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Brass Man by Neal Asher
01/04/2005 . Source: Tomas L. Martin 
pub: TOR. 485 page enlarged paperback. Price: £12.99 (UK). ISBN: 1-330-41158-6. Buy from Amazon US - Buy from Amazon UK
nb: US titles may only be available from Amazon US, and UK titles from Amazon UK. check out website: www.toruk.com
Neal Asher's iconic future agent Ian Cormac returns for the latest 'Polity' novel and it's a good one. After taking a break from the series for the time-travelling 'Cowl', Asher returns all the old characters from 'Gridlinked' and 'Line Of Polity' for this exhilarating new space epic. Plus, as the title suggests, a certain metal android killing machine has been resurrected...
Backtrack to Asher's first mainstream publication, 'Gridlinked'. In it, the James Bondesque Earth Security agent Ian Cormac investigated and defeated one of the four spheres that make up the alien Dragon, as well as the criminal and terrorist Arian Pelter, who had a Golem, a sentient android, working for him. He's a brass-clad psychopath by the name of Mr Crane, the only Golem screwed up enough to commit murder...
In the next 'Polity' book, 'Line Of Polity', a biophysicist Skellor binded to a living alien nanotechnology and very nearly destroyed a system before. Again, Cormac and his allies stopped him, culminating in a huge battle in a novel well worth checking out.
'Brass Man' brings together both these memorable bad guys, as Skellor resurrects Mr Crane and travels to the backward world of Cull, where the third of the four Dragon spheres is hidden.
By this point in the series, Asher's world is utterly lived-in and what would be unimportant side-characters are welcome cameos by previous characters, such as the Golem Gant and Cento or the tough ECS soldier, Thorn. There are a large number of viewpoint characters, all having something important to do in the sprawling space opera. Asher flits between them all quickly and often, which for the first couple of chapters leaves the reader a little confused, but once it settles down the agility with which he moves from viewpoint to viewpoint is both admirable and enjoyable.
A nice addition this time around is the world of Cull itself, a backward colony world that has lost a lot of its technology during the time it has been colonised away from the Polity. Flintlock and steam technologies are still being used and a clash of feudal and early industrial cultures is rife. Add to this, the Knight Anderson, who travels about the world in a quest to defeat Dragon and the weird and wonderfully weird sandhog he rides and other monsters he faces and you have an excellent fantasy/steampunk element added to the myriad of storylines.
Ian Cormac and the galaxy he inhabits have evolved nicely with this novel. It isn't as groundbreaking as 'Line Of Polity', but it is a very good read and as always with Asher these days, leaves me wanting more. Sooner or later, though, he's going to run out of space for all his characters. This book is at that limit, in my opinion. Perhaps we can expect deaths in the future.
If you've been following the emergence of Neal Asher as I have, this will do little to discourage you. If you haven't, check him out. My advice is to start earlier in the series with 'Gridlinked', to get the full story.
Tomas L. Martin
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