The Soldier (Rise of the Jain)
- Thread starter Rodders
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- neal asher
As stated on the May reading thread I'm wanting to get it but it's a bit expensive and I think I will wait until there's at least two volumes out (that's my usual approach for incomplete series).
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Having just finished this, all I can say is Bugger!! I've got to wait at least a year for the second part of the trilogy.
This was an excellent novel. Fast paced and action packed from start to finish. It even got me reading at home, something which I haven't done for a long time.
This was an excellent novel. Fast paced and action packed from start to finish. It even got me reading at home, something which I haven't done for a long time.
Danny McG
"Anything can happen in the next half hour!"
I'm maybe fifty pages into my copy. Looking good so far
This is excellent news but I'm still waiting for at least the second book to come out!
Cool, I'll maybe get started onto them in the summer.
You presumably have read Line Wars before sometime?
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No, not at all.
The soldier made several references to events in Line War so there are bits that couldn’t click into place. It didn’t affect the overall enjoyment of the story, but I would have had a better appreciation of the story knowing what happened.
The soldier made several references to events in Line War so there are bits that couldn’t click into place. It didn’t affect the overall enjoyment of the story, but I would have had a better appreciation of the story knowing what happened.
Ah okay, then you really need to read all the Cormac books; I'm pretty sure you'll find there's a lot of stuff in Line War that is dependent on the books that precede it. The five Cormac books - Gridlinked, The Line of Polity, Brass Man, Polity Agent and The Line War - are all pretty closely linked.
tinkerdan
∞<Q-Satis
I just received and read Soldier.
I have to wait for Warship.
Soldier was definitely a good novel with maximum action and suspense and a lot of science-y sounding passages sometimes almost too much and often redundant; but I suppose that was helpful considering the sprawling nature of the novel.
I'm not familiar with any of the rest of the series and I think this reads well as a stand alone.
However, I have a quibble with character development.
None of the the characters have agency(except perhaps a mysterious other that seems to be controlling everyone)- many read like they are the same character--meaning that it was hard to follow sometimes because the only way to differentiate characters was by name alone though there were hints in the headings. And of course the scene changes were usually clear. Their strengths, foibles and motives seemed to run parallel even though their ideology might differ.
The novel itself is sprawling in the sense that there is a lot going on with multiple story lines--one major one of which seems to be leading into the second novel.
The result of so many story lines is, the action supersedes everything else because each story has to complete in a shorter span as some begin to merge with others and then the final one(I almost liked this character)seems to just hang there waiting for the next book. Since I'm getting the next book next week, the hanging thread is less of a problem. The lack of characterization comes from having to jamb so much into so little and I didn't find any character that I was rooting for and definitely none that I could feel empathy for since even the mostly unaltered human was not characterized with much humanity.
Still I could give this a four star because it kept me reading.
The glossary of terms at the beginning was a waste of time--even for someone who hasn't read the rest of the polity novels.
I'll have to wait and see what Warship does for me; however right this moment there was nothing in the Soldier that makes me want to run out and start reading the other books.
I have to wait for Warship.
Soldier was definitely a good novel with maximum action and suspense and a lot of science-y sounding passages sometimes almost too much and often redundant; but I suppose that was helpful considering the sprawling nature of the novel.
I'm not familiar with any of the rest of the series and I think this reads well as a stand alone.
However, I have a quibble with character development.
None of the the characters have agency(except perhaps a mysterious other that seems to be controlling everyone)- many read like they are the same character--meaning that it was hard to follow sometimes because the only way to differentiate characters was by name alone though there were hints in the headings. And of course the scene changes were usually clear. Their strengths, foibles and motives seemed to run parallel even though their ideology might differ.
The novel itself is sprawling in the sense that there is a lot going on with multiple story lines--one major one of which seems to be leading into the second novel.
The result of so many story lines is, the action supersedes everything else because each story has to complete in a shorter span as some begin to merge with others and then the final one(I almost liked this character)seems to just hang there waiting for the next book. Since I'm getting the next book next week, the hanging thread is less of a problem. The lack of characterization comes from having to jamb so much into so little and I didn't find any character that I was rooting for and definitely none that I could feel empathy for since even the mostly unaltered human was not characterized with much humanity.
Still I could give this a four star because it kept me reading.
The glossary of terms at the beginning was a waste of time--even for someone who hasn't read the rest of the polity novels.
I'll have to wait and see what Warship does for me; however right this moment there was nothing in the Soldier that makes me want to run out and start reading the other books.
On the Pan Macmillan website they have this in the blurb for The Warship: "Neal Asher ramps up the action in this second book in his Rise of the Jain trilogy." So, yeah, I guess it is a trilogy.
Danny McG
"Anything can happen in the next half hour!"
From Neal Asher's blog...
Writing Update
Posted on 14th February 2019
As is usual I haven’t been blogging very much so time to catch up. Early last year I finished the first draft of the third book of the Rise of the Jain trilogy – provisionally titled The Human.
Writing Update
Posted on 14th February 2019
As is usual I haven’t been blogging very much so time to catch up. Early last year I finished the first draft of the third book of the Rise of the Jain trilogy – provisionally titled The Human.
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- Joined
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So I finished Agent Cormac series and was a little disappointed that there wasn't more than just a few names to link the series to the Rise of the Jain trilogy. Still, they were very good reads indeed. I reread The Solders and have just finished The Warship, which was very good indeed. Normally Neal's books seem to sag in the second act, but this one had the same pace as the first and didn't let up. Now on to The Human.
I was hoping that The Weaver would make an appearance in this one. (I can't remember what happened to him at the end of Infinity Engine.)
Also, I find the Client and the Prador much more interesting than the Humans. Perhaps I am a Shell person at heart.
I was hoping that The Weaver would make an appearance in this one. (I can't remember what happened to him at the end of Infinity Engine.)
Also, I find the Client and the Prador much more interesting than the Humans. Perhaps I am a Shell person at heart.
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