Cowl

The setting here is superb - a well thought-out time travel story with both historical and prehistoric settings. Given my own interests, I liked the range of prehistoric animals (mammals in particular) that feature in the story, and the 21st century setting that we see at the beginning of the book is also quite atmospheric.

Unfortunately, this is let down by the warring factions that turn out to be behind events. In particular, just too many of the viewpoint characters just aren't likeable, and it's rather difficult to care about any of them. This doesn't kick in until the last third or so of the book, but that means there's no pay-off for the story up until that point. Random and largely indistinguishable unpleasant individuals fighting one another just does't create an interesting plot, for all the quality of the setting.

Not one of Asher's better novels, unfortunately, despite a lot of promise.