
The Soldier
Rise of the Jain, Book 1
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Narrated by:
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David Marantz
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By:
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Neal Asher
About this listen
Humanity, artificial intelligences, and monstrous aliens clash over control of deadly technology in this explosive beginning to Neal Asher’s newest Polity series.
In a far corner of space, on the very borders between humanity’s Polity worlds and the kingdom of the vicious crab-like prador, is an immediate threat to all sentient life: an accretion disc, a solar system designed by the long-dead Jain race and swarming with living technology powerful enough to destroy entire civilizations.
Neither the Polity or the prador want the other in full control of the disc, so they’ve placed an impartial third party in charge of the weapons platform guarding the technology from escaping into the galaxy: Orlandine, a part-human, part-AI haiman. She’s assisted by Dragon, a mysterious, spaceship-sized alien entity who has long been suspicious of Jain technology and who suspects the disc is a trap lying-in-wait.
Meanwhile, the android Angel is planning an attack on the Polity, and is searching for a terrible weapon to carry out his plans - a Jain super-soldier. But what exactly the super-soldier is, and what it could be used for if it fell into the wrong hands, will bring Angel and Orlandine’s missions to a head in a way that could forever change the balance of power in the Polity universe.
In The Soldier, British science fiction writer Neal Asher kicks off another Polity-based trilogy in signature fashion, concocting a mind-melting plot filled with far-future technology, lethal weaponry, and bizarre alien creations.
©2018 Neal Asher (P)2018 Brilliance Publishing, Inc., all rights reserved.Listeners also enjoyed...
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not great
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what can I say been hooked on the Polity .
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Complex....
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Neal Asher is the best sci fi writer
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Great listen
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Very underrated
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Loved it.
Absolutely loved it.
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Great performance and good story - shouldn’t be your first polity book…
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devoid of any character worth rooting for.
have read almost all of his novels. first one I did not like. would not recommend.
disappointing.
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• are a mish mash of organic and inorganic parts,
• are each endowed with a built-in supercomputer and access to an ever more super computers processing infinite streams of data the content of which is never revealed,
• have inherent in their physical beings a mish mash of highly destructive weapons and control over even more potent weapons which they use with abandon.
The plot seems to be that the universe is a nasty and mean place threatened by remnants of a mish mash of “civilizations” present, past and future the only solution to which is blasting away whatever comes along.
The narration is okay except when it comes to the frequent and lengthy dialogues among characters. That is reminiscent of a grade school play with the actors so concerned about remembering their lines that their delivery is a flat monologue.
Mish Mash
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hard to relate to current terminology, and with little explanation.
hard to follow
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