I’ve been a fan of Neal Asher’s work for many years, though I can’t remember which of his books I first picked up. However, I do know that it wasn’t his debut, Gridlinked, the first Agent Cormac novel – this book came a little after discovering Asher’s work. As time has passed I’ve made my way through all of his releases, the majority of which are set in his vividly realised and completely packed Polity universe. While there are a couple of stories outside of this setting – notably his Owner trilogy – Asher will always be best known for the Polity. I decided that it was high time to revisit these books and go back to the beginning…
From the publisher:
In outer space you can never feel sure that your adversary is altogether human.
The runcible buffers on Samarkand have been mysteriously sabotaged, killing many thousands and destroying a terraforming project. Agent Cormac must reach it by ship to begin an investigation. But Cormac has incurred the wrath of a vicious psychopath called Pelter, who is prepared to follow him across the galaxy with a terrifying android in tow.
Despite the sub-zero temperature of Samarkand, Cormac discovers signs of life: they are two ‘dracomen’, alien beasts contrived by an extra-galactic entity calling itself ‘Dragon’, which is a huge creature consisting of four conjoined spheres of flesh each a kilometre in diameter. Caught between the byzantine wiles of the Dragon and the lethal fury of Pelter, Cormac needs to skip very nimbly indeed to rescue the Samarkand project and protect his own life.
As we join Ian Cormac he has been gridlinked – technologically linked to the vast network of the Polity – for a decade longer than advised. His status as an Earth Central Security agent, however, has meant that his usefulness even with his diminished humanity is an asset that ECS and Earth Central can ill afford to lose. But when his latest operation goes wrong due to his disconnection to humanity and lack of emotion, the separatist cell he has infiltrated on Cheyne III sees through his subterfuge and plans to take him out. Cormac withdraws from the planet as Earth Central draws him into a deeper investigation: what happened to cause the destruction of the Samarkand runcible? With the enigmatic Horace Blegg pulling his strings, Cormac must come off the grid to regain his humanity, all the while trying to discover just what happened at Samarkand, and just how the mysterious alien Dragon is involved…
Despite the relative enormity of the situation at the start of Gridlinked – a destroyed runcible (the FTL method used by Polity citizens for planet-to-planet travel), a strange alien being, knowledge clearly present but not presented to Cormac – it’s actually a rather focused story. While there is the clear main storyline following Ian Cormac as he leaves Cheyne III and heads to Samarkand to start the investigation of the runcible destruction, there is also a very personal revenge plot thread dealing with Arian Pelter, a separatist wanting revenge on Cormac for killing his sister. While initially these seem exclusive of each other, they slowly start to come together with the background influence of Dragon.
Cormac has a history with Dragon – one recounted during the first half of the novel – and it’s because of this, and the fact that Dragon was thought destroyed, that interest is quickly piqued with the appearance of Dracomen (humanoid/reptilian constructs created by Dragon) on Samarkand. Nothing is straightforward, and answers are not very forthcoming when they are discovered, much to the annoyance of not only Cormac, but the reader as well. Questions are immediately raised and events do nothing to quell these in the short-term. Dragon itself is an enigma, with little known of it other than its habit of not answering questions or revealing information. Even with the hindsight I have after reading all the books I was left a tad frustrated at just how little resolution there is to this plot thread by the end of Gridlinked.
However, it’s not always about the answers, but the journey we’re on to discover them. And what a journey it is. Putting aside the deeper and wider-reaching elements from the main storyline and we’re left with an action adventure with some very unique characters. Pelter is one of these, a separatist (read: terrorist) consumed with anger and hate towards Cormac following the death of his sister. He is single-minded in achieving his goal of Cormac’s death, no matter who or what gets in the way. His hired gun, John Stanton, is someone that clearly has some issue with Pelter’s mindset, yet his loyalty to his employer keeps him at Pelter’s side. But Stanton is hiding a deeper side to himself despite excelling at mercenary work, one he is keen for Pelter to not discover. The playoff between these two as the story progresses adds a nice layer to these characters. And then we have Mr Crane, a psychopathic Golem android controlled by Pelter. Even with this control in place we see that there is much more to Crane than meets the eye, from his birdlike movements to his increasing collection of strange paraphernalia. A definite highlight.
Then there is Cormac and the way he deals with the withdrawal of his gridlink after so long. Horace Blegg puts it quite simply during one of their many conversations:
‘In the service of Earth and the Human Polity you have been gridlinked for thirty years now. Studies show that nearer twenty years is the safe limit psychologically. Your ability to comprehend the spectrum of human emotion has been impaired, and it is imperative that it should not be. Without it, your usefulness becomes . . . less.’
It sets the tone for Cormac’s work with ECS across this novel, and adds yet another layer to his character.
Asher has also created quite a universe here. Not only is it sprawling in its scope, but there are aspects of it that have clearly had lots of thought put in. While he doesn’t needlessly info-dump, the chapter starts – excerpts from publications in the Polity, like How It Is by Gordon, and Quince Guide compiled by Humans – are both informative and amusing. Having the benefit of hindsight also shows that Gridlinked is clearly the beginning of this universe where Asher is still finding his feet. His later Polity novels expand considerably on these beginnings, but what he has done here more than hits the mark. There are also glimpses of his unique imagination coming through, and anyone familiar with his body of work knows just how varied and strange that can be – for those that aren’t, what a treat you have in store!
So, Gridlinked is the kind of novel that should appeal to many sci-fi readers. It’s got action, intrigue, strange aliens, and powerful AI’s, but it also has some interesting characters that drive the plot forward at speed, all the while making you want to find out just what happens next. As his debut novel, Gridlinked is the perfect place to start with Asher’s work, and most definitely recommended.
Publisher: Tor UK
Author: Neal Asher
October 2009 (re-issue), 528 Pages
Paperback, ISBN: 9780330512541
Review from purchased copy
© 2017 Mark Chitty | @chitman13
