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imitira's review against another edition
4.0
I still enjoy the writing, but with each new book I get a stronger sense of retroactive redesign of world and plot history to accommodate more stories. It isn't necessarily a huge problem - I've always been willing to gloss over inconsistencies or plot stretches for a sufficiently good read - but it does wear somewhat when reading a lot of Asher back to back.
eisn's review against another edition
2.0
The return to the world of Masada is full of adventure.
However the novel falls flat due to the sheer number of POV characters and especially the lack of difference between their narrative lenses. Characters are there mostly to move the plot forward and not to actually live in the story.
We also see a sector AI who is supposed to be just below Earth Central in intelligence. What we see is unfortunately lacking.
This novel is probably just a transition novel for the next trilogy in the Polity Universe and it probably was written in a hurry.
However the novel falls flat due to the sheer number of POV characters and especially the lack of difference between their narrative lenses. Characters are there mostly to move the plot forward and not to actually live in the story.
We also see a sector AI who is supposed to be just below Earth Central in intelligence. What we see is unfortunately lacking.
This novel is probably just a transition novel for the next trilogy in the Polity Universe and it probably was written in a hurry.
macindog's review against another edition
5.0
Set 20 years after the Polity liberated the world of Masada from Theocracy rule, this tale follows Jeremiah Tombs, an ex-Theocracy Proctor who survived a Hooder attack. Not just any Hooder either, possibly the oldest and most esoteric Hooder on the Planet and they call it The Technician.
Trouble is...no one survives a Hooder attack, their victims are skinned and dismantled before being eaten, but Tombs did and the AIs are sure The Technician put something into his head, something related to a lost race called the Atheter.
So Tombs is rebuilt and allowed to follow whatever destiny has in store for him. The AIs have also assigned him some serious "protection" as there are still those out there with long memories and boiling hatred of the Theocracy and anyone identified with with it.
This is a stunningly good story. If you've been following Asher's Masada stories, it brings a lot of the earlier players and Masadan wildlife together - the war drone Amistad, the black AI Penny Royal, ex-rebel commander Lief Grant, Dragon, the Gabbleducks and of course, the Hooders.
Trouble is...no one survives a Hooder attack, their victims are skinned and dismantled before being eaten, but Tombs did and the AIs are sure The Technician put something into his head, something related to a lost race called the Atheter.
So Tombs is rebuilt and allowed to follow whatever destiny has in store for him. The AIs have also assigned him some serious "protection" as there are still those out there with long memories and boiling hatred of the Theocracy and anyone identified with with it.
This is a stunningly good story. If you've been following Asher's Masada stories, it brings a lot of the earlier players and Masadan wildlife together - the war drone Amistad, the black AI Penny Royal, ex-rebel commander Lief Grant, Dragon, the Gabbleducks and of course, the Hooders.
elusivity's review against another edition
4.0
As always, a deeply-absorbing read.
In the world governed by high-level AI, events never happen by chance but always influenced by interlinking multi-step plans spanning years and decades and millennia. In this case, Earth AI attempt to unlock the mystery of the gabbleducks on Masada. Why do they have giant complex brains? Why does the hooder dubbed the Technican make strange sculptures out of bone?
The Dragon came to Masada some decades ago in its journey to prod the polity so it can become sufficiently "on its toes" to eventually fight inevitable Jain technology. It healed for the Technician for some random reason, I can't tell whether truly due to aesthetic randomness or because it wanted to eventually resurrect the Atheter.
Thereafter, the Technician unloaded the pattern of its master into some poor dude, set it to release in 20 years, and used that time to develop itself to maximum abilities. Meanwhile, Dragon fell to Masada, disintegrated into the dracomen, and used what remained of the anti-Theocracy rebellion underground to deliver a Jain node.
And for some reason the black AI Penny Royal also takes an interest in gabbleducks, even though the mechanism practically destroyed it the last time it revived the gabbleduck mind.
The mechanism came to destroy the revived Atheter mind, easily winning over the Polity AI and the Technician. However, in allowing itself to be destroyed and consumed, the Technician infected the mechanism with the Jain node, which caused it to self-destruct in fear of contamination.
I take issue with a main aspect of the story:
However, that's a personal quibble and didn't affect my enjoyment of the story. The main theme is how hate—useful in times of war and rebellion—always carries the seed of its own destruction. Those characters who used to hate either come to accept that they must move on, or were indeed killed by trying to reenact their hatred..
In the world governed by high-level AI, events never happen by chance but always influenced by interlinking multi-step plans spanning years and decades and millennia. In this case, Earth AI attempt to unlock the mystery of the gabbleducks on Masada. Why do they have giant complex brains? Why does the hooder dubbed the Technican make strange sculptures out of bone?
Spoiler
Because they are the devolved descendants of the Atheter. Because it is a biomechanistic war machine created to revive its master, an Atheter who did not want to devolve. 1 million years ago its first attempt drew the attention of a mechanism meant to prevent the rise of Atheter civilization, which came to disrupt and broke its mind/programming. Since then its attempts at revival had been stuck at the stone-age level of bone sculptures.The Dragon came to Masada some decades ago in its journey to prod the polity so it can become sufficiently "on its toes" to eventually fight inevitable Jain technology. It healed for the Technician for some random reason, I can't tell whether truly due to aesthetic randomness or because it wanted to eventually resurrect the Atheter.
Thereafter, the Technician unloaded the pattern of its master into some poor dude, set it to release in 20 years, and used that time to develop itself to maximum abilities. Meanwhile, Dragon fell to Masada, disintegrated into the dracomen, and used what remained of the anti-Theocracy rebellion underground to deliver a Jain node.
And for some reason the black AI Penny Royal also takes an interest in gabbleducks, even though the mechanism practically destroyed it the last time it revived the gabbleduck mind.
The mechanism came to destroy the revived Atheter mind, easily winning over the Polity AI and the Technician. However, in allowing itself to be destroyed and consumed, the Technician infected the mechanism with the Jain node, which caused it to self-destruct in fear of contamination.
I take issue with a main aspect of the story:
Spoiler
How can these gabbleducks use only 1/3 of their brain for TWO MILLION YEARS without the process evolution shrinking it down to the size of walnuts. These fake-stupid Atheter would have lost their base capabilities within a generation or two. As written, the author seem to imply once intelligent, always potentially intelligent bc their augmentation are built into their identity, or something. Except Nature abhors high-energy items that do nothing, when other parts of the body could always use more advantages. This fundamental law apply even for aliens (since this is SF and not hand-waving fantasy).However, that's a personal quibble and didn't affect my enjoyment of the story. The main theme is how hate—useful in times of war and rebellion—always carries the seed of its own destruction. Those characters who used to hate either come to accept that they must move on, or were indeed killed by trying to reenact their hatred..
pippajay's review against another edition
4.0
Slightly less gruesome than the previous Asher book I read, this story starts very slowly and requires some fortitude to reach the more enthralling part. Bearing that in mind, a good first book for someone new to Asher's Polity Universe as no prior knowledge of the characters is necessary and the technological descriptions are not overdone.
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