The
Argus Space Station looks down on a nightmarish Earth. And from this
safe distance, the Committee enforces its despotic rule. There are too
many people and too few resources, and they need twelve billion to die
before Earth can be stabilised. So corruption is rife, people starve,
and the poor are policed by mechanised overseers and identity-reader
guns. Citizens already fear the brutal Inspectorate with its pain
inducers. But to reach its goals, the Committee will unleash satellite
laser weaponry, taking carnage to a new level.
This
is the world Alan Saul wakes to, travelling in a crate destined for the
Calais incinerator. How he got there he doesn’t know, but he remembers
pain and his tormentor’s face. He also has company: Janus, a rogue
intelligence inhabiting forbidden hardware in his skull. As Janus shows
Saul an Earth stripped of hope, he resolves to annihilate the Committee
and their regime. Once he’s discovered who he was, and killed his
interrogator . . .
Neal
Asher is one of those authors where I really feel like I should have
read more of his books than I actually have done (three or four so far,
in case you're wondering). I have a natural aversion to long running
science fiction series if I haven't been reading them from the start,
too much time and investment required, and this is the case with Asher's
'Polity' works. (Apropos of nothing, I have absolutely no qualms diving
into long running fantasy series; that's how I roll).
A
bit of birthday money and what looks like a completed trilogy ('The
Owner' trilogy) looked like a great way to address this, I've been in
the mood for a little space opera just recently, so I did the only thing
I could. I started reading :o)
'The
Owner' books are a 'departure' (pun not intended originally but I'm
running with it) from Asher's 'Polity' books, taking place on an Earth
reminiscent of 'Blake's 7' with a totalitarian government stamping down
hard on the general populace. I couldn't help but wonder if Asher's
politics were showing a little too clearly in the plot (with some of the
background prose perhaps being a little too opinionated in terms of the
actions of government) but the overall affect is compelling with Asher
killing off vast swathes of humanity with almost gleeful abandon (in
marked contrast to the chilling statistics delivered by an increasingly
impersonal Alan Saul) using weaponry apt for such a vicious regime. The
Shepherds make me shiver a little just writing about them. There is a
lot of scope here for full on 'sci-fi violence' and Asher makes the most
of every chance he gets. The body count is astronomical although the
heavy numbers all happen 'off the page' as it were. What you do see
though is hard hitting enough. No-one is safe from the guns of the
Committee or Saul's robot army. Certain characters are guaranteed to
make it through but don't get too attached to any of the supporting
cast, that's all I'm saying…
A
key theme of 'The Departure' is Saul's transition from man into a
post-human man/machine hybrid. For the most part Asher handles this
transition very well with some interesting insights into just what it
means to gradually surrender your humanity. Saul's conflict with
Director Smith is also a high point as far as this theme goes with Asher
showing the fight on two fronts with blows dealt in cyberspace and some
stunning sequences taking place between opposing armies of robots on a
space station (worth the price of entry). Metal stuff gets blown up
and/or ripped to pieces by other metal stuff and there are times when
you can't ask for much more than that. Where Asher fell down for me,
exploring this theme, was that there were times where he made Saul a
little too impersonal. I can understand the approach but some of the
resulting descriptive passages came across as rather dull, I'm thinking
of Saul's view of the Argus space station which I ended up skimming just
to get to the good bits.
On the whole, 'The Departure' is a fast paced affair with a mix of big explosions, an 'evil empire' and a flawed anti-hero; more than enough to make me want to read the next book in the series. Having said all that though, 'The Departure' is also a book that can feel like it's talking in a monotone at the most inappropriate times; I'm hoping for good things from 'Zero Point' but will approach it with some caution...
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