Tuesday, March 04, 2008

Galactic Empires

Nice little review of Gardner Dozois's Galactic Empires here on SF Signal. And here's the bit about my story, though I thought it mean to give it three stars (I'm biased).

Neal Asher's "Owner Space" opens with a group of people on the run from (1) the Collective - the dominating conformance society from which they escaped, and (2) an alien known to be dangerous to mankind. Their only salvation is to enter the mysterious Owner Space, an area of space that is home to a rumored God-like being equally intolerant of humans and aliens. Sound confusing? It may take a little time to get a clear picture of all factions and interrelationships involved (additionally there's the Markovian society which fell to the Collective) but the conflict is actually well-imagined and intriguing. The most memorable characters are the evil Collective Doctrinaire named Shrad, who is power-drunk and evil to the bone; the Owner, an unassuming human with mind-boggling but largely unexplained powers; and the Grazen alien mother, a hapless victim to man's atrocities. Some cool elements in the story - like the mind-controlling strouds and the automaton Guards it turns people into - round out a good story.

5 comments:

John D. said...

Please don't feed the feed-scrapers! :)

The original review is posted here: http://www.sfsignal.com/archives/006348.html

Neal Asher said...

Okay, John, I didn't notice that. I've edited it accordingly. Cheers.

Anonymous said...

Ah, another Story set in the Owner-Universe? Cool. I really liked the ones in THE ENGINEER RECONDITIONED - is there some kind of list with them all and where to find them?
Best regards, Martin Sommerfeld

Anonymous said...

I'm just gutted that this is a US SFBC release and therefore it's going to be next to impossible to get over here :( I'll guess I'll just have to keep checking eBay.....

Anonymous said...

I didn't even know this was out until I saw a note on the Asimov's board: have you got your copy yet?