'Gridlinked' by Neal Asher
'Gridlinked' by Neal Asher

The Good

  • Pretty good world-building (universe building?): you felt like you were dumped into the middle of a real place and time.

  • Some interesting sci-fi tech: runcibles, gridlinking, AI, androids (called golem), augmented humans, gigantic alien/robot hybrids, anti-matter, anti-gravity, chainglass, and so on.

  • Lots of intriguing characters: Ian Cormac seems like the typical protagonist / competence-porn hero; Mr. Crane is a fun, mysterious android; Horace Blegg is even more mysterious, though perhaps a bit too all-powerful and all-knowing; and Dragon and Maker are the most mysterious of all.

The not so good

  • The mysterious characters are interesting, but few of the mysteries are fully explained. I would’ve appreciated the story going much deeper with each character and flushing them out more. But perhaps it’s done this way intentionally, to leave you wanting more?

  • The dialog and relationships between the characters felt a bit under-developed as well. It was just enough to keep the plot going, but not much more.

  • The book can occasionally be confusing, especially in the very early chapters, jumping around a bit and assuming knowledge you may not have (or could’ve easily missed in some brief mention early on).

Rating: 4 stars