Book review: Gridlinked

By Neal Asher. Bought from Oxfam (along with Hull Zero Three) and read fairly quickly over the weekend. Goodreads says "Gridlinked is a science fiction adventure in the classic, fast-paced, action-packed tradition of Harry Harrison and Poul Anderson, with a dash of cyberpunk and a splash of Ian Fleming added to spice the mix. Cormac is a legendary Earth Central Security agent, the James Bond of a wealthy future" and yeah its rather like that.

There are two main problems with the book (I mean plot-type problems; I'm discounting writing style and so on). The first is the elevation of a minor local gangster / seperatist into a major villain because he owns an Awesome Killer Robot that is implausibly invulnerable and invicible (until it becomes inconvenient and is suddenly vinced). And which for unclear reasons he wasn't using before. The "invulnerable bad guy" trope is annoying; Mrs Coulter is that in The Subtle Knife. The second is that this is really two plots, intwined as far as the author can force them, but really they don't link at all. Plot one is the revenge of the alluded-to ganster; two and more interesting is the extra-galactic influence of Strange Beings.

The good thing about the dual-plot, though, is that he gets through at least half, and possibly two thirds, of the book before plot two gets explored in any kind of detail and we discover that it isn't very well constructed or thought out.

I should give him credit for one political thing: in this, the over-arching political entity really is benign; and the local separatists really are little more than gangsters; local bigwigs who would like relatively more of the pie than their neighbours.

Oh, and reading some of the Goodreads reviews: I thought the characters were better drawn than they get credit for. Stanton is quite likeable, as a bad-guy slowly realising he has chosen the wrong side. Cormac keeps wrestling with his total lack of empathy. Pelter is a caricature of a fanatic, but who again has brief flashes of self-awareness. And so on.