Zero Point: The Owner: Book Two - Softcover

Asher, Neal

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1597804703 ISBN 13: 9781597804707

Publisher: Night Shade, 2013

Synopsis

Earth’s Zero Asset citizens no longer face extermination from orbit. Thanks to Alan Saul, the Committee’s network of control is a smoking ruin and its robotic enforcers lie dormant. But power abhors a vacuum and, scrambling from the wreckage, comes the ruthless Serene Galahad. She must act while the last vestiges of Committee infrastructure remain intact – and she has the means to ensure command is hers. On Mars, Var Delex fights for the survival of Antares Base, while the Argus Space Station hurls towards the red planet. And she knows whomever, or whatever, trashed Earth is still aboard. Var must save the base, while also dealing with the first signs of rebellion. And aboard Argus Station, Alan Saul’s mind has expanded into the local computer network. In the process, he uncovers the ghastly experiments of the Humanoid Unit Development, the possibility of eternal life, and a madman who may hold the keys to interstellar flight. But Earth’s agents are closer than Saul thinks, and the killing will soon begin.

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About this title

About the Author

Neal Asher: Neal Asher was born in Billericay, Essex, and divides his time between here and Crete. His previous full-length novels are Gridlinked, The Skinner, The Line of Polity, Cowl, Brass Man, The Voyage of the Sable Keech, Polity Agent, Hilldiggers, Prador Moon, Line War, Shadow of the Scorpion, Orbus and The Technician.

Reviews

Part of the Owner trilogy (after The Departure, 2011) finds Earth in massive disarray. Thanks to the actions of the (alleged) terrorist Alan Saul, global government has been shattered; disastrously overpopulated, and with no way of keeping order, it seems the planet is doomed to chaos. Enter Serene Galahad, one of the surviving members of the government, with a plan to save humanity. The problem is, her plan is psychotic; she is nothing short of a megalomaniac (to save humanity, she honestly seems to believe she has to murder large chunks of it—we’re talking billions of lives here). Meanwhile, aboard the space station Argus, Saul is trying to find a way to stay alive until he can prove he’s not the perpetrator of the genocide on Earth; and on Mars, Var Delex is desperately fighting to keep Antares Base from falling to rebels. Asher, who writes sf on a grand scale, has created some of his most memorable characters here. Saul, with his unique physical and AI augmentations, is almost a new species, an intermediate between man and God, and Serene, who behaves like she’s a god, is deliciously evil, a woman so nasty that we can’t look away, even as she commits the most gut-wrenchingly awful crimes. Familiarity with The Departure is helpful but not required. And, anyway, after finishing this book, most readers who haven’t read the earlier one will immediately start searching it out while simultaneously waiting with bated breath for the trilogy’s conclusion. A must for sf fans. --David Pitt

Edition details

• Publisher: Night Shade
• Publication date: 2013
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1597804703
• ISBN 13: 9781597804707
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 320