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balthazarlawson's review against another edition
2.0
I'm not the greatest fan of science fiction but that is not why I didn't really enjoy this book. The writing style annoyed me. Just when I began to enjoy the read, the style got in the way to distract me from the enjoyment by slowing things and jumping about. The lack of understanding of this world of the future and all the players didn't help.
At it's heart the story is of a security agent sent to investigate the cause of a terrorist attack that claimed thousands of lives. While also protecting himself from another terrorist who is hell bent on revenge. The level of attention given to these story lines is another dislike of mine, especially when there is a sudden end to one and is thus ignored and no longer referred to.
If it was a bottle of wine, it would not be described as well rounded and full bodied.
At it's heart the story is of a security agent sent to investigate the cause of a terrorist attack that claimed thousands of lives. While also protecting himself from another terrorist who is hell bent on revenge. The level of attention given to these story lines is another dislike of mine, especially when there is a sudden end to one and is thus ignored and no longer referred to.
If it was a bottle of wine, it would not be described as well rounded and full bodied.
elusivity's review
3.0
Written as a breathless sci-fi thriller, with shifting perspectives to tell the story of Earth Security agent a la 007, Ian Cormac, as he is re-finding his own humanity after 30 years of mindlink to AI. Hounded by the inexplicably-insane terrorist Arian Pelter, Cormac investigates the malfunctioning and explosion of a runcible (teleportation devices which renders time and space meaningless) that destroyed an entire planet.
Set in a world ran by AIs that easily passed version x of the Turing test; Golemns created but possessing personhood, therefore required to pay for their freedom and creation price by service to the companies that constructed them; nerve-blocked surgeries where the flesh is easily peeled apart to get at the bones and organs... Easy and rapid inter-galactic travel via runcible devices... The interference in human history of an alien bio-mechanic creature called Dragon... All very fascinating stuff.
The upside: this is a rapid read.
The downside: plot threads seem somewhat scattered. Some people's motivations are murky and strange. So who, or what, did blow up the planet? And what was up with Dragon?
This is very clearly the first book in a series. Maybe some of my questions will be answered down the line. Given how difficult it was to push through the last 100 pages, I'm in no hurry for Book 2.
Set in a world ran by AIs that easily passed version x of the Turing test; Golemns created but possessing personhood, therefore required to pay for their freedom and creation price by service to the companies that constructed them; nerve-blocked surgeries where the flesh is easily peeled apart to get at the bones and organs... Easy and rapid inter-galactic travel via runcible devices... The interference in human history of an alien bio-mechanic creature called Dragon... All very fascinating stuff.
The upside: this is a rapid read.
The downside: plot threads seem somewhat scattered. Some people's motivations are murky and strange. So who, or what, did blow up the planet? And what was up with Dragon?
This is very clearly the first book in a series. Maybe some of my questions will be answered down the line. Given how difficult it was to push through the last 100 pages, I'm in no hurry for Book 2.
wiseard's review
3.0
Enjoyable mystery in a post-singularity complex world where humanity is ruled by benevolent AI dictators. Ian Cormac is the James Bond of the future, even though there's not much spying; but plenty of action.
I disliked about half the book mainly in the narrative surrounding Pelter. To me it didn't feel like they added much in the book. Pelter didn't provide much of a distraction to Cormac either. At least Stanton was the POV for his chapters which made them a bit more bearable.
From a literary point of view (especially in the first half of the book) it feels like the author fell down in an adjective book or something and then went and tried to find obscure synonyms for each of them.
Last, but not least, while the mystery is solved adequately you're bereft of the actual resolution because the information they find is not presented at all. I've started the next book in the series and there are some hints as to what they found out but to me it feels like a very cheap cop-out at the end of this book.
I disliked about half the book mainly in the narrative surrounding Pelter. To me it didn't feel like they added much in the book. Pelter didn't provide much of a distraction to Cormac either. At least Stanton was the POV for his chapters which made them a bit more bearable.
From a literary point of view (especially in the first half of the book) it feels like the author fell down in an adjective book or something and then went and tried to find obscure synonyms for each of them.
Last, but not least, while the mystery is solved adequately you're bereft of the actual resolution because the information they find is not presented at all. I've started the next book in the series and there are some hints as to what they found out but to me it feels like a very cheap cop-out at the end of this book.
gmvader's review
2.0
I’ve been trying lately to pin down, in some quantifiable way, how I read books. When I first started my blog I started giving everything a rating. It didn’t make sense after awhile so I abandoned it. I decided that my reviews have to stand on their own. So I’ve been trying to find a way to describe why some books fill me with pure hatred and others with pure glee. For instance I don’t know why I love Robert Jordan’s books but read Dan Brown with the kind of loathing that is actually joy at all the horrible things I have to say about it.
Everybody has a limited attention span. Some people it’s longer than others. When I’m sitting in class it takes about ten minutes for me to start thinking about something else. Other people have shorter or longer attention spans. They say for children that the rule of thumb is about one minute per year of age – so I have the attention span of a ten year old – or something. At some point that breaks down. However, when I’m reading a book that I like reading my attention span becomes hours.
So I’ve started to pay attention to how I read a book. Do I look at my watch frequently, or look up or stop to count the pages until the end of the chapter? Do I sometimes read twenty minutes while thinking about something completely different and have no idea what I just read? Those are all signs that something is not right with this book. Sometimes I can identify what it is that is keeping me from really getting lost in the words. Sometimes I can’t.
Very few authors can achieve this to the extent that I lose track of time. I could probably list them all on my two hands – though it would take awhile to scrub the ink off.
Gridlinked is one of those books that I just couldn’t get into and I think I know why.
The story is about Ian Cormac, legendary ECS agent and the psychotic killer who is hunting him down. There’s also a bit about some weird aliens and giant explosions. Ian Cormac is basically James Bond in the future. He goes undercover by using his real name – even though he’s famous all over the galaxy and he stands in the middle of a hail of bullets and shoots the bad guys right in the face without ever getting hit once.
Sometimes I get the idea that the whole thing is supposed to be a farcical play on spy movie tropes but if it is it’s too buried for it to be clear. It feels more like it’s just a series of those tropes glued together in a science fiction universe – albeit a well thought one.
The writing, though, is probably the most atrocious thing about this book. Many of the sentences were so awkward that I had to read them twice before I believed that they actually passed an editor. There’s a great deal of maid-and-butler dialoge only thinly disguised as ‘explain it to me again’ which is dull and annoying. Other than the three or four main characters the rest are all indistinguishable from each other and serve only to either get injured or make awkward narrative suggestions such as ‘lets start calling this alien Scar so we don’t have to keep saying “the other alien” all the time.’ Yes this really happened.
The bad guy is an evil psychopath who kills anybody whenever he feels like it a la Darth Vader except when they are characters that we are supposed to care about, and then he miraculously lets them live when they offend him. He even has some kind of giant metal brain attachment on the side of his head and sticking out his eye so that he will look all villainy.
This book suffered a lot in translation as well. It was written in English and I read it in English but it was written in British English and I don’t read British English. Words were misspelled and every past tense verb ended in –t instead of –ed. These aren’t the author’s fault as much as the editor and publisher but they made it harder to read. In American English saying “he leant against the wall” means he borrowed something with the wall as collateral.
Many of the chapters started with short descriptions of the technology in the book in the form of excerpts from fictional encyclopedias and journals. These were actually quite interesting and entertaining. I found myself frequently looking to see when the next chapter started so I could read another of these sections. Which is another problem, I suppose. The pre-chapter discussions were more interesting than the book.
In all I don’t think I will read this author again. His style is so over the top that he made me think I was reading a Dan Brown science fiction novel. At least he didn’t have the half-page cliffhanger chapters. Small mercies.
Everybody has a limited attention span. Some people it’s longer than others. When I’m sitting in class it takes about ten minutes for me to start thinking about something else. Other people have shorter or longer attention spans. They say for children that the rule of thumb is about one minute per year of age – so I have the attention span of a ten year old – or something. At some point that breaks down. However, when I’m reading a book that I like reading my attention span becomes hours.
So I’ve started to pay attention to how I read a book. Do I look at my watch frequently, or look up or stop to count the pages until the end of the chapter? Do I sometimes read twenty minutes while thinking about something completely different and have no idea what I just read? Those are all signs that something is not right with this book. Sometimes I can identify what it is that is keeping me from really getting lost in the words. Sometimes I can’t.
Very few authors can achieve this to the extent that I lose track of time. I could probably list them all on my two hands – though it would take awhile to scrub the ink off.
Gridlinked is one of those books that I just couldn’t get into and I think I know why.
The story is about Ian Cormac, legendary ECS agent and the psychotic killer who is hunting him down. There’s also a bit about some weird aliens and giant explosions. Ian Cormac is basically James Bond in the future. He goes undercover by using his real name – even though he’s famous all over the galaxy and he stands in the middle of a hail of bullets and shoots the bad guys right in the face without ever getting hit once.
Sometimes I get the idea that the whole thing is supposed to be a farcical play on spy movie tropes but if it is it’s too buried for it to be clear. It feels more like it’s just a series of those tropes glued together in a science fiction universe – albeit a well thought one.
The writing, though, is probably the most atrocious thing about this book. Many of the sentences were so awkward that I had to read them twice before I believed that they actually passed an editor. There’s a great deal of maid-and-butler dialoge only thinly disguised as ‘explain it to me again’ which is dull and annoying. Other than the three or four main characters the rest are all indistinguishable from each other and serve only to either get injured or make awkward narrative suggestions such as ‘lets start calling this alien Scar so we don’t have to keep saying “the other alien” all the time.’ Yes this really happened.
The bad guy is an evil psychopath who kills anybody whenever he feels like it a la Darth Vader except when they are characters that we are supposed to care about, and then he miraculously lets them live when they offend him. He even has some kind of giant metal brain attachment on the side of his head and sticking out his eye so that he will look all villainy.
This book suffered a lot in translation as well. It was written in English and I read it in English but it was written in British English and I don’t read British English. Words were misspelled and every past tense verb ended in –t instead of –ed. These aren’t the author’s fault as much as the editor and publisher but they made it harder to read. In American English saying “he leant against the wall” means he borrowed something with the wall as collateral.
Many of the chapters started with short descriptions of the technology in the book in the form of excerpts from fictional encyclopedias and journals. These were actually quite interesting and entertaining. I found myself frequently looking to see when the next chapter started so I could read another of these sections. Which is another problem, I suppose. The pre-chapter discussions were more interesting than the book.
In all I don’t think I will read this author again. His style is so over the top that he made me think I was reading a Dan Brown science fiction novel. At least he didn’t have the half-page cliffhanger chapters. Small mercies.
robynbookends's review
adventurous
dark
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
nikolator's review
adventurous
challenging
dark
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
david_agranoff's review
4.0
I generally like old school science fiction, I love me some early John Shirley, Phil K. Dick, Ursala Leguin, Norman Spinrad or John Brunner. When choosing Sci-fi novels I generally dip into the past, but Neal Asher is quickly becoming one of my favorite 21st century Science Fiction authors. My two favorite 21st century Sci-fi authors are Neal Asher and John Scalzi the author of the Old Man’s War series. The best stand-alone 21st century novel would be Asher’s The Skinner. That book literally knocked me silly. It was gonzo over the top epic Sci-fi novel that was a strange cross of epic world creation but also a swashbuckling adventure not to mention the gritty feeling of a crime novel.
Gridlinked came first, but I read the Skinner first so it put the bar super high for Gridlinked. Is it as good? No, but let’s face it he had grown as an author before The Skinner. Gridlinked is a Sci-fi spy thriller set in the 24th century and featuring a Bond like spook named Ian Cormac. The title of the book comes from the condition he is suffering from. He has been linked to far-future version of the web which is a worlds wide web. The Human race is spread out of several worlds called the Ploity, connected by instanteous transporters called Runicbles.
The story takes off as Cormac investigates a Terrorist attack that destroys the runicble on the planet Samarkind. This story flows and provides an excellent introduction to Asher’s Polity which he has featured in several stand-alone novels set in the same universe. This novel is big weird ideas meets action fest which made it perfect for me. I don’t think the characters were as well developed as in the other Asher book I read, but I still love it.
I’m three for three(Also read a cool novella called Africa zero) with Asher and think you should check him out. I want to read his novel The Departure next. Yeah I’m sold.
Gridlinked came first, but I read the Skinner first so it put the bar super high for Gridlinked. Is it as good? No, but let’s face it he had grown as an author before The Skinner. Gridlinked is a Sci-fi spy thriller set in the 24th century and featuring a Bond like spook named Ian Cormac. The title of the book comes from the condition he is suffering from. He has been linked to far-future version of the web which is a worlds wide web. The Human race is spread out of several worlds called the Ploity, connected by instanteous transporters called Runicbles.
The story takes off as Cormac investigates a Terrorist attack that destroys the runicble on the planet Samarkind. This story flows and provides an excellent introduction to Asher’s Polity which he has featured in several stand-alone novels set in the same universe. This novel is big weird ideas meets action fest which made it perfect for me. I don’t think the characters were as well developed as in the other Asher book I read, but I still love it.
I’m three for three(Also read a cool novella called Africa zero) with Asher and think you should check him out. I want to read his novel The Departure next. Yeah I’m sold.
adamt87's review against another edition
3.0
I have read the "Scooby-Doo" ending published on Neal Ashers website which did a better job explaining Cormacs reasoning and why certain events ended how they did. The published ending in the book is quite cryptic and nonsensical. It's suggestive but doesn't give the reader in my opinion a satisifactory conclusion.
Overall though I really enjoyed the book. Taking into consideration Asher essentially had to do a lot of world building which I can only assume will pay off in the coming books he still managed to deliver a book with plenty of thrills and spills. I would have liked to have seen a little more from the characters in terms of personality though.
I look forward to reading the next book in the series and I believe I may have found my go to author for Sci-Fi goodness (which is good because I bought all the Agent Cormac books and The Technician before reading Gridlinked).
Overall though I really enjoyed the book. Taking into consideration Asher essentially had to do a lot of world building which I can only assume will pay off in the coming books he still managed to deliver a book with plenty of thrills and spills. I would have liked to have seen a little more from the characters in terms of personality though.
I look forward to reading the next book in the series and I believe I may have found my go to author for Sci-Fi goodness (which is good because I bought all the Agent Cormac books and The Technician before reading Gridlinked).
antkneeomonster's review
4.0
3.5
Solid introduction to a new sci-fi universe. Kinda feels like Bank's Culture but with far less social commentary and far more pew-pew, vrooom vrooom. Still, pacy and enjoyable and I'm keen to read more from the author.
Solid introduction to a new sci-fi universe. Kinda feels like Bank's Culture but with far less social commentary and far more pew-pew, vrooom vrooom. Still, pacy and enjoyable and I'm keen to read more from the author.