Brass Man is the 3rd book in Neal Asher's Agent Cormac series, the previous ones being Gridlinked and and Line of Polity. This is very much a series in the old fashioned vein – whilst we don't know to how many books it will run to eventually (Neal might have an inkling about the overarching story arc?) it very much needs to be read in sequence, these books don't stand well on their own. So, if you haven't done so yet, cease reading and go read the first two books, then come back. It's worth doing so, they're fun. Spoilers for the first two books to follow – you have been warned.
The story of Brass Man is, as the title implies, the story of Mr Crane. Yes, he was taken to pieces earlier in the series, yes he has been resurrected, by popular demand, Neal informs us in his notes. The book has a number of intersecting and interacting threads on the go, but the two main ones show some interesting similarities indeed: on the one hand we have Ian Cormac, Earth Central Security (ECS) agent with Carte Blanche, on board of the war ship 'Jack Ketch' (look it up if you don't know), once again chasing Skellor, who has survived the end of the Occam Razor, and is on the lose again due to some greed and general stupidity (how very human). Skellor himself is chasing Dragon, or, rather, one of the two surviving Dragon Spheres, in hope of help with the Jain technology he barely controls in himself.
Here's a review of another classic – this time it’s The Player of Gamesby Iain M Banks, a book from the Culture series, centred around a game which defines a galactic empire, or, rather, which IS said galactic empire. Nearly 20 years old but not really dated at all, an excellent book, and a ‘must read’ for all SF fans and especially serious gamers! Highly recommended.
Jernau Morat Gurgeh (I will stay off the full size Culture nomenclature for this review, ok? If you know Banks you know what I mean…) is a professional player of games. He lives on the Chiark Orbital, a backwater in terms of the Culture, where the cutting edge lives on huge ships, and where everything you want in terms of possessions or amusements is yours for the taking. Paradise? Elysium? Or an elaborate disguise of Hell? You decide. But Gurgeh, master of all games requiring strategy, knowledge, cunning (as long as it doesn’t involve physical prowess) feels an emptiness. Despite having all he wants, and doing what he loves best (playing games, winning games, writing papers on games, being renowned as one of the best players of games in the Culture) is becoming more and more restless, and thus less and less happy with his increasingly stale and repetitive life.
Blindsight is Peter Watts' first stand-alone novel after his much-praised 'Rifters' trilogy. The book was shortlisted for the Hugo Award, but lost out in a rather strong field. It also is Peter's first foray into space – Rifters played in large parts under water (he is a trained marine biologist by previous trade), but Blindsight manages to project the same claustrophobic and slightly haunted feeling – the deep sea and space are not that different from that perspective (although the pressure differential is reversed, of course).
Blindsight is the log book (for want of a better term) of one Siri Keeton, travelling, literally, where no human has gone before. Keeton underwent, as a child, a radical hemispherectomy to get rid of his epilepsy (literally the removal of one side of his brain – yes, that's a realistic and existing medical intervention...). His friend Rob Paglino thinks that what came back from the clinic is not the same person, and, after some thought (because Siri now has to think about everything that concerns humans, and human interaction), Siri agrees. It is the story of what this did to Siri, Siri's parents, and to Chelsea, his girlfriend, one of very few people who still prefer human contact (and sex!) in the first person, and not just in virtuality (yes, the birth rate is dropping radically in Siri's world). “That distance – that chronic sense of being an alien among your own kind – it's not entirely a bad thing. It came in especially handy when the real aliens came calling.”
Missile Gap is a short story by Charles Stross, which is available both in Hardback and online. The book plays during the coldest phase of the Cold War (Cuba crisis), but on an earth far removed, in time as well as space, from what we know. And the 10 million Dollar question is, as always – does humanity have a future? Answers on a post card – if you can find a post office, 100 million light years from home …
Film clip: An Atlas rocket on the launch pad rises slowly, flames jetting from its tail: it surges past the gantry and disappears into the sky.
Cut to: A camera mounted in the nose, pointing back along the flank of the rocket. The ground falls behind, blurring into blue distance. Slowly, the sky behind the rocket is turning black: but the land still occupies much of the fisheye view. The first stage engine ring tumbles away, leaving the core engine burning with a pale blue flame: now the outline of the California coastline is recognizable. North America shrinks visibly: eventually another, strange outline swims into view, like a cipher in an alien script. The booster burns out and falls behind, and the tumbling camera catches sunlight glinting off the upper-stage Centaur rocket as its engine ignites, thrusting it higher and faster.
Here's an old, and previously published (on the now-defunct Diversebooks site) review of Hunters of Dune by Brian Herbert and Kevin J Anderson - this is the fist half of the final book in the original Dune cycle, written to the original outline Frank Herbert planned for the book.
There are a lot of new books available in the Dune universe, most of them written by Brian Herbert (Frank Herbert’s son) and Kevin J Anderson – both acclaimed authors in their own right, now working on expanding and filling in the gaps in Frank Herbert’s epic story. But this book is different. When Frank Herbert died, he had the outline, plot etc for the finale of his epic series ready – but it laid in a safe deposit box, forgotten, for over 10 years, before it was discovered again. So this is Frank’s original vision of how the story, which started, millions of years ago after the Butlerian Jihad, would come to closure. And boy did he have plans for his follow-up to ‘Chapterhouse Dune’ – there was enough material (so Brian and Kevin felt) for a two-volume finale...
Brass Man
Here's an old, and previously published (on the now-defunct Diversebooks site) review of Hunters of Dune by Brian Herbert and Kevin J Anderson - this is the fist half of the final book in the original Dune cycle, written to the original outline Frank Herbert planned for the book.
