Paperback, 248 pages
English language
Published May 1, 2008 by Night Shade Books.
Raised to adulthood during the end of the war between the human Polity and a vicious alien race, the Prador, Ian Cormac is haunted by childhood memories of a sinister scorpion-shaped war drone and the burden of losses he doesn't remember. Cormac signs up with Earth Central Security and is sent out to help restore and maintain order on worlds devastated by the war. There he discovers that though the Prador remain as murderous as ever, they are not anywhere near as treacherous or dangerous as some of his fellow humans, some closer to him than he would like. Amidst the ruins left by wartime genocides, Cormac will discover in himself a cold capacity for violence and learn some horrible truths about his own past while trying to stay alive on his course of vengeance.
Overall a good story in Asher's Polity universe. However, the backstory on Ian Cormac has too many "miraculous man!" sequences that kept jarring me out of the story. And by the end of the book the rationale for the reasons Cormac reacts in certain ways were letting him evade responsibility for his not great responses in some situations.
I jumped from Prador Moon to Shadow of the Scorpion, still unsure if I'm fully bought into the Polity Universe enough to read another 10+ novels. This introduction to Agent Cormac is... fine. At its heart is an espionage thriller that happens to be set in the future. Unlike Prador Moon, the galactic scale conflict is at an end and has been replaced with something like Jack Ryan... in space!
Improving on the first book, there is a tight focus on Cormac that introduces the Polity and its ESC organs at a steady pace. There are a number of technologies that Neal Asher builds into the foundation of the Polity which are slowly explained, and knowing these things allows us to keep up with the thriller when the science-fiction elements are critical to the plot. To be perfectly honest, this is a better introduction to the Polity Universe than …
I jumped from Prador Moon to Shadow of the Scorpion, still unsure if I'm fully bought into the Polity Universe enough to read another 10+ novels. This introduction to Agent Cormac is... fine. At its heart is an espionage thriller that happens to be set in the future. Unlike Prador Moon, the galactic scale conflict is at an end and has been replaced with something like Jack Ryan... in space!
Improving on the first book, there is a tight focus on Cormac that introduces the Polity and its ESC organs at a steady pace. There are a number of technologies that Neal Asher builds into the foundation of the Polity which are slowly explained, and knowing these things allows us to keep up with the thriller when the science-fiction elements are critical to the plot. To be perfectly honest, this is a better introduction to the Polity Universe than the previous novel.
However, I've read a lot of thrillers and this is thoroughly in the mediocre camp. There is no sense of mystery and the stakes are never well-expressed (or grounded in things you care about). Cormac is a bore and aside from being excellent at his job, doesn't really stand out from generic soldier-guy. I would suggest the Murderbot Diaries as an example of how personality can really elevate a novel, or refer you to something like Jack Ryan for the thriller-side.
In summary - it's fine. But there's better out there.
I really enjoyed this read, it was fun, went fast and just was a very nice read.
It kept up the mystery without world ending stakes to a nice point where I was always driven to continue on, I really enjoyed this book.
Solidly readable although it suffers from forced prequel syndrome.
