bluegargantua (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
bluegargantua) wrote2006-06-26 11:46 am
bluegargantua) wrote2006-06-26 11:46 am
Entry tags:
Book Review
Hey,
So I finished up another book this weekend. I've been trying to get my reading pace back up to speed so I'm pretty happy about this. The book is Gridlinked by Neal Asher. This is Asher's first book and part of his "Polity" series about a transhuman society spread out over large parts of the galaxy and ruled by sentient AIs.
In this particular book, we follow Secret Agent Ian Cormac who's had his gridlink removed because after 30 years of being plugged directly into the Internet...yeah, he was losing his edge. So he's off to visit a world recently devastaed because the runcible system (long-distance teleporter) was sabotaged. In an amusing twist on the spy genre, he manages to leave an enemy for dead only to have said enemy survive and return for revenge. Of course, said nemesis is completely unable to stop Our Hero and, in fact, turns out to be relatively minor in the grand scheme of things, despite having a fair amount of text devoted to him and his schemings.
It's hard not to compare this to the first book of Asher's I read The Skinner, which is obviously unfair. Asher had a couple of books under his belt by the time Skinner came around so of course it comes off as more polished. Gridlinked is a perfectly good book that stands on it's own and is complete in one volume (which is a big plus in my book).
So yeah, big-idea sci-fi with lots of action. Gridlinked is good.
later
Tom
So I finished up another book this weekend. I've been trying to get my reading pace back up to speed so I'm pretty happy about this. The book is Gridlinked by Neal Asher. This is Asher's first book and part of his "Polity" series about a transhuman society spread out over large parts of the galaxy and ruled by sentient AIs.
In this particular book, we follow Secret Agent Ian Cormac who's had his gridlink removed because after 30 years of being plugged directly into the Internet...yeah, he was losing his edge. So he's off to visit a world recently devastaed because the runcible system (long-distance teleporter) was sabotaged. In an amusing twist on the spy genre, he manages to leave an enemy for dead only to have said enemy survive and return for revenge. Of course, said nemesis is completely unable to stop Our Hero and, in fact, turns out to be relatively minor in the grand scheme of things, despite having a fair amount of text devoted to him and his schemings.
It's hard not to compare this to the first book of Asher's I read The Skinner, which is obviously unfair. Asher had a couple of books under his belt by the time Skinner came around so of course it comes off as more polished. Gridlinked is a perfectly good book that stands on it's own and is complete in one volume (which is a big plus in my book).
So yeah, big-idea sci-fi with lots of action. Gridlinked is good.
later
Tom