Scan barcode
A review by thekarpuk
Gridlinked by Neal Asher
4.0
I can admit when I'm not sure I'm following a book properly. I checked the Wikipedia plot summaries for more than one book after completion, just to make sure I understood what the hell I just read. "Neuromancer" and "The Sound and the Fury" both required this. Generally I found out I was in fact interpreting events correctly, but it still helps to have that validation. That's why I found the following line on Wikipedia for Gridlinked super helpful:
"There is no explanation as to the Maker, its origins or motivations. There is no explanation as to why the Maker followed Cormac and crew through the Runcible or why Cormac damaged the new runcible on Samarkand."
They also link to an alternate ending from the author that he felt was an over-explainy Scooby Doo type ending. I felt a middle ground probably existed between the two approaches.
The main thing that kept me going through this book was the pacing. Asher keeps it brisk and exciting. His world also has about a billion fun little details that turn the adventure into a sort of amusement park of space oddities.
Asher's protagonist is a more acceptable variation of the middle-aged man avatar, as seen in most books by Dan Brown, Clive Cussler, Lee Child, and many others. This man is bad ass, people sometimes talk to each other about how bad ass he is, he's always one step ahead of the enemy, and even if he's not, it's just a minor inconvenience. Ian Cormic, the avatar in this case, at least seems to be that way partially out of his 30 year connection to the Gridlink, the super internet of the future.
In a way it points out that to be such a bad ass would make someoene bad at being a good human being. There's a great moment where after having sex with a coworker, he has an awkward encounter with her the next day and she realizes he doesn't really want any sort of relationship. He comes off looking like an ass in a way these characters normally don't. I wanted more of that. James Bond never has to say, "You knew what this was," when a girl asks him why he's not sticking around. Most of these kinds of heroes are jerks on an interpersonal level.
I'm not running out to buy the next installment, but I was impressed how many new ideas Asher found in a fairly well-worn area of fiction.
"There is no explanation as to the Maker, its origins or motivations. There is no explanation as to why the Maker followed Cormac and crew through the Runcible or why Cormac damaged the new runcible on Samarkand."
They also link to an alternate ending from the author that he felt was an over-explainy Scooby Doo type ending. I felt a middle ground probably existed between the two approaches.
The main thing that kept me going through this book was the pacing. Asher keeps it brisk and exciting. His world also has about a billion fun little details that turn the adventure into a sort of amusement park of space oddities.
Asher's protagonist is a more acceptable variation of the middle-aged man avatar, as seen in most books by Dan Brown, Clive Cussler, Lee Child, and many others. This man is bad ass, people sometimes talk to each other about how bad ass he is, he's always one step ahead of the enemy, and even if he's not, it's just a minor inconvenience. Ian Cormic, the avatar in this case, at least seems to be that way partially out of his 30 year connection to the Gridlink, the super internet of the future.
In a way it points out that to be such a bad ass would make someoene bad at being a good human being. There's a great moment where after having sex with a coworker, he has an awkward encounter with her the next day and she realizes he doesn't really want any sort of relationship. He comes off looking like an ass in a way these characters normally don't. I wanted more of that. James Bond never has to say, "You knew what this was," when a girl asks him why he's not sticking around. Most of these kinds of heroes are jerks on an interpersonal level.
I'm not running out to buy the next installment, but I was impressed how many new ideas Asher found in a fairly well-worn area of fiction.