Friday, March 01, 2013

Xenopath - Eric Brown



Xenopath is the second in the Bengal Station series and another excellent novel. These books aren’t numbered and I had to go on the Internet to find out which one to read after Necropath (I have Cosmopath too) and now I’ve been trying to decide whether the order matters. If you were to pick up this one without having read the previous one there’s not much you’d fail to understand. In essence these are your hard-boiled detective book with an SF twist and reading them out of order would be like randomly picking up a Sue Grafton or Peter James. Reading in order enhances your enjoyment because you’re familiar with the main characters and their story, but each ‘investigation’ is self-contained. I can see how this could become formulaic with a whole series of ’paths after Cosmopath, but if it’s a formula you enjoy then there’s nothing wrong with that.

5 comments:

Cornz said...

Did pick up Necropath after your previous post on the Kindle and definitely enjoyed!

Will probably check out this one as well.

Keep those book recommendations coming!

Jan Harald said...

I'm on Cosmopath now, read the Necropath og Xenopath. Love them! Thanks Neal, for pointing the way to others worth checking out while waiting for your next release... :)

beak said...

thanks for the tip, just kindled necropath. nice little read for my next flight.

Vitesse said...

I bought all three after your first recommendation. Some jarring plot flaws but still good. Struggling with Helix though.

Neal Asher said...

Glad to be of help. It's always worth remembering that just because a writer is no longer a bright young thing being pushed by a publisher doesn't mean that writer has gone away. For example: I've just been checking out a long-time favourite of mine C J Cherryh and discovering a potential goldmine of books I haven't read.

Vitesse, yes, some plot flaws. It could be argued that this one is a bit deus ex machina, but it was still enjoyable for all that. I think I tried Helix and gave up on it, but I'm not sure why.