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yorkshiresoul's review
adventurous
challenging
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
lukeb314's review against another edition
adventurous
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
It's a complicated world of nasty fractured people trying to figure out what they're doing, and vaporise moons and other such dramatics as they do so. Full of explosions and thoroughly enjoyable
jmoses's review
5.0
This was super. It hits my "sci fi" sweet spots, so that put it right at 5 stars. While this book is set in Asher's Polity, no previous familiarity with the universe is required. The necessary background is provided in an appropriate (and not heavy handed) manner. Asher does a great job with the few main characters, who all have different voices. There's a very strong sense of . Asher also does a good job of making the aliens feel alien, and keeping the reader interested while hiding vast swaths of the story and plot. All in all, this was super. It's also very dark, and very much not a happy book. I mean, it's not like it ends "and then they died", but it sure doesn't end "and they all lived happily ever after".
Spoiler
character's not in control of their own destiny, which folds in perfectly with how the story plays outtensy's review
4.0
I vacillated in my rating of this book between 3 and 4, mostly because I had not read any of the previous Polity novels. Claiming to be a standalone novel and the beginning of a new series, I thought it would not be hard to get into the story. However, too much of the world building is only referred to and I often found myself lost as to the role warring factions played within the Polity and even what the heck the Polity was itself.
The story is developed with each character detailing their own POV as to why they want to destroy a certain rogue AI, know as Penny Royal. I have to say, I loved the characters and the AIs' names. You could do a whole critique just based on the choice of names in this book and their political/historical references. I especially enjoyed the fact that the beautiful female character is the one that ends up being transformed into a horrific monster. Points to Asher for going against gender type!
Asher throws a lot of technical jargon at the reader, but never forgets his characters or the story along the way. My favorite kind of hard sci-fi.
In the end, the novel ends on a satisfying note, if not with total resolution, considering it is the first part of an ongoing series. Will I read the next one in the series? You bet. I'm happy to have found a new sci-fi author whose writing I enjoy and will likely pick up the next one.
The story is developed with each character detailing their own POV as to why they want to destroy a certain rogue AI, know as Penny Royal. I have to say, I loved the characters and the AIs' names. You could do a whole critique just based on the choice of names in this book and their political/historical references. I especially enjoyed the fact that the beautiful female character is the one that ends up being transformed into a horrific monster. Points to Asher for going against gender type!
Asher throws a lot of technical jargon at the reader, but never forgets his characters or the story along the way. My favorite kind of hard sci-fi.
In the end, the novel ends on a satisfying note, if not with total resolution, considering it is the first part of an ongoing series. Will I read the next one in the series? You bet. I'm happy to have found a new sci-fi author whose writing I enjoy and will likely pick up the next one.
caitweber's review
4.0
Pros: Unique, action-packed, detailed descriptions, world and character building.
Cons: Sometimes hard to follow, requiring me to re-read some parts. It was always worth the re-read, though! I plan to read the next book in the series.
Cons: Sometimes hard to follow, requiring me to re-read some parts. It was always worth the re-read, though! I plan to read the next book in the series.
ninjalawyer's review against another edition
4.0
Enjoyable and action packed, with a somewhat weak climax.
emnii's review
4.0
I'm no stranger to long running book series, even if the longest I've read is most of the Malazan Book of the Fallen series. However, I don't think I've ever come into a book series from anywhere but the start, until Dark Intelligence. It's the first book in a series within an multi-series known as the Polity universe. And it's good, I liked it, but there are parts that made me question whether I'm missing something because I'm walking in on a movie part-way through, or because it's the first in a series that will continue beyond the bounds of the novel.
Dark Intelligence is about Penny Royal. Penny Royal is a "black AI", an artificial intelligence that turned against the Polity, committing crimes against its citizens and worse. Penny Royal, it's told, touched a lot of lives in the century since he (AI have genders in Dark Intelligence) went black. The story follows some of those lives as they find themselves either hunting Penny Royal, or being manipulated by him, or both.
The main character, whose chapters are written in the first-person perspective while all others are written in the third, is Thorvald Spear. Spear's got a a grudge against Penny Royal ever since the black AI turned against his unit during the war against the Prador (a race of giant crabs) and killed him a century ago. Through the magic of technology, he finds himself resurrected post-war, and goes out to find and destroy Penny Royal. With similar motives, the AI is also sought out by a crime lord, a Prador captain, and an assassin drone.
As I said earlier, this might be the first time I've come into a book universe without starting from the beginning, so it was odd to me that Spear was immediately set upon by a cat-like woman, seduced by her, and then the woman disappears for the rest of the novel without much explanation for the encounter at all. In fact, having been resurrected a century after your death and having sex with the first woman that approaches you at the bar sounds like a particularly bad idea! Maybe she was a bigger figure in previous novels. Maybe not and this scene was written to set some future plots in motion. Another sex scene occurs near the end of the novel, and I can't help but shake the feeling that they were included just to make sure this already mature novel earned a solid R rating in its movie adaptation (that's a metaphor, I don't know if there's a movie coming). It's not that they're poorly written, but that they seem sudden and out of place with the rest of the novel.
But beyond those seemingly out of place scenes, Dark Intelligence was a real enjoyable read. There are other characters and locations that speak to a universe larger than what I read, and what I read makes me want to go back through those previous novels. Dark Intelligence had a lot of things I like in my sci-fi: planet hopping, space ships, evil AI, inscrutable aliens, war-like aliens, human augmentation, biological warfare, and some body horror. It's got a touch of cyberpunk and a touch of biopunk. There are enough blurred lines that I spent most of the story questioning whether or not Penny Royal was the monster that everyone else in the story made him out to be. It's a story that kept me guessing at the AI's motives, even if the rest of his pursuers were seemingly more clear cut.
Dark Intelligence is the first of the Transformation series within the Polity universe, and I'm officially looking forward to the next book. It's solid sci-fi combined with excellent universe building kept me interested from the start.
Dark Intelligence is about Penny Royal. Penny Royal is a "black AI", an artificial intelligence that turned against the Polity, committing crimes against its citizens and worse. Penny Royal, it's told, touched a lot of lives in the century since he (AI have genders in Dark Intelligence) went black. The story follows some of those lives as they find themselves either hunting Penny Royal, or being manipulated by him, or both.
The main character, whose chapters are written in the first-person perspective while all others are written in the third, is Thorvald Spear. Spear's got a a grudge against Penny Royal ever since the black AI turned against his unit during the war against the Prador (a race of giant crabs) and killed him a century ago. Through the magic of technology, he finds himself resurrected post-war, and goes out to find and destroy Penny Royal. With similar motives, the AI is also sought out by a crime lord, a Prador captain, and an assassin drone.
As I said earlier, this might be the first time I've come into a book universe without starting from the beginning, so it was odd to me that Spear was immediately set upon by a cat-like woman, seduced by her, and then the woman disappears for the rest of the novel without much explanation for the encounter at all. In fact, having been resurrected a century after your death and having sex with the first woman that approaches you at the bar sounds like a particularly bad idea! Maybe she was a bigger figure in previous novels. Maybe not and this scene was written to set some future plots in motion. Another sex scene occurs near the end of the novel, and I can't help but shake the feeling that they were included just to make sure this already mature novel earned a solid R rating in its movie adaptation (that's a metaphor, I don't know if there's a movie coming). It's not that they're poorly written, but that they seem sudden and out of place with the rest of the novel.
But beyond those seemingly out of place scenes, Dark Intelligence was a real enjoyable read. There are other characters and locations that speak to a universe larger than what I read, and what I read makes me want to go back through those previous novels. Dark Intelligence had a lot of things I like in my sci-fi: planet hopping, space ships, evil AI, inscrutable aliens, war-like aliens, human augmentation, biological warfare, and some body horror. It's got a touch of cyberpunk and a touch of biopunk. There are enough blurred lines that I spent most of the story questioning whether or not Penny Royal was the monster that everyone else in the story made him out to be. It's a story that kept me guessing at the AI's motives, even if the rest of his pursuers were seemingly more clear cut.
Dark Intelligence is the first of the Transformation series within the Polity universe, and I'm officially looking forward to the next book. It's solid sci-fi combined with excellent universe building kept me interested from the start.
spaffrackett's review
3.0
Narrative driven Dues ex Machina drenched. Will likely read more in this series. Old times.