A perfect culmination to the five book story arc. Everything was explained very satisfactorily, through a gripping, multi-layered story. ( )

Jain plus rogue AIs part two... when the godlike AIs aren't. ( )

Payoff. :)

That's what this novel is.

After so many novels, including short stories and asides like Brass Man, this novel combines everyone, all the good and the bad, together in a spectacular blow out of AI ships against each other, with Jain tech making a mess of envy and call to power across so many species, and the people in the Polity and outside of it (a gigantic Jain sphere of awesome tech, Dragon) included.

War. Big war. With even bigger tech and hidden programs, nasty old and new AIs, leftovers of the Prador war, agents of Earth Central, and even the leftovers of ancient aliens who lobotomized themselves to become invisible to the Jain menace. :)

Is it satisfying? Is it over-the-top big action and tech and explosions and even a Lovecraftian element of horror throughout the massive augments? Hell yeah. :)

I'm not done with this author in the slightest. I'm only getting started, even if Agent Cormac is done (so far). :) ( )

Fantastic - still so much more to read, which I think later series picks up like 'Rise of the Jain'. ( )

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Title: Line War
Series: Polity: Agent Cormac #5
Author: Neal Asher
Rating: 3.5 of 5 Stars
Genre: SF
Pages: 580
Format: Digital Edition



Synopsis:

Erebus, the rogue AI that has been corrupted by Jain nodes, is on the path to destroying the solar system. With fake attacks and whatnot, he manages to clear the way to Earth itself. Standing in his way is the haiman who committed murder for a jain node and Ian Cormac.
Cormac has been running all over the Polity, ostensibly chasing down Erebus but in reality picking up clues that lead him to only one conclusion. ECS, the Head Honcho AI, colluded with Erebus right when Erebus first found jain nodes. Its justification was that humanity was stagnating,but with millions and possibly billions dead, Cormac puts the smack down on that particular AI and kills it. A submind takes over but with the spectre of Cormac haunting it should it ever decide to go so outside of bounds.
The Dragon Sphere takes Mika and allows her access to Jain AI, which in turn allows her to deal with the gabbleduck/Atheter AI, possibly.



My Thoughts:

Nothing from my original review from 2010 has changed. This was a particularly wordy story and there were a lot of details that just didn't need to be there. It really bogged the story down. Instead of an adrenaline filled gorefest of robots and monsters I got an indepth tour of things I didn't care one whit about. That's why I knocked half a star off this time.

There is still a lot of action but sometimes it felt like it was really hidden away. Also, Cormac played a MUCH smaller part. The biggest thing he did was at the end when he killed ECS. I guess this just didn't stand up to a re-read as well as some of the previous books. The ideas were really cool the first time around and covered up all the weak points. This time around, I was seeing the weakpoints.

I had forgotten that the Atheter memcrystal came into play so early in the Polity books. I just read a big part of it's conclusion in the Polity: Transformation trilogy last year. That is one nice thing about re-reads, seeing various threads that you'd forgotten about being more deeply woven into the story.

I do wonder if we'll ever see Agent Cormac again. He hasn't shown up, that I'm aware of, in later Polity books. But if we don't, I'm completely satisfied with how this 5 books sub-series ended.

★★★☆ ½ ( )