Gridlinked

biodroid

biodroid

A.D.D.
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I finished Gridlinked last night and thought it was a good book for a debut novel. A few things bothered me about the book and I would like to ask someone who is more clued up on the series as I have only read this book by Asher:

****SPOILERS AHEAD****







At the end of the book when we get to read about the final confrontation between Pelter and Mr. Crane I was very dissappointed by how quickly they died. They seemed to be the main antagonists of the book (at least to me it did) and I thought that Cormac would have to put up with a major fight between these 2. Instead they were killed literally in one sentence each not over the space of a few pages maybe. I was still thinking to myself how is Mr. Crane going to be destroyed because he is such a formidably strong android but he actually didn't do much. And Pelter just died too quickly without putting up much of a fight. What happened did I miss something along the story or what. Dragon to me was introduced as a secondary antagonist and really did not feature much in the book. I did not feel the threat of Dragon as I felt of Pelter and Mr. Crane, thats why I thought it would end in a massive conflict but to me it looked like Cormac did not even know Pelter was on his tail.


****END OF SPOILER****

Nevertheless I enjoyed the book and thought it was a great read for a debut novel. Does the series improve as is expected of a series (but doesn't always happen)? I have Line of Polity waiting but want to read something else so I don't get stuck in a rut.

What say you?
 
I ended up reading this series out of order (started at book 3 then went backwards), and you're right, the big end fight does seem a little short. But then I already knew what was coming.
****SPOILERS AHEAD****





















Who said Mr Crane was destroyed?
****END OF SPOILER****
 
biodroid said:
Oh yeah, so does that mean I am in for more action?
Click to expand...
Action? In an Asher book? Just a few bits, here and there. :D

***Possible spoilers - read at own risk***
Starships the size of planets
Ancient tech designed to destroy civilisation
Hand to hand combat on lava planets
Battles between AI starships
Huge battles between AI fleets
Mr Crane returns, more dangerous than ever
***End Spoilers***


And that doesn't even cover the stuff due in the next book. :)
 
SPOILERS******

I tried to figure out what kind of being Dragon (am I correct in saying his name is Dragon) was but seemed to have missplaced the image in my mind. Can someone remind me with a nifty description of what Dragon is supposed to look like and how big he is?
 
Just finished Gridlinked (my first ever Neal Asher book) and liked it so much, I'm putting an immediate order in for The Line of Polity.


***SPOILERS***
The final fight scene with the separatists could have been longer, but I'm not sure it would have added anything much. I quite liked the 'let's finish this' approach by Cormac - more realistic for me.
As to Dragon, I'm waiting to see, but I got the impression of a composite/hive creature with independently operable sections but a greater-than-the-sum-of its-parts whole. Looking forward to finding out how accurate that is.
 
I've just finished this book as it was this month's group read for the associated group on GoodReads. Here are some of my (*SPOILER LADEN*) thoughts:

By the end, it seemed like the whole thing with Pelter, Stanton and Mr Crane was almost like a side show to the real story; What was the deal with the Dragon and the Maker, and how exactly did Cormac relate to all this? This was strange because far more of the narrative had been given over to Pelter's insane mission for vengeance that one found oneself more interested in that than what was going on with the Dragon and the Maker.

I understand that the dragon wanted to use Cormac to kill the Maker but it's not clear to me why the Dragon wanted to kill the Maker, nor why we was helping Pelter so that he would kill Cormac afterwards. It just didn't quite add up for me.
 
after finishing gridlinked about a month ago I immediately bought the whole Cormac Series. I'm now well into Brass Man, and loving the series.
***SPOILER ALERT***
Also I dont think finishing off Pelter easy was weird since he was just a psycho thorn, I do think though that Mr. Crane's death was premature or at least too fast, but maybe that was just down to Cento and Aiden (their superiority) not being focused enough on earlier in the book. No actually I think the disappointment came from the mystery of Mr. Crane ending with his death.
***END SPOILER***
 
I finished Gridlinked the other day - the first Kindle book I've completed (mostly because I haven't been reading much fiction in the last year :() - and found it both very enjoyable and thought provoking.

That Pelter's demise wasn't stretched out didn't bother me at all: he was a man who ordered things to be done (give or take the pleasure he took in torture), so when he was the last man standing, why would readers think that he'd be standing for very long? I didn't.

If I had a complaint, and it's an incredibly minor one, the survival of another character (I'm trying to not give spoilers) wasn't that convincing (even though the shininess of the reason had been foreshadowed to some extent). However, I don't think this altered the overall plot (of this novel**), so I'm not going to mark the book down for this.

EDIT: No spoilers but, in the later books, the author provides a persuasive argument for that character's survival, so my (incredibly minor) complaint is withdrawn. :)


** - I've only just downloaded The Line of Polity (well, fifteen minutes ago), and while I've owned Line War (paperback) for over a year, I'm not going to read that until I've read the other books in the Polity series.
 
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I finished Gridlinked a few weeks back. Enjoyed it a great deal. Plan on reading the others in the series and I imagine checking out the other series also. Finances are in the midst of a slump so I am working off my to be read pile (thankfully it is enormous) and will come back to Asher's work when my book budget expands again. Looking forward to it, especially as the spoilers here did not spoil anything for me but rather seem to have piqued my interest.
 
Thx Neal, but I will stick with the published version :) i am going through Leviathan Wakes and then Line of Polity. Have you read Leviathan Wakes? Not trying to make a comparison to your work Neal, just for interest sake, and if so what did you think?
 
I just finished this. I thought it was a pretty good read considering it's Neal's first published book, although I did find that I lost my way several times throughout the book. I did feel that the ending was a little rushed, though. On to The Line of Polity now.

Am I right in thinking that Dragon manipulated Cormac into sending it to its demise?
 
Rodders said:
I just finished this. I thought it was a pretty good read considering it's Neal's first published book, although I did find that I lost my way several times throughout the book. I did feel that the ending was a little rushed, though. On to The Line of Polity now.

Am I right in thinking that Dragon manipulated Cormac into sending it to its demise?
Click to expand...
I'm afraid I'll only go so far as to say that you're right that Dragon manipulated Cormac ;)
 
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