The Technician by Neal Asher

The Technician by Neal Asher

My rating: 5 of 5 stars




Jacket Blurb:  The Theocracy has been dead for twenty years, and the Polity rules on Masada. But the Tidy Squad consists of rebels who cannot accept the new order. Their hate for surviving theocrats is undiminished, and the iconic Jeremiah Tombs is at the top of their hitlist.

Escaping his sanatorium Tombs is pushed into painful confrontation with reality he has avoided since the rebellion. His insanity must cured, because the near mythical hooder called the Technician that attacked him all those years ago, did something to his mind even the AIs fail to understand. Tombs might possess information about the suicide of an entire alien race.

The war drone Amistad, whose job it is to bring this information to light, recruits Lief Grant, an ex-rebel Commander, to protect Tombs, along with the black AI Penny Royal, who everyone thought was dead. The amphidapt Chanter, who has studied the bone sculptures the Technician makes with the remains of its prey, might be useful too.

Meanwhile, in deep space, the mechanism the Atheter used to reduce themselves to animals, stirs from slumber and begins to power-up its weapons.
 
Read for March scifi book group meeting.

LOVED this installment. Goodreads notes it's part of the stand alone books in Asher's universe, but I'd have to disagree. I would definitely recommend reading Prador Moon and Shadow of the Scorpion before The Technician because there is some background that is handy to know.

Premise of the book is one Jem Tombs, former Proctor of the fallen Theocracy on Mesada, is the only known survivor of a Hooder attack, and the only known survivor of an hooder attack by the massive Hooder known as the Technician. For 20 years he's resided in seclusion, in some kind of state of denial, watched by Jerval Sanders.

Until Tombs starts to wake up, murders Jerval, and flees the island he's been isolated to. Amistad, Polity War drone, starts to nudge Tombs this way and that, assigning Leif Grant as protector and reluctantly letting Shree Enkara along to record Tombs story for Earthnet.

If you've read any Asher, then you know that I'm greatly simplifying. If you haven't read any Asher - what are you waiting for?!? And, fyi, I'm greatly simplifying the plot. Asher's plots are hard to summarize without giving too much information away.

Asher's books are so rich in detail and characters, the world building is amazing, and the plots just pull me in. What was different about The Technician from some of the rest that I've read, is I was hooked from chapter one. Not infrequently, it takes me a while to get into the plot, then I find I'm flying down the proverbial slide. Not so here.

I'm totally fan-girlling. Go. Read. Enjoy.



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