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A review by rosseroo
Shadow of the Scorpion by Neal Asher
3.0
I'd heard good things about Neal Asher's science fiction so I picked this one up because although it's connected to his "Polity" series, it's billed as a standalone, so I wasn't committing myself to anything -- that, and it's under 250 pages, which is rare in this particular genre. From what I can tell, the book functions as a kind of prequel, or origin story for his most famous character "Agent Cormac." The book follows two strands and timelines -- the first, and lesser, takes place during Cormac's childhood on Earth. The latter, which is given a good 2/3 to 3/4 of the pages, follows him on his first mission as a soldier, as he gets caught up in some serious high-stakes undercover work.
I guess at the end of the day, it's competently written military sci-fi, with a good dose of intrigue to it. The childhood stuff wasn't ever really that interesting to me, but those who've read a bunch of books featuring this character might get more out of it. Asher's strengths seem to lie in concocting reams of interesting future technology and assembling it all into a vivid tableau. The underlying politics and dynamics weren't totally clear to me, not having read the full series, but there's enough to get by on. Asher's other strength is in setting up and unveiling small scale combat sequences that are dark and bloody.
It's all solid enough and readable, but Cormac is never really developed as a character, so it's hard to get that invested in him. Really, he comes across on the page as a fairly generic action hero. Can't say I'm inspired to read others in the series.
I guess at the end of the day, it's competently written military sci-fi, with a good dose of intrigue to it. The childhood stuff wasn't ever really that interesting to me, but those who've read a bunch of books featuring this character might get more out of it. Asher's strengths seem to lie in concocting reams of interesting future technology and assembling it all into a vivid tableau. The underlying politics and dynamics weren't totally clear to me, not having read the full series, but there's enough to get by on. Asher's other strength is in setting up and unveiling small scale combat sequences that are dark and bloody.
It's all solid enough and readable, but Cormac is never really developed as a character, so it's hard to get that invested in him. Really, he comes across on the page as a fairly generic action hero. Can't say I'm inspired to read others in the series.