Best Neal Asher book to start with?

If it's not too late, Here's my tuppence worth... I hadn't read any new stuff since Eon and Blood Music from Greg Bear in the eighties or early nineties... my go-to books of choice had always been classic golden-age materil, and the top of my list really, was Niven's 'Ringworld' series...and to a lesser degree 'Rama'... then someone gave me Departure last year and recommend I get into it... The prose is a bit stiff, but I persevered, and really dug the story... so I went on to Zero Point and Jupiter War... and that's got me hooked... In terms of ability, I don't think he's a great writer.. but then, neither was Asimov, and his work is great, too.....So where do I go now? I'm going to try the Agent Cormac series...
 
Prador moon is a good place to start; pretty much the start chronologically. Also from a writing perspective I still think he writes better in the Polity universe than in the owner one. Particularly once you get going! :)
 
I've got Gridlinked, which as far as I can remember I enjoyed.

Having said that, I just skimmed through the plot as described on its Wikipedia page and have realised that I have no memory of the story whatsoever, so I shall have to add it to the re-read list. As it's the only Neal Asher book I have it might open the door to a number of purchases, which is always nice. :)
 
Paul_C said:
I've got Gridlinked, which as far as I can remember I enjoyed.

Having said that, I just skimmed through the plot as described on its Wikipedia page and have realised that I have no memory of the story whatsoever, so I shall have to add it to the re-read list. As it's the only Neal Asher book I have it might open the door to a number of purchases, which is always nice. :)
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Even though Gridlinked is chronologically after Prador Moon it is a perfectly good starting point (it's actually where I started).

There's a full (if rather complicated) timeline of the entire Polity universe and the chronological reading order here: In what order should I read this?
 
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I have to say that on diving in to Prador Moon, it doesn't look good. He's not the best prose writer, can sometimes be a bit wooden, but Prador Moon seems rather crudely plotted, judging by the shape of the activity in the opening chapters.... Still, I'll persevere, and we shall see....
 
I hope I'm wrong but I doubt your perseverance will pay off. Prador Moon is pretty consistent and what you see as crude plotting I see as masterfully concise action-oriented excitement. :) Prador Moon's right up there with Line of Polity (a much larger and more elaborate book) as my favorite Asher novel but I may be in a minority there.
 
Thanks for your comments.. I will persevere; I remembered that I had a similar concern at the beginning of Departure... I think that what it is, and why I referred to it as crudely plotted, was simply that for me, I think the action comes in rather too quickly and proceeds too fast; I'd envisage a chapter or more of descriptive outlining before the action starts to develop, (and more science along the way)..and there's a couple of details that I find a bit awkward; one is the depiction of the Prador as apparently conventionally aquatic, and the Doctor who gives Moria her augment is conveniently a fugitive; which I thought was a bit of an easy plot device to allow her to overperform in future chapters. What I DO like about Neal Asher in general is the whole integration of AI into the world.. Like a sort of Iain M Banks for the modern age... although I don't think he writes as well... it may be that I'm just too rigid and old-fashioned in my expectations... after all modern SF films are edited with snappy cuts and rapid scene changes, unlike their forebears, and maybe we should expect action literature to do the same....
 
Tim Staffell said:
What I DO like about Neal Asher in general is the whole integration of AI into the world.. Like a sort of Iain M Banks for the modern age...
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If you get as far as the Spatterjay trilogy, you'll find my favorite character (human or AI): Sniper, the old war drone. Banks' drones are entertaining (something about his Scottish sense of humor, I think). But Sniper is fun because, if you're smart, you just won't mess with him.
 
I think Asher's drones are more the equivalent of ROUs in Banks novels, at least as far as personality goes. Banks made his drones sound more like retired military intelligence officers who like to keep their hand in.

Tim Staffell, you're not, by any chance, around 70 ish with a background in music, are you? Would the name 'Smile' mean anything to you?

.
 
Not heard of him before. Just enjoying the Nights Dawn Trilogy by Hamilton and considering Skinner, it sounds like my kind of book
 
Pedro Del Mar said:
Not heard of him before. Just enjoying the Nights Dawn Trilogy by Hamilton and considering Skinner, it sounds like my kind of book
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The Skinner is the first of three loosely linked Spatterjay books. Whilst they occur chronologically quite late in Asher's Polity universe they were written in parallel with the Cormac books which were much earlier. And The Skinner was actually the second book published, after Gridlinked.

When I first started reading these I began with Gridlinked (I thought) and then continued chronologically, having to 'back fill' a couple set a little earlier. Later, when I got to the Skinner, I realised I had read it some years earlier and forgotten. I did then remember I had enjoyed it thoroughly. So I originally read it first and loved it and then later read it in chronological order and also loved it!

There's a chronological breakdown of all the books here - In what order should I read this? - from Asher's blog but to be honest you'll not have any problems with the ordering so long as you read the three sets of linked books in their correct order. And The Skinner if the first in its set of books.

The Skinner and the other Spatterjay books contain some of the weirdest planetary fauna you're ever likely to meet and Asher has a logical evolution for them all figured out!
 
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