Line War (Ian Cormac, Book 5)
by Neal Asher
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Book Summary Information
Author: Neal AsherEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2009-12-15
ISBN: 033044154X
Number of pages: 566
Publisher: Pan Macmillan
Book Reviews of Line War (Ian Cormac, Book 5)
Book Review: Action packed, but still a let-down
Summary: 4 Stars
When you pick up a Neal Asher novel, you expect a lot of action, violence, gore, and mayhem. All of those things are available in abundance in his fifth Ian Cormac novel, LINE WAR. The war in question was joined at the climax of the previous novel, POLITY AGENT, when the forces of the Polity attacked the anti-human artificial intelligence (AI) Erebus. Erebus, it turns out, was responsible for delivering dangerous Jain technology to the mad scientist Skellor and the knowledge-hungry engineer haiman Orlandine, among others. Jain technology, the fruit of a society extinct for millions of years, offers great power to those who touch it, but it also has a hidden purpose--the total annihilation of all beings who utilize it. Erebus, which has itself harnessed Jain technology, hopes to destroy humanity through the propagation of the technology, and, if necessary, through military conquest ... of the sneakiest sort. When it begins its offensive with an attack on an obscure Polity world, Earth Central Security (ECS) Agent Ian Cormac is dispatched to find out what Erebus' game is. The more Cormac investigates, however, the more convinced he is that ECS and its allied AIs are not doing all they can to stop Erebus, and the more suspicious he is that preserving human life is not as high on their agenda as it should be.
As always, Asher skillfully portrays a not-so distant future in which humanity has mastered space travel and other advanced technologies, such as instant interstellar transport through "runcibles"; has spread to many, many solar systems; and lives alongside, interfaces with, in some cases aspires to be like, and is ruled by artificial intelligences. (While he doesn't explore many of the implications of humans being ruled by a benign dictatorship of the AIs, in LINE WAR he at least explores what the limits of that dictatorship ought to be.) He gives his work a convincing "hard" edge by being attentive to, e.g., the dynamics of temperature on a moon covered in methane oceans. He also gives his stories a visceral charge by, well, shooting, hacking and stabbing peoples' guts. He's also reasonably skilled as a storyteller, creating a compelling set of mysteries before, bit-by-bit, revealing what lies behind them.
Unfortunately, he's less skilled with character and dialogue, especially for his primary characters. Cormac and his sometime lover Mika are thinly drawn figures who are mainly vehicles for the story. Evil Erebus is a cartoonish bad guy, very reminiscent of the really dreadful central computer Omnius from the Brian Herbert/Kevin Anderson "Dune" novels. The dialog between Cormac and Mika, between Mika and the bio-construct Dragon, and between Erebus and anybody is stilted, inane, and often laughable. This weakness is most evident early in the novel (for all except Erebus, who is awful throughout) when the action has not yet taken off. Oddly, secondary characters like Orlandine, the former AI Vulture, Mr. Crane, and the war drone Arach have more personality, snappier lines, and greater depth (though not by a huge amount) compared to the main characters.
The main disappointment of the novel is not that Asher continues to string us along with hints about Cormac's abilities and the agenda of Earth Central, because that's not what he does. Instead, he spills the beans, telling us what's really going on. Unfortunately, it's not all that exciting. Virtually everything turns out to be much more ordinary, dreary, and petty than we had expected. Furthermore, we're left wondering if there will be any more Cormac novels. Cormac (naturally) survives, but does anybody care where he goes from here?
In any event, fans of earlier novels in the series should certainly pick this one up and will enjoy it ... up to a point. Those unfamiliar with the series should start with GRIDLINKED.
Summary of Line War (Ian Cormac, Book 5)
The Polity is under attack from a 'melded' AI entity with control of the lethal Jain technology, yet the attack seems to have no coherence. When one of Erebus' worm ships kills millions on the world of Klurhammon, a high-tech agricultural world of no real tactical significance, agent Ian Cormac is sent to investigate, though he is secretly struggling to control a new ability no human being should possess...and beginning to question the motives of his AI masters.Further attacks and seemingly indiscriminate slaughter ensue, but only serve to bring some of the most dangerous individuals in the Polity into the war. Mr Crane, the indefatigable brass killing machine sets out for vengeance, while Orlandine, a vastly-augmented haiman who herself controls Jain technology, seeks a weapon of appalling power and finds allies from an ancient war. Meanwhile Mika, scientist and Dragon expert, is again kidnapped by that unfathomable alien entity and dragged into the heart of things: to wake the makers of Jain technology from their five-million-year slumber. But Erebus' attacks are not so indiscriminate, after all, and could very well herald the end of the Polity itself...Literature & Fiction Books
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