A review by apostrophen
Cowl by Neal Asher

4.0

At its heart, this is a time-travel story, but Asher takes the various conceits of the time travel genre and turns them a little sideways. Basically, the two characters we follow - Polly and Tack - are from a somewhat near-future Earth, and a strange beast called the Torbeast drops 'scales' near them. One of these scales attaches to Polly, and she slips into the past - but only after a small shard of the scale snaps off onto Tack. From their, their stories slide apart, along a similar course, where Polly finds herself inextricably pulled further and further into the past, and Tack is caught by one of two factions of people fighting for the potential survival of humanity in all time-lines.

Though incredibly violent in places, the gore-factor wasn't too high, and the dynamics of Asher's time travel were easy enough to follow (the notion of 'Probability Slopes,' for example, was explained so well you didn't get lost in the pseudo-science of it all). Ultimately, there were a few twists that you find in most time-travel stories, but his take on the idea as a whole was quite good, and the politics of a far-flung future evolved human society were interesting and fresh.

I'd recommend it, if you're a fan of hard science fiction and/or time travel.