Tag: Books

Polity Agent Review — Walker of Worlds.

Posted on by Neal Asher

Here’s another review from Mark Chitty as he steadily works his way through his backlog of my books:

Polity Agent is the fourth book in the Agent Cormac series, a series I’ve been catching up with and thoroughly enjoying. The second and third books in the series, The Line of Polity and Brass Man, dealt with the emergence of Jain tech and Skellor’s use of it and was a fairly self-contained duology within the main story. Of course, just because that sub-story concluded it doesn’t mean everything is fine, far from it – Jain tech is still out there and Polity Agent hits the ground running.

As a runcible opens from 800 years in the future the team that were sent to return the Maker to its civilisation in the Small Magellanic cloud comes through in a panic, the Makers overrun by Jain tech. With runcible time-travel not recommended by the AI’s of the Polity due to the huge power requirements and dangers it involves, this situation is used solely to destroy the Jain infested Maker civilisation and most of the Small Magellanic cloud. This event raises many questions, most prominent of them being the purpose of Dragon, the huge bio-construct that the Makers created and sent to the Polity. Meanwhile an entity called Legate is distributing Jain nodes to certain people within the Polity, one of these being Orlandine, a haiman who takes a whole different approach to studying the Jain technology she has in her possession, while another is a dangerous separatist leader on the planet of Coloron. Meanwhile Horace Blegg, the infamous immortal of legend, is slowly learning more and more about jain tech and of himself, while Cormac continues to discover more about Dragon while trying to limit and eradicate the spread of Jain tech. And then there is the King of Hearts, a renegade AI whose journey out of the Polity leads him to discover something very dangerous indeed.

Polity Agent can be found here on Amazon and here on The Book Depository (free international shipping).

Is SF Getting More Conservative?

Posted on by Neal Asher

Interesting article here at Pyjama’s Media, and a very interesting mass of comments ensuing. This is mostly American-centric so definitions of conservative, left, liberal etc are slightly different from the British version. I’d also submit that the question in the title is one that wouldn’t even be asked here. ‘One swallow does not a summer make’ would be the relevant proverb.

I am a complete science fiction geek.

It started when I was little more than a toddler. One of my earliest memories: sitting in the basement with my parents as they watched Walter Cronkite narrate one of the Apollo missions as it rounded the moon. (Which one? I couldn’t have been more than three or four, and I was born in 1971. You do the math.) It left an impression. I’ve been a fan ever since.

In the last few years, I’ve noticed more and more that science fiction has taken a bit of a turn to the right. I’ve also seen more than a few reviews lambasting those authors for their views — which seems to matter not a whit to their sales.

So I emailed four of them — two relative newcomers and two legends — and asked why.

The legends, Dr. Jerry Pournelle and Orson Scott Card, need no introduction. But it bears mention that Ender’s Game, Card’s best-known work, is on the Commandant of the Marine Corps recommended reading list as a treatise on what it means to be a leader. The newcomers, Lt. Col Tom Kratman (Ret.) and Larry Correia, both write for Baen.

The Blade Itself — Joe Abercrombie

Posted on by Neal Asher

When, on the first page of The Blade Itself, a major character went ‘Eeek!’ as he avoided a spear thrust, I nearly put it aside. My feeling was one of, ‘Oh FFS, not another fantasy with a central silly character who bumbles through the plot tripping over his magic sword squealing and running away then managing to destroy the [insert relevant baddy] through pure luck.’ But the writing was engaging and I carried on. This particular character developed into one who really wouldn’t go ‘Eeek!’ so I wish an editor had had the presence of mind to strike a line through it. The other subsequently introduced protagonists were also well-developed in this character-driven fantasy, which reminds me of some enjoyable stuff I’ve read in the past. If you want comparisons I’d say about 70% Eddings and 30% Gemmel – a sword-swinging romp. The book did seem to terminate rather abruptly, but then it is the first book of a trilogy, which I think is well worth a look for fantasy fans. I just apply my usual rules whilst reading: Am I bored? No. Am I enjoying myself? Yes. Will I buy the next two books? Yes.

Before They Are Hanged

The Last Argument of Kings

Update (From The Man Himself):

Hey Neal,

Eeek.

The irony is, that eek isn’t in the published book, only in the proof. My editor did indeed strike her line prior to publication…

But many thanks for the review. Be interested to hear what you think of the rest of the trilogy if you do get round to it. I reckon it gets better and better.

But then I would say that, wouldn’t I?

Best,

Joe Abercrombie

The End.

Posted on by Neal Asher

Ah, there’s nothing quite like writing the two words above. They mean I’ve finished the first draft of the latest book, in this case, Zero Point. However, by no means has the work ended, only word-counts have ended. While writing a book I aim for 2000 words a day five days a week (a target I often miss), and I record the number of words to drive myself. That’s no longer necessary.

Zero Point is at 152,000 words and will probably grow as I have yet to write my characteristic chapter starts. It will be, as I’ve mentioned elsewhere, about the size of The Skinner. Hereafter I’ll probably be deleting as many words as I write as I apply a number of rules. If I’m waffling I delete it, if it’s not relevant to the plot, or to character or world building, I delete it. Time lines and timings have to work. Polemic, while fun, should be either discarded, or consigned to one of those chapter starts where the reader has the liberty to either read and enjoy it or ignore it. Mostly it will be discarded. The English will need tidying up. Lots.

It may be the case that during this process I’ll chop out some large chunks because they add nothing or need completely rewriting. These I’ll consign to the file with the title Jupiter War, where I may use bits of them. Time for a celebration now? No, because I’m still in temperance January. I’ll save up this thirst for next month.

Brass Man Review — Walker of Worlds

Posted on by Neal Asher

Mark Chitty is now catching up with the row of my books stacked on his shelf. You can find his review of Brass Man here.

Brass Man continues my reading (and catch-up) of Neal Asher’s Ian Cormac series. I’m a big fan of Neal’s work and my one reading resolution for this year was to get up-to-date on his releases. I’m in the fortunate position of having the whole series sitting on my shelf ready for back-to-back reads so I can fully appreciate the overall story he’s telling, and after reading the both the second in the series, The Line of Polity, and now Brass Man I’m still gobsmacked that I haven’t read them sooner. Brass Man is the third book in the series and picks up the characters following the conclusion of the previous book, with all the headaches that entails for Cormac and company!

…’after reading both the second’ I think was meant to be ‘after reading the two books that I class as the second part of the series’

Now, noting one reaction to the links I included for The Technician, here’s the Amazon link for Brass Man, and here’s the Book Depository one (free shipping to the US).

Congruence.

Posted on by Neal Asher

You know I got this really odd feeling whilst I watched the film Lemony Snicket (which came out in 2004) upon viewing the scene with the leeches. My initial reaction was, did the film-makers read The Skinner, which was published in 2002? I mean, the boat, the sea, water you just can’t swim in, carnivorous leeches? Well, no, because the book in A Series of Unfortunate Events that has the leeches in it, called The Wide Window, was published in 2000. The congruence of some ideas amidst writers can sometimes be quite astounding, and I think it all comes about because though people might be writing something they think of as new, they are all always standing on the shoulders of giants (especially in SFF), who are the source of their inspiration.

Recently, whilst sitting down to watch the fourth season of Primeval, I realized I’d missed Season Three so bought a box set of One, Two & Three. I didn’t know what Season Three was about but, catching a hint of the storyline (not sure where) I looked up a review of it and got a feeling similar to that I experienced while watching the leech scene in Lemony Snicket:

…you can really see where most of the budget of the series went as Conner, Danny and Abby jump from anomaly to anomaly following Helen through a series of times, encountering creatures and dinosaurs in each time period they visit…

Eventually tracking Helen down, the team confronts her and finds out that her plan is a lot more insane than first thought. Having figured out what the artefact is and what it does (it’s a sort of future hard drive for anomalies), it’s then revealed that it can be used to go back to a specific point in time, namely 333 (a specific code used by archaeologists when describing the first ‘dig’ where hominids – or proto-humans – were found). The team find that it’s Helen’s intent to go back to the site in Rift Valley and poison the first settlement of hominids, which would mean that humans would not evolve and as such never exist.

Did the writers of Primeval read Cowl? If they were into time-travel it would have been an good choice since there aren’t many modern time-travel books out there and it was shortlisted for the PKD Award.

But no, I think not. It’s that congruence again showing us that there’s nothing new under the sun. The idea in Primeval was just putting a spin on and ramping up of the idea implicit in the time-travel paradox of, ‘What happen if I go back in time and shoot my grandfather?’ which is what I did in Cowl. Though I must admit the future monster on this car could (at a big stretch) be Cowl himself!