch, a techno-ebola that kills within the hour. She activates it and kills all zero-asset citizens of the world, approximately 8 to 9 billion people. Dead, in an hour. She then uses it to kill off the remaining committee members who are a threat to her. She blames it all on Alan Saul, so as to unite the remaining 9 billion people on Earth under her control. Galahad's goal is the regeneration of the biosphere and the limiting of the humans on Earth to under 5 billion. To do this though, she needs the genetic library that is only on the Argus Station. She puts full priority of finishing up a spaceship capable of taking out the Argus Station and sends it and 2000 loyal troops after Saul and the Station.

The Captain of the ship and his higher ups realize their lifespans are limited to Galahad receiving the genetic bank, so they rebel and once the loyal troops are off and attacking the Station, leave. Saul however, has figured out the code Galahad used with her techno-ebola and wipes the crew of the ship out so they can't pose any kind of threat to him and the station again.

Var Delex knows that Earth will eventually reach out to Antares Base and, because of her position under Chairman Messina, knows that the warship the Alexander is still available. An even more immediate problem is Argus Station hurtling towards the red planet, with whomever, or whatever trashed Earth still aboard. Var must maintain her grip on power and find a way for them all to survive. Politics start becoming nasty and Var eventually is ambushed and left for dead. She survives long enough for Saul to pick her up on Mars.

As he firmly establishes his rule, Alan Saul delves into the secrets of Argus Station: the results of ghastly experiments in Humanoid Unit Development, a madman who may hold the keys to interstellar flight and research that might unlock eternity. But the agents of Earth are still determined to exact their vengeance, and the killing is not over.

2 clones, especially grown and trained, of the former Head of the Committee, try to assassinate Saul. They partially succeed and Saul is in a comatose state for months. During this time he activates the Proctors, nigh-indestructible constructs of flesh and metal and begins truly integrating his brain across the various vat grown brain material created for just this purpose.

Upon re-awakening, Saul fights off Galahad's forces, rescues his sister and has a space station now capable of FTL. Alan Saul is now truly The Owner.

My Thoughts:

Man, this jumped up 2 stars from last time. It was the perfect book at the perfect time and just hit all the right beats for me.

Galahad releasing the Scour and wiping out billions of people? It was horrifyingly fascinating. I was sickened, disgusted and intrigued all at the same time. Galahad herself made for a great villain and I thoroughly enjoyed her as a character. She's just plain crazy. So much so that she has her fathered tortured for months by a specialist because she tried to seduce her father when she was 15 and he (rightly) rejected it. She never forgave him for the rejection and that is why she has him tortured. I don't know how much more messed up you can get!

Var, Alan Saul's sister, and the whole Mars storyline continues to feel very “added so that future events will make sense”, if you can parse that. Saul's recognition of her as his sister (remember, he had his memory wiped at the beginning of the first book) is a big component to him coming out of his coma and it gives the Argus station a place to go so as to allow the story to continue in our solar system.

The storyline on the Argus is rather sprawling. With Saul out of commission in any meaningful way for a large part of it, we get to see other characters come into their own, even while being guided by Saul's ghost in the machine. The moment when the Proctors came online hit me like a freight train for some reason and I just did an arm pump in the air and hollered “oh yeah!”. And it's not like they even went on a massive killing spree, they simply were there.

I am now really looking forward to the final book in the Owner Sequence.

★★★★★

Wednesday, February 26, 2020

The Departure (Owner Sequence #1) ★★★★☆

Title: The Departure
Series: Owner Sequence #1
Author: Neal Asher
Rating: 4 of 5 Stars
Genre: SF
Pages: 569
Words: 154K

Synopsis:

Visible in the night sky the Argus Station, its twin smelting plants like glowing eyes, looks down on nightmare Earth. From Argus the Committee keep an oppressive control: citizens are watched by cams systems and political officers, it's a world inhabited by shepherds, reader guns, razor birds and the brutal Inspectorate with its white tiled cells and pain inducers. Soon the Committee will have the power to edit human minds, but not yet, twelve billion human being need to die before Earth can be stabilized, but by turning large portions of Earth into concentration camps this is achievable, especially when the Argus satellite laser network comes fully online . . . This is the world Alan Saul wakes to in his crate on the conveyor to the Calais incinerator. How he got there he does not know, but he does remember the pain and the face of his interrogator. Informed by Janus, through the hardware implanted in his skull, about the world as it is now Saul is determined to destroy it, just as soon as he has found out who he was, and killed his interrogator.

Saul infiltrates a soon to be shut down branch of the committee and takes the identity of one of the lower executives. This is the first step towards infiltrating a much higher branch where the woman who implanted the hardware in his head resides. After successfully performing this, he and Hannah are on the run. She performs the next level of surgery on him, basically turning him into a human/ai hybrid. By this time Saul realizes there is no way to save the billions on Earth and decides that he is better off without humanity.

He hooks up with some revolutionaries, the leader of which has a similar bit of implant in his head. They're goal is to get to the Argus Station. The Revoluionary's goal is to crash the satellites the Station controls and the station, into Earth and wipe out every Committee Stronghold. Saul realizes his goal is to take over the Station and turn it into a mobile space fortress, ie, a spaceship. What neither of them know is that the Committee Member in charge of the Station has upgraded himself and become a human/ai hybrid as well. Agent Smith, errr, Committee Executive Smith destroys the Revolutionary Leader and Saul finds out Smith is planning a coup to take over the Committee and only allow select Committee Members onto the station while causing a massive dieback on Earth among its citizens.

Saul and Smith fight while the current President of the Committee and his pet Executives fly to the station as well. After a 3 way fight, Saul ups his game and becomes fully integrated with his implant, turning him into something not quite human anymore. Saul wins control of the Station and begins preparations to fly to Mars.

While all of this has been happening, the small colony on Mars has found out that they have been abandoned by the Committee. The Committee Executive in charge plans on killing almost everyone so he and his minions can survive the years necessary until the Committee on Earth can come back to Mars. Saul's sister fights back and takes charge of the colony. The book ends with them seeing the Argus Space Station heading their way but without knowing it isn't under Committee control.

My Thoughts:

I liked this a LOT more this time around. Last time I was really confused with how things started out and the jumps in the timeline. This time I knew it was coming, was prepared and enjoyed the ride.

I think this was the most violent of Asher's books yet. It was gory and graphic AND the sheer body count was humongous. The Revolutionaries take out millions with nukes when they attack multiple Committee headquarters alone. Then you have Saul taking out people left and right or the Committee people committing atrocities to get at Saul. No matter how you slice it, or dice it, or blow it up, or generally kill it in some way or another, this was Violent, with a capital V.

While Asher's Polity books tend to be pretty optimistic, at least in terms of humanity bootstrapping itself to a better future, the Owner Sequence is pure dystopia. With 18 billion people on Earth and no way to support them, even Saul gives up of trying to save them. He goes so far as to blame them for existing and calls humanity the manswarm, like they were some sort of plague of locusts. I won't go so far as to say it was a refreshing change from Asher's outlook in the Polity books, but the change was more inline with my outlook on basic humanity, ie, broken by sin. However, unlike Saul, who pretty much says “Sucks to be you, have fun dying”, I don't give up on people, even if I don't like them.

I am thankful that Asher didn't try to write a series about the rise of the Committee but simply gave us the world with that as Fait Accompli. They were the perfect mix of Corrupted Power, Meddling Bureaucracy and Bumbling Idiot all rolled into one scary badguy mix. When a group is planning on killing 12 BILLION people with space lasers, you know they're great bad guys!

Saul is not a “connect with the main character” kind of guy and if you're looking for that, don't bother reading this. He's the gun AND the bullet that Asher uses to tell us the story. I wouldn't want to read characters like him all the time but every once in a while I like someone like that, ie, competent beyond belief, totally focused on their goal and not emoting like an Emo. Kind of like mixing John Wick and Spock! Saul Sprwock perhaps? Hmm, sounds like someone speaking with their mouth full of chocolate pudding. Why chocolate you ask? Because I LIKE chocolate pudding.

★★★★☆

The Departure (2011 Review)