This is the fifth Asher novel I've read, after the two Spatterjay novels, Prador Moon and Gridlinked. When spaced apart, the novels are a fun read as they typically include wry wit and gruesome battles. The Spatterjay novels also added detailed yet horrific planetary creature, a similar system which Asher employs in Line of Polity: wit, battles and fauna. But after reading the previous novels, the entire system is getting a bit repetitive with the endless battle scenes and homicidal native animals. Line of Polity doesn't stray far at all from Asher's signature plot and is actually quite evident towards the final 20% of the book when there are battles after endless battles all adding very little to the plot itself. A simplification would have been much appreciated to cut down on the amount of superfluous scenes. Asher is the type of battle writer who uses "a short-stock grenade-launcher for more intimate work."

The planet of Masada is where a good chunk of the book takes place, a place "you cannot draw a breath... even if its horrifying wildlife would let you." That's from the back cover of the novel... that's it, meaning not much info to go by before you buy the novel in the bookstore. A better, in book, quote about Masada is a place where "choices are limited to two - fight or die - and they are not mutually exclusive."

One more downside of the book is the villain Skellor. His name reminds me of Skeletor from the fames of He-man, Master of the Universe. Therefore, the name Skellor feels cheesy, as if it was ripped off from He-man. His presence in the novel is straight from the get-go and makes appearances all the way until the end, but what's seriously lacking is Skellor's motivation for being the villain rather than being part of the Polity.

The Polity doesn't play as big of a role in Line of Polity as it did in Gridlinked. There isn't a focus on augmentations or runcibles as it typically found in Polity society. The entire novel takes place on two distant planets and outer space. It lends little the structure of the Polity society but makes up for it by adding to the mystery surrounding the Dragon, which ended in Gridlinked. An apt foreshadowing quote would be, "That was Dragon. And my guess is that things are just about to start getting very complicated - and very deadly."

I'm interested to see how Asher will progress with the Cormac series, whether in the direction of wit and gore, a focus on Polity society or a concentration on the Dragon. The third novel in the series should answer this question- Brass Man.

THE LINE OF POLITY is bigger in scope and page count than the first Ian Cormac novel, GRIDLINKED, but it doesn't have the focus and punch of its predecessor. In fact, LINE feels like a product rushed to market before its time. There are many scenes that add nothing to the story and many bits of inane dialogue, particularly between humans and AIs, that should have been cut. Worse, there is so much similarity between events in GRIDLINKED and LINE, and between events that occur earlier in LINE and events that occur later in LINE that it is difficult not to feel a numbing deja vu over and over again.

While GRIDLINKED and LINE are by no means identical, they are similar in structure and driven by similar conflicts. In GRIDLINKED, Earth Central Security Agent Cormac had to battle a terrorist bent on killing him, track down the culprit(s) behind the destruction of a Polity base, and struggle to regain his own lost humanity. In LINE, Cormac battles a mad scientist bent on killing him, tracks down the people behind the destruction of a different Polity base, and assists the oppressed masses of planet Masada in their efforts to overthrow a theocratic oligarchy. What we learn about the "Line" of the title--the leading edge of the Human Polity's expansion into neighboring areas of space--advances our overall understanding of the Polity and the larger universe it inhabits, but it could have done so in fewer than 663 pages.

On the plus side, Asher delivers another action-packed story that takes place in a variety of well-imagined exotic locales packed with deadly and bizarre fauna. In a reader-friendly move, he also carries over many characters familiar to readers of GRIDLOCKED, including super-agent Horace Blegg, storm troopers Gant and Thorn, mercenaries Jarvellis and John Stanton, and trickster alien Dragon. Also, his writing remains lucid and vivid.

My biggest beef with LINE, however, is that the bad guys are too comic-book-villainesque for a novel that isn't aiming for Austin Powers-level silliness. Bad guy Skellor is a familiar type, a scientist who will do anything to master dangerous technologies, regardless of the cost to others. When Cormac gives Skellor's work a temporary setback, Skellor decides that me must kill Cormac, he must inflict horrible suffering on as many other people as possible, and he must do this in the most baroque and impractical ways conceivable. He's an evil guy who does evil stuff just because he's evil and for little or no other reason. The theocratic oligarchy of Masada is slightly more complex; living in orbital habitats far above the planetbound laboring classes, their oppressive social order keeps them in power and relative luxury while using religion to justify both their exaltation and the debasement of the masses. (It's a mildly disguised and transfigured medieval Catholic Church.) Still, these theocrats are, like Skellor, black-and-white villains who have no self-doubt and no redeeming value. This is in keeping with the view expressed by a passage in the novel arguing that criminals are the cause of crime (and, implicitly, that evil people are the source of evil deeds), and that any attempts to look for deeper social/environmental explanations represent namby-pamby liberalism. I hope for his and our sake that this bit of Bushian philosophy is not his final word on the subject.

All that being said, LINE offers enough pleasures to those who enjoyed GRIDLINKED to overbalance the boring bits and the occasional insult. Conditionally recommended.

Continuing the quest for the completion of the Polity oeuvre, this is Cormac, book 2. It is a fat mother, too, being closer to 700 pages than 600 in this version.

Not sure this works in its favour - and I also think Asher, and this particular series have improved since then so it may be the comparisons to Line War or later short stories in quality that make it seem inferior.

The 'Line' is that region of space that is on the border of the area of space that has worlds that are members of the Polity.

The particular planet of focus here among other is one where your fascist Theocracy types rules. For the Polity to intervene politicall the AIs need an 80% vote requesting help officially. Hard to do when you are an underground, and those in control can kill you with space weapons.

On top of this, Cormac still has the rogue Skellor and his increasing entanglement with Jain technology to deal with, also Dragon, the Dracomen, and more, but at least has the assistance of some Sparkind friends and Mika.

Asher does good monsters - and some of the scariest things on this planet aren't religious cr@zies with guns or death rays - they include Hooders (giant indestructible segmented super tough snake worm things), Heroynes (nasty flyers) and Gabbleducks (weird arse monsters). All of which can eat people quite happily, even if the Golem variety might be chewier.

So lots going on, but a little flat at times as it changes between Cormac, the local situation on the ground, and Skellor.

Call it a 3.25. I'll round this one up though for monster mayhem.


3.5 out of 5

an Cormac, the Polity Agent of the prequel "Gridlinked", didn't really strike me as a character you'd revisit for a sequel. He was deliberately written flat to emphasise his dehumanisation, but was ultimately as cool as most fictional secret agents and makes a fine comeback in the second of Asher's Cormac series.

"The Line of Polity" fails to "Grinlinked" only on account of it not featuring the attention-grabbing Mr Crane, but it otherwise excels; the main action takes place on a planet with its own bizarre ecosystem that Asher brilliantly brings to life. Most planets in sci-fi do not have character in themselves, but the planet Masada is like a living, breathing personality here, with its own food chain and terrifying species. It's wonderful to find such effort put into making the place as interesting as the people that inhabit it.

The story is great and fast-paced, the returning characters become more rounded and the new ones are sufficiently realised to keep you reading. As with the first book this isn't Iain M Banks, but it really is great fiction and well worth reading, doubly so if you liked other novels by Asher. Really 3.5 stars, but I'm more tempted to go up than down.

I think Asher's gift as a writer is in imaging a compelling future universe. His world is a network of Polity planets governed by benevolent AIs. The Polity is populated with a range of characters from cyborg soldiers to super cool secret agent types, Separtist rebels, smugglers, New Age scientists and mysterious, super-powerful alien entities.

My main problem with "The Line of Polity" comes in the shape of a "deus ex machina" at the end. I wouldn't have minded this "rabbit out of a hat" trick if I didn't feel like Asher had done the same thing in the other novel of his that I read, "Gridlinked". My sentiments about it were the same as those here: great universe and interesting characters, lame ending.

However, I should point out that my disappointment at the ending of "The Line of Polity" was not enough to put me off Asher. I have "Brass Man" and am intending to read it soon.