[nealasher]

Here's some reviews of Brass Man: http://www.greenmanreview.com/book/book_asher_brassman.html http://www.sfsite.com/09b/bm208.htm http://trashotron.com/agony/reviews/2005/asher-brass_man.htm http://www.sunpig.com/reviews/quick/archives/001604.html http://www.infinityplus.co.uk/nonfiction/brassman.htm http://www.zone-sf.com/wordworks/brassman.html

[Skaidon]

I really enjoyed this one, been a while since I read it, but I love the character Mr. Crane!

[nealasher]

Everybody loves Mr Crane, including me. This book, to a certain extent, was caused by fan feedback. In the acknowledgements I say: Thanks to those readers who told me, on reading Gridlinked, "I really liked Mr Crane!" and from whom this book got its inception.

[Skaidon]

Everybody loves Mr Crane, including me. This book, to a certain extent, was caused by fan feedback. In the acknowledgements I say: Thanks to those readers who told me, on reading Gridlinked, "I really liked Mr Crane!" and from whom this book got its inception.
I always read the acknowledgements and remember reading that :) The other aspect of Gridlinked that I and a friend of mine loved was the Shuriken, we'd always talk about that :)

[nealasher]

News from the front:

"I'm delighted to inform you about the Polaris' offer Brass Man. This will be for an initial print run of 2,000 copies and a 4 year licence. Polaris intend to publish within 12 months."

I like getting stuff published in Czechoslovakia ... The Skinner won the Salamander Award there and Gridlinked was shortlisted for it the following year. They're publishing The Line of Polity next, so are following through with the order of the Cormac books.

[cervantor]

I know this book has been around for a while, but not so in the U.S., so I just finished a review "Brass Man." Here's an excerpt:

According to the USA edition’s jacket description, “Brass Man” is a sequel to Neal Asher’s impressive debut “Gridlinked”, which first introduced readers to ECS (Earth Central Security) agent Ian Cormac. What it fails to mention is that “Brass Man” is actually a direct sequel to “The Line Of Polity”, which is mysteriously unavailable here in the United States. For diehard Asher fans, I doubt this is much of a problem since the books have been available for a while now in the UK & Canada – in fact, they’ve already had the luxury of a fourth Ian Cormac novel – but for those of us stateside and those readers new to Mr. Asher it can be a bit confusing. So, after digging around some, I’ve determined that the available Cormac novels should be read in the following order: 1. “Gridlinked” 2. “The Line Of Polity” 3. “Brass Man” and 4. “Polity Agent.”

You can check out the full review at www.fantasybookcritic.blogspot.com. If anyone knows the best way to get in touch with Neal and can help me out, I'd really appreciate it. Thanks in advance...

Robert

[nealasher]

Thanks for the review - very nice.

I may have mentioned it before on here somewhere, but the reason The Line of Polity isn't published by Tor US is to do with size, or so I'm told. It being my largest book at 175,000 words it apparently falls outside some upper limit that makes it difficult to sell to the book sellers.

Robert, regarding your comments about character development. It's a tough call. At one extreme you have the all-action book with cardboard cutouts (which my books have been described as) and at the other extreme you have highly developed characters in a book in which nothing much happens (I believe this stuff is called 'literature'). I'm aiming for somewhere in the mid ground with readers coming out the other side of one of my books feeling as they would feel having just watched Terminator or some such.

[cervantor]

Neal:

Thanks for checking out the review. Glad you liked it. I also appreciate you addressing the situation regarding "The Line Of Polity" and your stance on characterization. Very enlightening, though I find the reasoning behind not publishing the book here in the U.S. kind of dubious. I'm pretty sure I've read some quite lengthy novels from Tor ;) Anyways, thanks again, and I'll be in touch...

Robert

[nealasher]

Yeah, it sounds dubious to me too, but I won't get anywhere by shouting at people about it. My theory is that if I keep writing a book every nine months or so at some point I'll hit critical mass and publishers'll be trampling each other to acquire them (then I woke up and it was time to get to work).

[Hobbit]

It's an old topic of debate, Robert, but the splitting of books into two has caused some lively discussion round here; not only from TOR but also some of the George RR Martin books and the Tad Williams here in the UK and Peter Hamilton in the US that I can think of.

Neal Asher does Terminator.... hmm..... think Mr Crane might have something to say on that! ;)

Hobbit