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. 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.
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.Īs we join Ian Cormac he has been gridlinked – technologically linked to the vast network of the Polity – for a decade longer than advised. 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.ĭespite 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. Agent Cormac must reach it by ship to begin an investigation. The runcible buffers on Samarkand have been mysteriously sabotaged, killing many thousands and destroying a terraforming project. In outer space you can never feel sure that your adversary is altogether human. I decided that it was high time to revisit these books and go back to the beginning…
While there are a couple of stories outside of this setting – notably his Owner trilogy – Asher will always be best known for the Polity. 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. 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. 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.
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