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A review by ajam
Prador Moon by Neal Asher
4.0
4★
Expected pulpy popcorn sci-fi, imagine my surprise then, when the first few chapters had a blow-by-blow description of a human being augmented with their version of the net via an aug which can also link to Singularity level AIs. It all escalates from there.
At times, I was reminded of [a:Alastair Reynolds|51204|Alastair Reynolds|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1521740247p2/51204.jpg]'s worldbuilding , [a:Scalzi, John|7325548|Scalzi, John|https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/user/u_50x66-632230dc9882b4352d753eedf9396530.png]'humor and [a:Iain M. Banks|5807106|Iain M. Banks|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1352410520p2/5807106.jpg]'s whole Culture Palate.
At times, I also thought maybe this what [a:Greg Egan|32699|Greg Egan|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1375595103p2/32699.jpg] would be like in an alternate universe where he doesn't do HARD 'Hard-Sci-Fi' but just plain old Hard-Sci-Fi instead as I could see intelligent writing reaching that level of wit. (The whole bit abt runcible tech offers such a good example of what I am talking abt.)
Also, this one leans quite a lot towards military sci fi so we have space-time rupturing weapons fired between Singularity achieving AI Ships and some more(Not gonna spoil the end, but we also have a Thanos here), thus is not entirely indicative of what the rest of Asher's Polity Universe has to offer.
Maybe I have found out my next favorite author but it's too early to tell.
Expected pulpy popcorn sci-fi, imagine my surprise then, when the first few chapters had a blow-by-blow description of a human being augmented with their version of the net via an aug which can also link to Singularity level AIs. It all escalates from there.
At times, I was reminded of [a:Alastair Reynolds|51204|Alastair Reynolds|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1521740247p2/51204.jpg]'s worldbuilding , [a:Scalzi, John|7325548|Scalzi, John|https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/user/u_50x66-632230dc9882b4352d753eedf9396530.png]'humor and [a:Iain M. Banks|5807106|Iain M. Banks|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1352410520p2/5807106.jpg]'s whole Culture Palate.
At times, I also thought maybe this what [a:Greg Egan|32699|Greg Egan|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1375595103p2/32699.jpg] would be like in an alternate universe where he doesn't do HARD 'Hard-Sci-Fi' but just plain old Hard-Sci-Fi instead as I could see intelligent writing reaching that level of wit. (The whole bit abt runcible tech offers such a good example of what I am talking abt.)
Also, this one leans quite a lot towards military sci fi so we have space-time rupturing weapons fired between Singularity achieving AI Ships and some more(Not gonna spoil the end, but we also have a Thanos here), thus is not entirely indicative of what the rest of Asher's Polity Universe has to offer.
Maybe I have found out my next favorite author but it's too early to tell.