Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
Good, but not quite Iain Banks yet..., 8 Aug 2005
Good, but incredibly dense. He's obviously wanted to have the Iain M. Banks style multiple plots running, but unlike Banks, he doesn't quite pull it off. Not enough about Cormac, and not enough about Mr Crane to be quite honest. There was a lot of digression into stuff that never quite seemed important - the fate of the human colonists - I never really cared that much about them, because they were never really developed as characters. Putting them then in peril didn't really grab me that much. But some excellent technology, and for the first time he explores the motivations of the various AI denizens of his universe, although the Polity is starting to resemble the Culture quite markedly - not bad thing in some ways, but Banks skirts the border of Deus Ex Machine very closely at times, and not many authors could do that without stepping over the line. This book is at its best when in the hard science mode - some of the technology ideas are excellent and could be explained even further. Overall an enjoyable read, but not up to the standard of 'Consider Phlebas', or even Asher's early 'Gridlinked'.
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3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
My 100-word book review, 7 Mar 2006
Brass Man, the latest book in Neal Asher's Polity series develops into a rip-roaring action-filled dynamo of an SF novel once you get past the initial flashback sequences. There's plenty here to excite - epic space battles, virulent alien nanotechnology, evil baddies and ever larger and more hideous monsters! The flashbacks near the start can be somewhat confusing, also there is not an awful amount of character development, especially since this is now our third encounter with many of these people. Still, the inventive and fast-paced action sequences do more than enough to compensate for these flaws. I loved it!
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
Excellent Asher stuff, 1 Jan 2007
Another excellent book from Neal Asher. I'd had it a while and only just got round to reading it over hte holidays, so I've forgotten something of the previous stories it's based upon, but that didn't detract at all. The ideas about AI and VR technology and how it will effect human life in the future are intriguing and, for me at least, philosophically sound even if still science fiction. Asher has some strong characters in the excellent Mr. Crane, on whom the book is based and about which the story finally unfolds, Ian Cormac and his team. But I really enjoyed the more "low tech" stories of Anderson and the fantastically imaginative fauna from his world. Dragon also seemed far more plausible than in the past. Really good stuff. Much better put together and easier to read than Cowl. Highly recommended.
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