Weaponized

I was so eager to read Asher's new Polity book, that I ordered it early from the UK (currently it's available as an ebook in the US). Alas, I was somewhat disappointed. Ursula opts out of civilization to lead a group of long-lived, and thus disaffected, colonists to settle on a world where evolution has gone into high gear such that every organism is fantastically dangerous and out to get humans, including the plants, thus, it's Harry Harrison's “Deathworld” warmed over. (I hope that author's estate gets at least a nod.) There's lot of good set-up and seemingly interesting ideas we're teased with, but unfortunately, the bulk of the book goes from one encounter to the next with the ultra-predators, the unfortunately named cacoraptors, each encounter described in agonizing (and eventually uninteresting) detail. The raptors can morph instantly from a dinosaur to a burrowing worm to a humanoid and are ridiculously overpowered, and even with their own superpowers constantly enhancing, it's not clear why the humans simply aren't stomped out, except, of course: For the plot. This quote from p. 266 pretty much describes the repetitive action in the whole book: “He was right - the creatures were too tough and the weapons he had weren't powerful enough.” To make things worse, Asher divides each chapter into Present, Near Past, and Past. Now, of course I know that telling narratives out of order is a feature of modern literature, but Asher really drops the ball with this, the Present chapters give away what happens in the Past narratives, and the Past narratives rarely enlighten us or add any reveals - with the net result of making the story seem even more repetitive. It redeems itself toward the end, where things finally come to a conclusion with reveals that honestly, don't completely surprise (that may be intended, though). For those with an aversion to violence, there is violence on nearly every page here, although it struck me as cartoon violence, your mileage may vary. It was an “okay” book, but disappointing in many respects.

Disappointing. The structure of the novel, flipping between Present, Recent Past, and Past, I found particularly annoying. I thought the majority of the past narrative to be largely irrelevant, and just filler, as we knew from the Present where we had arrived.
Just my view:others may be OK with this.

This was an amazing and imaginative story set in a far-flung future. In this future world of the Polity, AI has come to govern human civilization that has spread out across the galaxy using both physical spaceships and matter transmitter gates called runcibles. It is not an overtly despotic rule, since humans can now live for centuries in relative comfort exploring personal interests within certain AI guidelines. It is also a future of very advanced nanotechnology in which each person can change and augment their physical forms in specialized ways. However, some balk at AI control and augmentation and long to be free to explore what it means to be a truly free human being. Some turn to violence against AI control that the AI easily quashes, while others look to less violent means to become more independent with AI's permission. As an aside, over the centuries of exploration ancient ruins containing highly advanced technology left by an extinct advanced race called the Jain has been found on worlds throughout the galaxy. However, it appears that the Jain purposely left this technology knowing that its use by any future races would only lead to their ultimate destruction.

Through continuous flashbacks between past, near past and the present the story unfolds through the eyes and memories of the main character Ursula Ossect Treloon, who after surviving a period of ennui that happens to the long-lived, with AI's permission has used her lifetime's amassed fortune to gather 800 others like herself to set up a colony on Threpsis, a remote and very hostile world away from most Polity AI control. She and the members of her colony hope to find a path to a more human existence. Under a blazing sun, all lifeforms on the desert-like planet are hostile and deadly, forcing the colonists to turn to the one non-colonist and Polity provided enigmatic scientist Oren Salazar to provide upgraded nanosuites to enhance their makeup and the makeup of their crops in order to adapt and survive. But there is one nightmarish life form, an apex predator or cacoraptor, that begins to kill and consume the colonists; a life form that is able to quickly adapt to outmaneuver any defenses the colonists can throw up, and whose sole focus seems to be the eradication of the colonists. After the raptors destroy the colonies means of escape off the planet, it seems inevitable that Ursula and her dwindling number of colonists will have to request the Polity retrieve them from Threpsis. However, before the colony can be rescued, another hostile galactic race, the Prador, is met by the Polity and a galactic war breaks out in which the Polity is soon at a disadvantage against the Prador's invincible ship armor. With hope of rescue gone, the remaining colonists face another threat when a damaged Prador shuttle lands near the colony and Ursula and the remaining colonists must give up more and more of their humanity and turn to evermore drastic nano augmentation to survive the onslaught of the raptors and hopefully attack and defeat the Prador in order to take their ship and leave the planet. And, Ursula continues to question why AI scans of Threpsis supposedly never revealed the existence of the raptors or of Jain technological ruins on the planet.

There is non-stop action throughout the book, which crosses the boundaries between Science Fiction and Horror, much like the Alien franchise. It is well worth a read and I'm looking forward to other books by the author set in the Polity universe.